“You’re making a big mistake. You won’t get away with?—”
I never got to finish the sentence as pain exploded in the back of my head and the ground swayed. A van door slid open and my body hit the hard floor just as I heard Dina shouting my name once—sharp, terrified—before gunfire erupted. The door to the van slammed and the sound dulled.
“Get us out of here,” Jacqueline said, her voice eerily calm.
The van lurched forward immediately, turning too fast, the engine growling. My pulse hammered in my ears.
And all the while, Jacqueline’s eyes—filled with crazed hate—stared me down.
Chapter 40
Kian
The words on the screen turned fuzzy, and I rubbed my eyes behind my glasses.
Things with Sophie were good—very good, in fact—but I hadn’t made any further progress in locating Jacqueline. It made the paranoia in my chest grow and my nightmares had returned with one major exception: Elena’s dead face had been replaced with Sophie’s.
I drummed my fingers on the desk and scanned the list of passengers on every boat roaming between Greece and Albania.Again. Nothing jumped out.
My phone lit up and Amir’s name appeared on the screen. He was mad I assigned him to tail Dina and Sophie, and I suspected he probably wanted to complain.
Swiping to answer, I held the phone up to my ear and answered with a sigh. “Yes, Amir.”
“They took her.”
I heard the panic before I understood the words. I stood and immediately put him on speaker.
“What do you mean? Who?”
“Sophie.” My chest seized, my heart suddenly forgetting how tofunction. “Dina’s okay, but Sophie… Two men and a woman snatched her.”
“Tell me everything you know,” I barked.
Amir began to recount Dina losing them with her driving, and Sophie jumping out in front of her teacher’s street.
“When I got here,” he explained, “Dina was screaming and I started shooting. I got one, but the other two took off with Sophie.”
“Is the man you shot dead?” I snapped.
“No, just wounded,” Amir retorted.
I yanked at my tie with one hand to loosen it, panic twisting in my chest. I was supposed to protect her, and she was taken from right under my nose.
No, now was not the time to panic. I’d get her back.
“Bring him here,” I said, my voice cold. “I’m going to check surveillance footage covering that street.”
“Follow the white van,” Amir said.
I hung up and started across the room to a separate computer. I logged in, and within a few minutes, I had the location pulled up.
My gaze was locked on the screen, terrified I might miss a single clue as I watched it all unfold with a knot in my stomach. Once Sophie was thrown into the van, I hacked into CCTV footage and traced it all the way to its destination.
Jacqueline’s yacht I’d been searching for.
The metallic smell filled the dungeon as I descended the stairs, the floor sticky under my leather shoes. I welcomed the darkness that swallowed me with each step I took closer to our captive.
I needed to punish, hear the cries as he begged for his life and feel life drain out of the bastard who helped Jacqueline take Sophie. But the priority was to get where Jacqueline’s yacht was heading. She’d been able to keep under the radar in the Albanian and Greek waters, and I couldn’t afford to waste time roaming the seas and continuing to look for her.
