“Yes.”
“Elisse, you should have arranged a security detail for her. Do you not know how girls from auctions are always under the eye of kidnappers, even months after they have been bought or sold? She could be in danger for all we know,” I said, itching to know her exact location so I could go to her right now.
“How is she living there? Did she get a job? I am sure she had nothing to her name after everything that happened,” Timofey added, making me feel like an even bigger dick.
I had actually turned her out on the street with nothing but the clothes on her back and her paintings.
“I did send her groceries and clothes and whatever else I could think of. I called her yesterday and asked if she needed anything else, but she said no, saying her self-respect would not allow her to accept any more favors. She was planning to sell her paintings to make some money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about any of it?” I asked, my heart aching with guilt.
She had not gone back to her brothers. She had not been lying. Yes, she had kept the truth from me, but that was it. That was her one wrongdoing, and I had turned her away for it.
“I have been calling you, but you have been refusing to pick up. And every time I have come to the safe house, you have not been home. It was impossible to get a hold of you, so I had to do it today.”
“Well, the fact that she did not return to her brothers is enough to tell us that she was not a spy for them. She might have actually not known about their bratva involvement from the very beginning,” Iosif reasoned.
“She asked me to talk to you, Avgust. She told me you shut her out, even letting her explain,” Elisse added.
“She had all the time in the world to tell me the truth, yet she chose to lie about her identity,” I replied, reminding myself why I had asked her to leave in the first place.
“I am sure she had her reasons, Iosif!” Elisse exclaimed. “She was trying to protect you and her family, and she just did not know how. The day you found out, she had called you outside to finally tell you the truth, but everything turned messy before that, and then you asked her to leave. How was she supposed to explain anything when you were being this unreasonable?”
Elisse was right. I needed to call her.
“I think I should talk to her,” I whispered and stepped out of the meeting room, taking my phone out of my pocket.
Just as I was about to dial her number, my phone began vibrating in my hand, her name flashing on my screen. My breath stopped for a few seconds. I answered at once.
“Ilana?”
“Avgust, I need you.” There was panic in her voice. Something was wrong.
“Where are you? What’s wrong?”
Her voice came through broken and panicked. “Please come for me at once. It’s the kidnappers; they have found me again. They are following me. I need you. I have shared my location with you. Please come find me at once.”
Warning bells sounded in my ears, making me wonder if this might be yet another trap.
But I couldn’t let that possibility keep me from helping Ilana.
If she needed me, I was going to go. Perhaps this would make it easier for me to know if she had been lying or telling the truth all along.
***
I reached her location in under ten minutes, finding her ducked in the corner of a dark alley. Ilana crouched behind a dumpster, her arms around a bleeding man. She was trying to put pressure on his wound to stop the bleeding. As I got closer, I recognized the man at once.
Fyodor Romanov.
I took out my gun and fired without hesitation at the men who were just about to enter the alley. Two of them went down while the third ran away.
Ilana looked up at me like she couldn’t believe I was real. Looking at her, dressed in a simple white dress with her hair pulled back, she did not look real to me either. She was beautiful. Achingly so.
“You came,” she breathed.
“Come on, get in the car,” I ordered, motioning to my car, which was parked just at the other side of the alley.
“Fyodor—” I stopped her before she could voice her concern.
