Then I felt a sharp prick in my arm. A needle.
No!
I tried to fight it, tried to stay conscious through sheer force of will. But whatever they’d injected was fast-acting and efficient. The room started to tilt, edges going soft and blurry. My legs gave out, and the only thing keeping me upright was the arm still locked around my waist.
The last thing I heard before darkness claimed me was the sound of a phone ringing somewhere in the house.
***********
I woke to cold. Bone-deep, penetrating cold that seeped through my clothes and settled in my joints. My head throbbed with the aftermath of whatever drug they’d used, and my mouth was dry.
It took me a moment to remember how to open my eyes. When I did, the world swam sickeningly before settling into dim, industrial focus.
A warehouse. I was in a warehouse.
The ceiling was high and dark, supported by rusted beams that looked like they might collapse at any moment. Weak light filtered through grimy windows somewhere above, barely illuminating the space. The air smelled of oil and rust and something else—something organic and unpleasant that I didn’t want to identify.
I tried to move and discovered I couldn’t. Ropes bound my wrists behind me, tied to a metal chair that was bolted to the concrete floor. My ankles were similarly secured. The ropes were rough—industrial grade—and already my wrists felt raw where the ropes pressed into my skin.
Panic clawed at my throat, hot and immediate. I forced it down and tried to slowly breathe through my nose while I assessed the situation.
The warehouse was mostly empty except for some abandoned equipment and stacked crates. No windows at ground level. One door visible to my left, metal and heavy. Probably locked. Definitely guarded.
And I wasn’t alone.
Men moved in the shadows—I counted four, maybe five. They spoke in low voices, switching between Italian and Russian with the ease of people comfortable in both languages.
“Ah, she wakes.” One of the men stepped into the light, and my stomach dropped.
His face was handsome in a cruel way, with dark eyes that assessed me like I was meat on a hook. When he smiled, I saw blood on his teeth.
“Welcome back, Mrs. Lobanov.” His English was accented but perfect.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, mustering all the courage I could.
“You’re leverage, little bride,” he answered, shrugging like that was all the explanation needed.
The Italians.
My heart pounded against the ropes.
“Alexei,” I whispered his name, not as a plea but as a promise.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that he would come. The man who had claimed my body and heart would burn the world to find me.
He would.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alexei’s POV
The room was a wreck. A Louis XIV chair lay splintered near the mahogany desk. Books—centuries of history and philosophy—were scattered like fallen soldiers, their spines cracked, pages fluttering in the draft from a shattered window.
But I didn’t care about the room.
I followed the trail. I stopped where the struggle had occurred. There, near the base of the oak shelves, a dark, viscous smear marred the polished wood. It wasn’t a puddle; it was a frantic map of a fight. Fingertips had dragged through it, leaving desperate, uneven furrows.
I knelt. My knees crunched on glass, but I didn’t feel it. I reached out, my hand steady despite the tectonic plates of fury shifting beneath my skin. I pressed my fingers into the crimson stain. It was still tacky. Tepid. I rubbed the blood between my thumb and forefinger, feeling the grit of the floor and the silkiness of her life force. I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of her fear and her defiance.
