My stomach knotted. All my muscles tensed, bracing for a blow.
Worst-case scenario ideas flitted through my head, each one worse than the previous.
Someone had gotten in? An attack? Was someone dead? Shot? Wounded?
Too many people filled the role of my responsibilities. From my uncle to my brother, to Claire and Anya, I had to stress about my family’s well-being. Then all the people who worked for us, every guard and soldier who’d swear their lives to our success.
But most of all at this moment, I feared that something had happened to the two people who had become the center of my world, the source of all my happiness.
Natalie and Maisie.
“She’s gone,” Andre answered. Matter-of-fact and gravely, he replied without hesitation. He gave me that reply with the clarity he knew I’d need and respect. No dancing around it. No hiding or hedging. “Natalie and Maisie are gone.”
I held my breath, willing myself to push through the panic that set in. “Gone?” I didn’t need to ask him to repeat himself, but I had to hear the word through my lips to fully believe it. As if moving my mouth to form that one terrible word was physical proof that it wasn’t a speculation but a fact. A stone-cold fact that would ruin me.
“They were taken?” I was on the precipice of exploding, rushing to the door. It wouldn’t help. Going up there to confirm that Natalie and her daughter were absent wouldn’t do anything. Andre wouldn’t lie about this. My cousin wouldn’t ever lie about something like this. The seriousness on his face wasn’t false, either. But I had to take charge. To react. To solve. And seeing the scene would give me more clues to work with. So long as I focused on moving and doing something to find them and havethem back again, I could shove aside the growing panic and horror that built in my chest.
Andre followed me, seeming to realize I needed his backup. While he joined me, he barked out orders to the men to continue the search. To fan out. To go out as teams. All his orders fell on my deaf ears as I got in the elevator and pressed the button to go up.
“They weren’t taken,” Andre said once the doors slid shut. “The surveillance footage at the side exit shows her bundling Maisie up and walking out. Running out.”
I blinked, stunned all over again. “She left?”
He nodded. “No one was with her. No one was chasing her. Nothing like that. It looked like she had just wanted to take off with Maisie.”
“She wouldn’t have. Not without… Not like…” I exhaled a harsh breath, shoving aside the ache of panic that throbbed in my head.
“She had a tote bag and just went.” He shook his head, almost sympathetically.
“Why the fuck didn’t anyone stop her?”
“The guards were patrolling as usual. It seems that she waited until they’d passed that door.”
Because she knew they would.
She’d never lost that sense of always wanting to know how to escape. That survivalist instinct hadn’t died out even when she was here and safe and protected. It had been a case of her havingone foot in and one foot out in terms of trusting me and this place.
“Why wasn’t I fucking told?” I demanded, rubbing my face again.
“I was about to call you as soon as I dispatched the men. She left only a half hour ago, per the timestamp on the surveillance feed. Once the guards realized that she had slipped out when they weren’t looking, I had the security teams backtrack who was where and when.”
“And?” The doors opened, and I hurried through the penthouse. No signs of a struggle showed. No evidence that she could’ve been forced to flee or fight to survive. The penthouse looked just like it always did, neatly messy and like a family with a child lived here.
Andre didn’t stay back, sticking with me as I scanned the living room.
“And it showed her waiting near the ballroom while Anya taught Maisie how to play the piano. Natalie went out on the balcony, just to kind of look out. The angle of the camera there wasn’t clear, but it seemed she got upset about something.”
“She was on the balcony alone? No one was talking to her?” I asked. Something had to have happened, dammit. Something had to have motivated her to go.
“Yes. But I checked all that was going on then, and a couple of guards were patrolling on the first floor. I spoke with them, and it sounds like they were talking about…” He lowered his gaze, looking stressed and hesitant. “They were talking about her husband and how he was killed as a bystander at an operation you’d set up.”
“Fuck!” I roared it, shaking with the need to throttle something. It was just like what George said. Just like what I fucking feared could happen. For two months, the truth about my connection to Fitz Hayes was hiding and festering. Now the rotten news was ruining it all.
The elevator doors slowly rolled open, and I turned in unison with Andre to face who was coming up.
Only one person could enter my penthouse without any heads up texted to me. No alerts were necessary for the boss of this entire block, of our empire.
Mikhail strode in, head held high and eyes sharp with concern. “I was just informed.”
