She snorts out a laugh and kisses my nose ring before leaning back and opening the car door. “I guess it’s good you don’t realize how brilliant you are. If you did, then you’d be one of those annoying know-it-all jackasses.” She motions to the campus around us. “There are enough of those floating around here already.”
“I’ll try my best to never be one of those,” I tell her. “Text me when you’re done or if you need me. I love you, Van.”
She steps out and then dips down to give me a big, dimple-showing smile. “I love you too, Niki.”
I watch her walk to the building, and I’m still grinning like an idiot when she turns to give me a wave before walking inside. Knowing it might be a while, I grab my laptop and settle in. When thirty minutes go by, I don’t think much of it. When forty-five minutes come and go, I send her a quick text asking if she’s okay. There’s no answer, and I try to tell myself that there are a million reasons why this isn’t a bad sign, but my gut is screaming at me that something is wrong, and that’s what I listen to.
Reaching over, I grab the gun that I always keep in my messenger bag and get out of the car. I tuck it against the small of my back and then jog to the entrance. Campus is quiet since it’s a holiday, and it doesn’t take me long before I’m inside and racing down the hall towards her mentor’s office. I know exactly where it is. I know where every location on campus is that relates to her. When I reach his closed door, I knock and tell myself I’m going to feel like a real idiot when he opens it and everything is fine. That’s what I hope for anyway. I’ll gladly look like a paranoid dumbass if that door opens and I see Savanna safe and sound.
No one answers the door, and when I open it and find an empty office with a chair turned over and a leather messenger bag on the floor with her phone on top, I feel everything inside me grow cold. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I run back out and search the hall for any sign of her while I call my dad. He hears the panic in my voice when I explain what happened, and then he tells me he’ll call the others and that they’ll meet me out front.
“We’ll find her, son. I promise you we’re going to find her,” is the last thing he says before he hangs up.
I’m too panicked to think that far ahead, the very idea that I might not be able to find her is something my brain won’t evenallow me to contemplate right now. I search the building, but it’s fucking empty, and there’s nothing outside but my parked car. I feel like I can’t breathe as I grab my phone again.
My brother picks up on the first ring, and when I don’t say anything, he asks, “What’s wrong, Niki?”
“Van’s gone,” I tell him, hearing the distraught sound of my own voice. “He took her. Cupid fucking took her, and I have no idea where she is.”
He’s one of the few people who truly understands how helpless I feel, so I’m not surprised when his response is immediate and exactly what I need to hear.
“I’m on my way, little brother. We’re going to get her back, and we won’t stop until we do.”
I nod, even though he can’t see me and hang up. I had the whole fucking world in my hands, and I just let it slip away. I watched her walk away from me, too busy grinning like an idiot to notice the danger that she was walking into. I will never forgive myself for failing her, but it’s something I can regret every day for the rest of my life after she’s back home with me safe. Right now she needs me, and I need to find her because I can’t live without her.
When the others arrive, they find me in Ellison’s office. I don’t know if he’s a victim in all this or behind it somehow, but I’m about to find out.
Chapter 16
Savanna
When I knock on Dr. Ellison’s door, I’m still wearing a goofy grin on my face from thinking about Niki. I’m freaking out about my paper, but not even that can dampen how happy I feel right now. I love knowing he’s right outside waiting for me. I can easily picture him, hoodie and sunglasses on, hair tousled from running a hand through it, laptop already open while his fingers fly across the keyboard. He probably has his brows furrowed, too, like I’ve noticed he does when he’s trying to puzzle something out.
I’m lost in thoughts of him when the door swings open and Dr. Ellison waves me in.
“I’m glad you could make it so quickly,” he says, motioning for me to take a seat in one of the large leather chairs in front of his huge, cherry wood desk. His office has always felt homey to me. Bookshelves line the walls, all of them stuffed to the brim, and there are family pictures on his desk showing his wife and kids from one of their many vacations to the beach. His wife is beautiful and only in her thirties. Dr. Ellison always talks about her like she’s his whole world, says she’s the best thing to ever happen to him. Their boys are all in their teens, and in the photoclosest to me they’re laughing and tossing each other into the water.
“I don’t understand about my paper,” I tell him while I dig through my bag so I can pull it up on my laptop. “How is my reference bad?”
“I had such high hopes for you,” he says from behind me, and my heart drops at his words.
“What do you mean?” I use the trackpad that Niki taught me how to use properly and open my paper. “It’s just a reference issue, right? Can’t I just find a new one and change it? I know it’ll be a pain, but I can get it done,” I tell him, worried that I’ve somehow disappointed him to the point where he no longer wants to be my advisor.
“Do you even know who your boyfriend is?”
Surprised by his question, I turn my head to look at him. “What?”
He’s already shut the door and is leaning casually against it. “Your boyfriend? Do you even know who he really is? What his family does?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, not understanding what’s going on but knowing there’s no way in hell I’ll ever say a word against Niki or his family.
It isn’t until his mouth starts to turn up into a cruel grin that I realize something is very off with my professor. I thought he was just concerned and sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong, but there’s something cruel about the way he’s looking at me, something vicious and cold that makes every instinct I have scream at me to get the hell out of here.
Keeping my eyes on his, I slowly start to move my hand to the bag that’s still sitting in my lap. My phone is in the front pocket. If I can text Niki, or even call him, then he’ll come and get me. I don’t know what the hell is going on with my professor, but I’drather figure it out when I’m not stuck in a room with him all by myself.
“I can’t believe you’re fucking Nikita Melnikov,” he says, and I flinch at the hatred in his tone, my hand momentarily stilling.
“What?” I say again. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Dr. Ellison.”
