"I need your help." The tears start again, sliding silently down my cheeks. "Please. Can you come get me?"
30
NIKOLAI
“I want every fucking security patrol we have back here within the hour,” I seethe down the phone line to Dmitri.
“Consider it done.”
“I’ll consider it done when they’re here, and I’m not looking at three dead bodies lying on my fucking floor.”
“The teams understand the need for haste, Nikolai,” he assures me. “You can trust that things are in motion. The lodge will be impenetrable once everything is in place.”
“I want to reassure Holly,” I say out loud.
I’m never going to get the look on her face out of my head. The complete and utter look of betrayal because I kept all of this from her.
“And you can reassure her, Nikolai. Nothing will get past the perimeter patrols.”
“That had better be the case,” I growl, and hang up.
In three strides, I’m out of the den and walking down the hall to Holly’s room. I stop in front of her door, my heart pounding harder than it did when I was hunting intruders through my own home an hour ago.
I knock.
No answer.
"Holly." I press my palm flat against the wood. "We need to talk."
Nothing.
"Holly."
I try the handle.
The door swings open.
The room is empty. The bed is untouched. The window is closed.
My blood runs cold.
I search the room. The bathroom. Under the bed. But I already know what I'm going to find.
Nothing.
She's gone.
She's fucking gone.
I tear through the lodge like a madman, checking every room, every closet, every possible hiding place.
That's when I see it.
The back door.
It's open.
Goddamnit, Holly.
