All I could hope was that I could keep my promise not to harm any of Lilia’s family and that she could eventually accept her place at the head of the new organization I meant to run. As my wife, she’d have infinite power, and no one would ever doubt her capabilities again.
She might balk at first, and surely they’d view her as a traitor for a while, but I would find a way to make everything I wanted a reality. One that included Lilia.
Inside, I gathered up a few pastries and a pitcher of orange juice and went upstairs to wake her up. It was imperative we leave sooner rather than later, but she had gone to bed angry with me, and I didn’t want to stress her out more. She couldn’t know anything was wrong. Once she was safe somewhere in LA, I could finish this and slowly bring her around to accepting the new way things had to be.
She wasn’t in bed, but the sheets and blankets were rumpled as if she had recently left it. The water wasn’t running in the bathroom, but I set down the breakfast tray and checked anyway. The closet looked like a hurricane had gone through it, but perhaps she had begun packing already, then went outside to take a final walk on the beach.
It didn’t take me long to determine she wasn’t out on the deck or anywhere on the private stretch of sand. She had become wary of swimming after she got caught in the Atlantic’s strong undertow. I searched the water, almost becoming frantic, then rounded up the guards. I had brought four with me, but only three showed up for the order that they assemble for a report.
“Who’s missing?” I snapped.
The head guard answered immediately, looking almost as mad as I was becoming. Reuben Figuera was an LA native and had been with the Collective since they first got a foothold in California. He was handpicked by Benedikt, and despite not coming with me from Russia, if Benedikt vouched for him, that was all I needed to bring him on board.
Except I hadn’t been able to reach Benedikt the last time I called. I tried again, and once more it went straight to voicemail.I stalked after the head guard into the surveillance room to check the cameras. Sure enough, Lilia was spotted going outside, and the time stamp was shortly after I left that morning to make my calls. Then she disappeared into a copse of overhanging trees and shrubs.
“Blindspot,” the security lead muttered. “Too much foliage.”
But Lilia hurried back toward the house only a few minutes later, head down. There were only minimal cameras inside the house, but it was clear she headed toward the stairs. After some impatient clicking through different feeds, she was spotted just a short while later heading toward the beach with a small satchel slung over her shoulder.
“So she went for a walk?” I asked, following her direction until she disappeared from view once again. “I’ve already been outside.”
One of the guards who had been watching from behind us spoke up. “The camera range ends at the end of the property.”
Lilia and I had walked along the beach a dozen times or more during our short stay here. The Morozov property ended at a long outcropping of huge, jagged rocks that went at least a hundred yards out into the sea. One moonlit night, she had wanted to try to climb them to take a picture of the surf crashing in foamy waves against the rough surfaces, and had nearly toppled both of us when she slipped and fell into my arms.
“There’s no way she climbed them,” I said, asking what was on the other side.
Turned out it was just more beach for a couple of hundred yards, leading to another mansion. Like Leo Morozov, the owners only used it as a holiday home, and the place had been empty for a couple of months.
The guard who had been sent to search for Reuben burst into the room as the security head tried to get hold of someone who could get access to any cameras next door. The young man was red from running in the rising heat and looked terrified to give me the news.
I already guessed what he told me. Reuben was nowhere to be found. Same as my wife.
It didn’t take a genius to add that up. The blow was swift and hard. I really couldn’t trust anyone. If Reuben had been dirty all along, that meant he’d either fooled my whipsmart second in command, or else Benedikt had also become a turncoat at some point. While that realization raised my fury, the fact that Lilia was gone brought only pain.
It was beyond reason, but I couldn’t stop the grip of the jaws that clamped around my heart. Why should I be able to trust her, just because we’d had some good times? Wonderful, amazing times that couldn’t have been completely fake.
And why should she trust me when I was still plotting against her family? Did I really think she’d care if I saved them all, but stripped them of their wealth and power?
Closing my eyes, I pushed everything aside except the rage. I turned to the head of security, who was white as a sheet.
“Activate the tracker,” I said coldly. The other two guards exchanged confused glances.
While I believed I could trust these men, it was only to an extent. Everyone who worked on my personal security team had a secret tracker placed in their phones. The other two clearly hadn’t figured it out, so maybe Reuben hadn’t either.
The main man was already furiously logging into the private system from his phone, brow furrowed with concentration to get me the answers I needed.
“Got him,” he said after several long, tense minutes in which I sent the two lower-level guards away. “If he didn’t ditch the phone somewhere, I have a location. Don’t know what could be there, though.”
He showed me his screen, then told me he’d send all the information to my own phone so I could go after him and follow him in real time if he moved again.
“If he has her at all,” the security head said dismally.
“He has her.”
There was no other reason they’d both be missing at the same time, just one night after we’d had an argument. She finally found a way to escape. To leave me. I peered at the dot on the map, and with a growl, hurried back out to the car. I knew I would find her.
I just didn’t know what I was going to do with her when I did.
