Paige flew out of her office. “Where’s Graham?”
“He’s in the conference room, I think,” Angie said.
“Get him, now.” Angie didn’t move fast enough. “Now!”
Angie scrambled up and ran down the hall, the dog chasing after her.
“What’s going on?” Braedon asked.
Paige pointed at the phone in his hand. “Who’s that?”
“Braedon,” Devon said.
“Fuck. My office. Now.”
“What’s going on?” Braedon asked again.
“I don’t know. Hang on a sec.” He’d never seen Paige lose her cool. She was the definition of calm, cool, and collected. For her to yell like that, especially at Angie, something bad had happened.
Angie and Graham came down the hall, Angie out of breath. “He’s here.”
They piled into Paige’s office. She turned her computer monitor, revealing Connie on VTC.
“Please repeat what you just told me,” she said.
Connie sighed. “Tsarevna escaped the raid on the castle. This video was sent to me late last night. Due to a communications blackout, I only received it thirty minutes ago.” She pressed the screen on her phone and held it up to the camera. Tsarevna appeared on her phone screen.
“Constance, you traitorous whore. You will wire ten million dollars to the account I sent to your email to replace the money I would have received from the auction of the two men you stole from me. Don’t bother trying to trace where the email came from. I know these things take time, so you have seventy-two hours to send me the money. If you fail to do so, I will auction off her instead.” She stepped to the side, revealing Addison, blindfolded, gagged, and tied to a bed. “I already have many, many people waiting to bid on her.”
The video ended, and Connie lowered the phone.
Angie had a hand over her mouth. “Shit,” she whispered.
“God damn it,” Graham ground out.
“Does she have Addison?” Braedon asked. “Does she have Addison?” he yelled when no one answered him.
“Yes,” Devon said.
“Send me the video,” Angie said. “And the email.”
“Angie—” Connie started.
“I don’t care what she said. She doesn’t know me. Send me the video and email.”
Connie nodded and typed on a keyboard on her desk. “It’s on the way.”
Angie pushed out of the office.
“Because of the delay, we have less than thirty-seven hours to find her.” Connie shook her head. “We won’t wire the money. Tatiana knows that. She’s just playing with us—with me—as payback.”
“We already have a starting point,” Devon said. “Addison’s phone pinged at a rest stop on I-95 two hours north of here.”
“I’ll do what I can from my end,” Connie said.
“I don’t know if she can hear me,” Braedon said from Devon’s cell phone, “but let her know if she has any kind of authority to keep me from being pulled over, I’m in a dark blue two thousand nineteen Charger. License plate November, zero, tango, delta, echo, delta. See you at South of the Border.” He ended the call.
Graham huffed out a laugh. “Got to admire his sense of humor.”
“Why?” Paige asked.
Devon smirked. “His license plate saysnot dead.”
