Page 79 of Marrying the Pakhan

“Viktor!” His name tears out of me, raw, desperate. “Viktor, where are you!”

Nobody answers. I stumble down the hall, past another body, past a shattered window with curtains moving in a wind that shouldn’t be inside a house at all, screaming his name into rooms that don’t answer back, my bare feet catching on debris I can’t see clearly enough to avoid.

I find Dimitri near the top of the stairs instead, blood on his shirt that doesn’t look like it’s his, radio in hand, barking orders to someone I can’t see.

“Where’s Viktor?” I demand, grabbing his arm hard enough that he actually turns to face me fully. “Dimitri, where is he? Where’s Ginger? What is happening?”

“He went after them himself.” Dimitri’s voice is controlled, but his eyes are wild, adrenaline and fury both barely leashed. “The second he heard the room breach on the radio, he was out the back door before any of us could stop him. He’s tracking the vehicle now.”

“Alone?”

“Two men with him. Not enough, and he knows it, but he wasn’t waiting for a better option while they drove away with her.” Dimitri’s jaw tightens. “Harper, you need to get somewhere safe. Now. We don’t know if this is the only team on the property.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I know Ginger’s safe.”

“You’re pregnant. I need you downstairs, in the safe room, immediately, or I swear to every god either of us believes in I will carry you there myself.”

“Dimitri, please. I need to do something; I can’t just stand here.”

“No.” His voice cracks like a whip, sharper than I’ve ever heard from him. “I don’t have time to argue with you right now. Viktor’s out there chasing a car full of armed men who just proved they’ll shoot through anybody to get what they want, and I have exactly as many resources as I have right now to help him, not one of which involves standing here convincing you to survive the night.”

I stare at him, shaking, furious and terrified in equal measure, every instinct screaming at me to run out that same back door after all of them.

“How did they get in, Dimitri? We had cameras. We had men on every corner of this property.”

“One of our own let them through. I don’t know who yet, and right now I don’t have the luxury of finding out before I make sure Viktor has backup.” His voice breaks slightly on the admission, the first real crack in his composure since I found him. “Someone we trusted did this. I promise you I will find out exactly who.”

“I want to help,” I say, voice breaking. “I can’t just sit in a room while they have her.”

“You can, and you will, because right now the single most useful thing you can do for that little girl is stay alive long enough for us to bring her back to you.” Dimitri’s expression softens by a fraction, just enough to show me the fear underneath the command. “Please, Harper. I can’t fight for both of them tonight. Let me fight for one while you protect the other one growing inside you.”

I don’t answer right away, torn between every maternal instinct I have and the cold, undeniable logic of what he’s saying.

“Find her,” I finally manage, voice barely above a whisper. “Find her, and bring her back, and bring him back too. Please, Dimitri.”

“I intend to.” He grips my shoulder once, hard, grounding. “Safe room. Now. I’ll have someone update you the second there’s anything to report.”

I let him steer me toward the stairs, legs still unsteady, mind still screaming Ginger’s name even as my body finally, reluctantly, obeys.

The safe room door closes behind me with a heavy, mechanical sound, and I stand there alone in a space built for exactly this scenario, stocked with everything Viktor promised months ago and I never let myself fully believe I’d need. Bottled water. A cot. A radio I don’t know how to use properly, sitting silent on a small shelf.

I sit on the small cot against the wall, hands pressed flat against my stomach, and I cry the way I haven’t let myself cry since the night of the reveal, loud and ugly and completely unrestrained, because there’s no one left to perform strength for down here, no six-year-old to shield from the truth of how frightened I actually am.

Time moves strangely in a room with no windows. I don’t know if minutes pass or an hour does, only that at some point the shaking in my hands slows enough that I can actually think again instead of just reacting.

Somewhere out there, past walls that suddenly feel too thin despite everything Viktor built them to be, Ginger’s being driven further away with every passing minute, and Viktor’s chasing her through a night full of men who’ve already proven exactly how far they’re willing to go.

I think about the gun pointed at her face. I think about her eyes, huge and silent, the exact moment she stopped fighting because fighting had just become too dangerous to risk.

I think about every promise I’ve made her since Mia died, every assurance that I would keep her safe, and how completely tonight has broken every single one of them despite everything Viktor and I built to prevent exactly this.

I don’t know how long I sit there before the shaking finally starts to slow, replaced by something colder, steadier, an anger that settles into my chest and refuses to leave.

They took her. They took her from my own bed, from beside me, and pointed a gun in her face like it was nothing at all. A six-year-old girl, terrified into silence by a stranger who treats children like leverage instead of people.

I press my hand harder against my stomach, feeling the baby shift beneath my palm, small and unaware of everything currently happening around it, and I make myself a promise in the quiet of that locked room, the same promise I’ve apparently been making since the night I first walked into a club looking for anything that might save my family.

Whatever it takes. Whatever’s left of tonight, whatever comes after it…