I turn, pulling out my phone.
“Our brothers,” I say. “Get them on the line—now.”
“What’s happening?”
“War.”
CHAPTER 34
YURI
It takes Elena exactly six minutes to pull up the security footage.
Six minutes that feel like six years.
We’re all crowded into the security room, Elena hunched over a keyboard, eyes blazing as she flicks through the mansion’s CCTV feeds with ruthless precision. Lev stands behind her chair, arms folded tight across his chest, jaw locked. Alexei paces the floor like a caged animal, muttering something low and angry under his breath. Luk stays silent as he watches Elena’s screen.
My heart is hammering, pulse roaring in my ears.
And then Elena freezes a frame. “There” she says. “That’s them.”
The image is taken from a distant angle off the southwest garden path. Tatiana and Astrid, walking side by side, heading toward the trees. For a second, the image fuzzes out, static interfering, before snapping back in with clearer resolution.
Lev frowns. “How could she be so stupid as to pull off a kidnapping right on our property?”
Elena smirks. “Because she thinks it’s a blind spot.”
Alexei stops pacing. “What the hell does that mean?”
She leans back slightly, fingers never leaving the keys. “I designed a fake blind spot in the surveillance grid. A gap just big enough to make someone think they’d disappear from view if they timed it right. What they don’t know is I layered a secondary stream underneath. Lower resolution, infrared overlays. Just enough to catch a silhouette. Just enough to catch them.”
“So they thought they were being clever,” Lev says, “but you were prepared for such a moment.”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use it,” Elena sighs. “But I knew if someone tried something inside the perimeter, it would be there. And I may have intentionally let it slip among the staff that the so-called blind spot existed.”
She scrolls forward in the footage. Astrid and Tatiana vanish into the trees. Ten seconds later, three more figures enter the frame dressed in black, moving fast.
“They took her,” I say, my voice raw, my stomach clenching. “They took her from right under our nose.”
Elena nods once, her mouth a flat line. “But now we know where they went.”
We stare at the monitor, watching as Astrid is dragged into the back of a black van by masked men in tactical gear. Her head is limp, hair covering her face. Even with the grainy footage, I can see she’s barely conscious. My knuckles tighten as rage coils around my ribs.
“Facial recognition,” Elena mutters, fingers already flying over the keys, eyes darting between the grainy images and the second monitor. The software flashes, spinning, passing through thousands of profiles at impossible speeds. “Almost there.”
Seconds tick by. No one breathes.
The software pings, once, twice, as matches pop up, names appearing in red beneath their faces.
“Cartel thugs,” Elena says. Her voice is flat and cold. “Confirmed.”
Lev growls, fists tightening at his sides. “Son of a bitch.”
“Wait,” Elena murmurs, leaning closer. She taps rapidly, pulling up a second camera feed from the estate perimeter. It’s time stamped moments after Astrid’s abduction. The screen shifts, zooming in on a car idling just outside our eastern gate. She enhances the plate, runs the data again.
A photo appears, a clear match.
“Christian De la Rosa,” Elena says, eyes widening. “He was right outside the gates. He was here.”
