“No.” I paced angrily on the sidewalk. “No. She wouldn’t have run from me. From us.”
“Stop.” Ivan grabbed me by the upper arm. “Stop and think this through, for fuck’s sake.” Alexsei turned to answer his phone while I glared at Ivan for even trying to suggest that I take it easy.
Sadie was gone.
She was taken.
My child could be in danger too.
Nothing would make me calm the fuck down now.
“That was Luka,” Alexsei said with a somber frown. “He’s pissed.”
“I don’t fucking care.” I gripped my hair and held it, feeling like I was about to explode from the anger. I knew it would look bad, her disappearing the night before she was supposed to be brought in to talk to my father. I knew how bad this looked. But she wouldn’t have run. She wouldn’t have defied me or my father like this.
“Let’s go,” Ivan said, glancing around. “Before we run the risk of anyone else noticing that something is up.”
“I can’t—” I shook my head, vibrating with fear and anger.
They both stared me down, questioning me silently.
“Fuck. Don’t look at me like that.” I paced some more, needing to do something before I screamed. “I’m not avoiding him.” I knew I’d be questioned harshly about Sadie’s disappearance and the timing of it. I knew it and there was no way out of it, but at the same time, I wanted to get it over with. The faster I could convince my father that she hadn’t defied me and run away, the sooner we could put our energy into finding her.
I had to.
I needed to get her backnow.
Every second of knowing someone had taken her was agony, piling on more dread and worry.
“I need her back.”
“Then let’s go,” Ivan said.
I shook my head again, so enraged and sickened with fear that I couldn’t think straight, much less see straight. “I can’t drive. I can’t—” I growled, fisting my hands and wishing I could rip something to shreds. That was how panicked and furious I was.
“We’ve got you.” Alexsei urged me to go with them, his hand on my back.
I knew they did. My family would be here for me, even if I had to suffer through my father’s wrath at what looked like Sadie escaping before being questioned.
My familywouldhave my back and help me find her. I couldn’t be wrong about her, about us. She had been taken. She hadn’t run away.
But I hated how she didn’t have me. Someone had cruelly taken her from me, leaving her alone to survive without my having her back.
I’m coming, Sadie. I will find you and I won’t fail you again.
24
SADIE
The hood was yanked off my head so quickly that the coarse fabric rubbed roughly against my cheek. Stinging stabs of pain radiated from the still-healing cut I’d received when one of the masked thugs backhanded me for screaming for help.
Between the musty stink of the hemp hood and the thick strap they secured as a gag around my mouth, my mouth was raw and my skin was chapped.
Sunlight instantly blinded me, warming my flesh and searing my retinas. Red filled my vision as I flinched. From total darkness to this overwhelming brightness, I suffered whiplash. Tensing, I squinted to protect my eyes.
Not being able to see anything was half the torture. I was robbed of being able to track where I was going. No landmarks. No roads or signs. When I was moved, they concealed my vision. Every time. From the first second they surprised me when I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom at that apartment Emil had taken me to, and they’d snuck in to capture me, I was blindfolded or under a hood.
I saw nothing to gauge where I was, what time it was, and when this could end.
