I ended the call and quickly looked through the footage of the house. There were no cameras installed in her bedroom for privacy, and she was nowhere else in the house. I called the kitchen downstairs, and a maid answered.
“Where is she?”
No answer.
“Where is Ilana? Is she in her bedroom?”
“The last I saw her, she was, Mr. Chernykh. She asked me to bring her a glass of water, and she was picking out clothes from her wardrobe.”
I put the phone down and sped out of my study, straight towards her room upstairs. The door to Ilana’s room was open, the bed untouched. I walked inside and noticed the window, which was too narrow to fit through anyway, was still locked. But the closet stood half open, the faint scent of perfume lingering in the air. A few of the clothes I had sent for her were gone.
So she had run. At last, it almost felt as if I had been waiting for it to happen.
The anger came first. Hot, sharp, and instinctive. Then it cooled into calculation.
I wasn’t angry that she had disobeyed me. I was angry that she had done it stupidly. Because if she was out there, shewasn’t running away from me; she was walking straight into the kind of world that had already sold her once.
I pressed the intercom button on the wall and quickly called my right-hand man in the security room. “Mikhail.”
A voice crackled through the speaker. “Yes, sir.”
“Look at the perimeter. Check the feed. Ilana has run.”
“Run?” Mikhail looked confused. “I have been checking the cameras consistently for the past hour, sir, and I did not see her anywhere.”
“She must have learned the blind spots and taken advantage of that.”
“I am looking into it, sir.”
I walked out of her room, the mark of her scent on my skin, and made my way towards the security room. The screens flickered, rows of cameras capturing every inch of the property. I watched them cycle through, one by one, jaw clenched.
There.
Camera seven. The side gate, where deliveries came in. The lock appeared loosely closed. I exhaled slowly, forcing my pulse to settle. She was clever enough to find the one gate with the faulty latch I hadn’t fixed yet.
“Car,” I called out. “Now.”
Within minutes, Mikhail had alerted everyone, and the black SUV was idling at the front steps. I climbed in, slamming the door behind me.
“She’s on foot,” Mikhail said from the passenger seat, scanning a tablet. “I see movement on the north road along the access road. No vehicle spotted.”
“How long ago?”
“Ten minutes.”
That wasn’t long.
I nodded once. “Drive.”
I had to find her. And I had to find her before anyone else had the chance to get to her.
Chapter 5 - Ilana
The gravel tore at my feet with every step I took forward, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Not when the trees were finally beginning to thin, and the sky was cracking open to shed gray light. The world ahead of me widened into something that looked like a road. A real road.
I was out. I wasout.
My lungs burned, the cold air stabbing my chest, and my hair stuck to my face, borrowed clothes damp with sweat and rain. Every little sound made me flinch. From my own footsteps to the echo of the wind, and even something as innocent as a branch snapping somewhere behind me.
