“I was going to give you to my cousin, but no,kroshka (baby). You’re mine.”
He flicked my nipple with his thumb and inhaled into my neck.
“Don’t you fucking touch me.” I tried to push him back, but he shoved me harder against the glass.
“Oh, Evangelina, I fully intend tofucking touch youas you say, and then maybe teach that insolent little mouth of yours its proper place.”
He fisted the back of my hair, and I hissed in pain as he dragged me around the hood of the car. I would have fought back with everything I had, but my thoughts were on Lex. He’d threatened her life if I didn’t cooperate. As he pushed me past the driver’s side, I caught sight of her still body slumped against the car, face obscured by bloodied hair.
“Lex!” I cried out for her, extending my arms, even if it were useless.
Dmitry hauled me by the waist and threw me inside a black van. I knocked my elbow on a metal latch, the pain lancing through me and ripping a scream from my now raw throat.
“Dispose of her,” he ordered, motioning toward Alexa before climbing beside me.
“No, you son of a bitch!” I got one clean right hook to the side of his face before pain exploded behind my eyes, and I lost consciousness.
CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR
DEREK
Islammed my glass of whiskey on the counter, shattering the damn thing. Droplets of blood mixed with the liquid, but I felt nothing. Pain was a welcome change to the numbness—four days without her.
Four fucking days.
Might as well have been an eternity. I wasn’t sure what I did with my life, how I lived day to day before I knew her. She’d become such an integral part of who I was that without her, I was lost.
But it wouldn’t remain like this. Eva was mine. She was made for me, and I’d find a way to get her back, even if it killed me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I told Deimos as he watched me from his mat on the floor. “You liked her too, huh, boy? Never seen you take to someone so fast.” His ears pulled back as if he knew what I was saying. “She’s something special, isn’t she?”
He stood and huffed beside me, signaling that he wanted to be taken out. As I placed my hand on his head, an unknown number flashed on the screen of my phone. I silenced the call, slipped it into my pocket, and stepped off the stool to grab a leash. I’d barely reached the back door before my cell vibrated again.
The same number.
I never answered unknown numbers, especially now that I was in a fucking shit-ass mood, but something was nagging me, an instinct niggling the back of my neck.
“Come on,” I called for Deimos, and he followed me to the porch. I leaned on the banister as he searched endlessly for the best spot to take a piss as I dialed the unknown number.
“Derek!” The voice on the other end was frantic. “Derek, is that you? Please. Please. You have to help.”
They repeated the exact phrase three more times. I didn’t recognize the woman’s voice through the sobbing.
“Who the fuck are you? What do you want?”
“Derek, it’s me, Alexa.” My heart sank to my feet. “They… they took her—Eva. He thought he killed me… but he missed.”
I straightened, trying to find my voice, trying to string the words together, to comprehend what the fuck she was saying. Someone took her. Eva. My girl.
“You have to help her, Derek. She doesn’t have her insulin. It’s been five hours.”
A growl rippled off my tongue.
Five fucking hours.
I tore through my house, Deimos following, as I ran upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me? Who took her?”
