“A sedative, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I shook my head, vaguely able to give my opinion about that. “No. No… drugs.” My voice barely worked, so hoarse and raw from screaming and crying.
Mikhail dropped to his haunches to get to my eye level. “We will get her back, Natalie. I don’t ever bluff and make empty promises I can't deliver on. Wewillget her back. Hang in there, okay?” He patted my knee. It seemed like a weak gesture of sympathy, but this was a Mafia boss. An older, gruff leader of criminals.
“I’ve been in your shoes.” He glanced at Anya sadly. “I know everything I say, anything anyone will tell you, won’t matter. But it is true. We will get through this, and we will get Maisie back.”
I sniffled, nodding, but I wasn’t sure if I was agreeing with the hope he wanted me to feel or if I believed him. I wouldn’t rest until I saw Maisie again with my own eyes.
They’d taken me up here as soon as Sergei bolted off in the direction of the men who’d taken her.
He hadn’t waited. He didn’t second-guess it at all.
He took off, rushing to get her back.
With that blurry memory replaying in my mind, I knew that Mikhail wasn’t bluffing. He had his lethal enforcer on the case.
It had all happened so quickly, in such a haze of fear and shock, that I hadn’t been able to react in any other way than screaming for my daughter. In that foggy smoke that filled the air so suddenly, I’d held on to Sergei to ground myself. He held on to my hand too, keeping me close. But I reached out and groped the air to search for her to no avail.
Once I understood that she had been abducted, I could only cry and panic, begging anyone who’d hear to get her back to me.
Half of the panic was how I locked down in fear. I didn’t want to be further addled and unable to think or feel. “No drugs, though. Please.” I didn’t want to lose any more of my weak grip on reality. This masking pressure of terror was hard enough to work through.
“I just hate that I can’t do anything,” I admitted with tears as Mikhail stood.
All I was good for was crying and panicking that my worst nightmare had come true.
The only thing I could do was pray that Sergei would find her. That he would save her for me.
“I failed her.”
Claire hugged me closer. Anya sat again and rubbed my back as well. Both of them were so distressed and right there to comfort me. But nothing would comfort me except seeing Sergei striding into the room with my unharmed daughter in his strong arms.
“You did not,” Claire argued. “You haven’t failed anyone.”
“I’m supposed to keep her safe. I’m supposed to always protect her.” Sobbing harder again, I feared that I’d let my precious baby girl down in such an unforgivable way.
“And you do. You will. Natalie, those men came up and surprised everyone. No one could’ve been able to predict the future and foreseen that happening,” Anya said.
That hardly appeased me. I still struggled with the guilt that I had ever let Maisie enter this world of violence and crime anddrama and deadly agendas. All these Mafia politics. The rules and laws they made for themselves and governed over as they saw fit.
Because if I hadn’t let her be a part of their world, if I had tried harder to escape…
No.
Stop it.
You can’t think that anymore. You saw how much more dangerous it is out there on your own.
I never could’ve been able to keep Maisie as safe with only myself to rely on.
Yet, it was the association with the Orlovs that made me and Maisie a target at all.
I shook my head, warring with the thoughts because that wasn’t true, either. Fitz had been killed when he had an unfortunate brush with these people, too, and that was an inherent threat to our family just the same, when I had no clue who Sergei or the Orlovs were.
The world was never going to be completely safe. It was impossible, and it was that hard lesson of parenting that I didn’t want to acknowledge now.
No matter what anyone did, the world would always be risky.
