The next morning, I woke up with the reminder that Claire likely had a valid point. Suffocating Anya wouldn’t do anyone good. Honestly, if she could open up to me and communicate to the point that I could ever trust her not to run away or do something risky and stupid, I’d let her have all the permissions she wanted. She could go to school. She could go shopping. She could take up any hobby or sport or pastime she wanted. Having personal protection was non-negotiable. She had to agree to security, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to police her. I didn’t have the energy to figure out how to have my daughter happier than she had been at the same time I could be confident she would survive and not be targeted.
That was why when I came downstairs for breakfast and asked Martin if Anya had come down for breakfast yet, I was confused that she hadn’t.
Before Claire, Anya would take all her meals in her room. Since Claire showed up, Anya had come out of her shell to at least be near the doctor.
But not today.
Claire glanced up at me and Martin, frowning. “I didn’t see her last night, either. She sometimes comes to the library when I’m in there looking for a book.”
Fuck.
I called out to the guards to check the property. Men ran to the elevator while some went to the stairs. More of them headed to the security room to check surveillance footage.
“She’s missing,” I told Andre as I called him and tried not to panic.
“How can you know?” Claire asked, shooting to her feet and following me out of the room.
I just do.The uneasiness in my gut was telltale enough. I’d woken up bothered about how Anya and I fought last night, and this was why.
“Claire is missing?” Andre guessed, probably thinking of her first because I’d tasked him with looking into her background and life.
“No. Anya.” I hung up, trusting him to follow up and know what to do. He’d corral men to search for her. He’d take over commanding the men to be efficient and productive with this hunt.
But already, I felt the sinking dread that she was gone.
“Mikhail?” Claire ran with me toward Anya’s room. “How can you be sure that she’s gone?”
“I just know. I can tell.” I could predict that my daughter was missing because I felt her absence in my heart.
“Do you think she ran away?” Claire asked, on my heels as I hurried toward the room Anya had holed up in since she arrived.
“No.” A guard was already there. “It looks like there was a struggle.” He pointed out the broken items and knickknacks, as if she’d been captured and she fought to get free.
Rage spiked in me. It grew hot and fast, the emotion surging until I saw red. Cursing and wishing I could punch something, I tried to stay calm and not frantic.
Between calling the men in charge of security and the computer personnel in the room with all the monitors that watched this building and the others, I left the room and disregarded Claire following me.
She was worried. I saw that.
But I was fucking panicking beneath the surface.
This was exactly what I dreaded when I got that call that Anya was coming to live here. She’d be my burden to protect. My obligation to care for. With how icy she’d been, it hadn’t been easy with her lack of cooperation.
I couldn’t focus on Claire. I couldn’t give her any of my time or attention as I locked into the zone to find Anya.
My first step was the security room.
“Lev took her,” a specialist said. He sat at a row of many monitors, tapping on a keyboard to bring up a view.
“Lev?” I hurried closer to watch the footage of one of my former lieutenants sneak into Anya’s room, capture her, and then sedate her when she fought his taking her away. He carried her limpbody out of the room, then down the hall, where he escaped through a fire stairwell.
I pounded my fist down on the counter, making a few keyboards jump. Screens tilted. But as I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, breathing through the fury, I shook with the need to damage something. To destroy everything in my path to reach her.
Sergei barreled into the room, no doubt up-to-date with this discovery already since he had his ear bud in his ear, on task and serious about getting her back.
“Lev,” I told him. “That motherfucker took her.”
He nodded once, curt and without any unnecessary emotion, like a militant. “He was always a loose thread.”
