That makes me freeze. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does anyway.
Without waiting for me to respond, Yuri walks to one of the doors nearby, then pauses with his hand on the handle. "Stay put, Kitty. I’ll handle everything soon enough.”
And with that, he leaves.
I hear as the others walk around the place, and catch some of their figures moving through the relative dark. My heart clenches, and I want nothing more than to yell at Yuri to never call me that again.
That he lost the right to be affectionate in any capacity the moment he saw me as a commodity rather than a sister. The day he allowed the prospect of wealth and power to corrupt him.
He’s not the older brother he once was, as hard as it is to admit.
And I won’t let him hurt Sergey. Not when we’ve finally reached a good place.
I’m not a doll that can be moved and puppeteered, and as much as I’ve tried to suppress it, I am my father’s daughter.
Chapter 27 - Sergey
The moment my phone reads nine o’clock and Kat still isn’t home, my stomach sinks. Something isn’t right.
She knows to tell me if she’s held up working on a project, and if that were the case, her guard would contact me immediately.
My chest tightens as I try her phone again, pacing like I’m about to lose my mind in the kitchen. But there’s nothing again. Instead, it goes straight to voicemail.
I’m not an anxious person by nature, but that burning feeling has been crawling under my skin since the moment I got home, and now it’s coming out in full force.
Once again, I call her security. But, no answer.
That isn’t protocol. It damn well isn’t a good sign.
"What the hell is going on?” I mutter, shoving my phone into my pocket before heading for the garage. My instincts have fully kicked in, and I can’t sit still. I refuse to sit around while not knowing where she is.
Kat wouldn’t ignore me…not like this. Maybe she would have before, but not now.
The drive is a blur of city lights while I clutch the steering wheel, half tempted to crush it beneath the force of my concern. I don’t even remember what I saw or how I ended up there, but either way, I don’t stop until I reach the shop.
When I pull up outside the garage, it looks quiet and normal from the outside. But I know it’s too calm. The SUV is parked out front, but something feels wrong.
Killing the engine, I force myself out and approach the vehicle, but my stomach drops when I see him.
The guard is motionless while he stares forward through the windshield. At first glance, he looks perfectly normal…until I see the trail of blood running down his temple and pooling onto the seat around him.
Frozen completely in place, I stare at the guard’s body a moment longer while every possibility enters my mind at once. He’s dead when he’s supposed to be watching over Kat. My wife.
Despite the ice moving through my veins, I push away from the vehicle and hurry towards the main entrance. I shove the door open and step inside, almost jumping as the bell chimes.
"Kat?"
I’m met with deafening silence while I keep moving, leaving the front office to reach the shop door.
My skin’s frozen over by the time I reach the far too quiet space. Where the radio is usually blaring while Kat paints and Roland tinkers, there’s nothing. Just pure, agonizing silence.
Then I see Roland, and it both feels like a relief and torture.
He’s on the floor, leaning against a workbench with blood dripping from a cut above his brow. He looks disoriented while he dabs at the blood with a rag, barely holding onto consciousness. It looks like he just opened his eyes.
"What the fuck happened?" I snap, storming over and grabbing him by the collar, eliciting a groan of protest from him.
"The guys…” he begins, wincing from my tight grip on him. But as he lets the words sink in, his eyes widen by afraction. "Two of them came in here. They claimed to have work for Kat, but one of them knocked me out. I didn’t see it coming."
