I should be thinking about what comes after Anatoli, but she’s all I can focus on.
I slam the car door behind me and take the elevator up. My jaw is locked, my pulse pounding. Whether with residue of anger, adrenalin, or something else, I don’t know. I don’t care.
Right now, all that matters is that I talk to her.
But when I finally get out on my floor, something feels off. I glance at the door. That’s when I see it: It’s unlocked. No Luka outside, either.
Reflexively, I draw my gun.
As I step inside, a dull noise makes me snap my head towards the bedroom. Someone is pounding on the walk-in closet door from the inside.
I get closer and see the belt looped into the handles. The leather is frayed now, but I recognize it. Know exactly who it belongs to.
“Sima?” I call.
As if on cue, the closet door bursts open. But it’s not Sima who comes careening out of it.
It’s Luka, red-faced and out of breath. “Boss.”
The apologetic note in his tone is what sets the alarm bells off in my head.
I fix him with a glare. “Tell me where my wife is.”
He glances around, panicked. When Sima doesn’t magically appear out of thin air, he turns his eyes to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “She tricked me. Asked me for help with something, then locked me in.”
Anger flares into my chest. “Say that again.”
“She—”
“She’s a wisp of a woman,” I growl. “Not even five feet tall. Unarmed.Pregnant.And somehow, she locked you in a goddamn closet?”
“She… She asked me to get her shoes. From the top shelf. Said she couldn’t reach them. When I went to look, she—she shut the door and tied it off, and I?—”
“You’re twice her size,” I cut him off. “Trained. Armed. And she outsmarts you with a belt? Are you for fucking real?”
“I swear, I thought?—”
“Thought what?” I snap. “That she’d sit there quietly while you gave her every opening she needed?”
“I didn’t think she’d escape,” he blurts. “She seemed… happy. With you.”
I see red.
Before I know it, my fist flies straight into Luka’s nose.
He falls backwards. His hands clutch his face. Blood spurts all over the carpet.
While Luka writhes on the floor, I search the penthouse. All of it, every room.
But Sima’s nowhere.
The penthouse still smells like her, though. Her perfume is everywhere. She can’t have gone far.
But she is gone.
My fists clench at my sides. I can barely see straight. At the same time, dread spreads through me the second I let myself think about her out there, unprotected. The city isn’t kind to anyone, let alone a young woman all by herself, and a pregnant young woman at that. Every scenario that flashes through my head is worse than the last.
