Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Which doesn’t do anything for my situation other than to make him mad. He slaps me so hard my teeth rattle.
But it was worth it.
I might die here. But I’ll be damned if I don’t make it hard on the sonofabitch.
I must be delirious because I actually chuckle, then spit blood onto the floor, just missing his alligator skin shoes.
The sudden rumbling of cars above tells me we’re beneath an overpass. Remember the little details, my mind whispers. If you survive this, you’ll need to tell the police everything. No, not the police. Lev. Because when he finds out about this, he is going to rain down hell on everyone involved in this.
“It’s not personal. I actually like you. In fact…” He touches my cheek tenderly. “If it were a different world we were in, I think I could make you happy.”
I flinch away from him.
“This is simply a message to get Lev’s attention. When he sees what I’ve done to you—” He slaps me again, and this time, I see the spatter of blood from my lip dance like motes of dust in the air in front of me. “He will come looking for me, and I’m counting on it because I’ve built myself an army now, Brooke. And I’ll be ready for him.”
I want to tell Vlad that his days are numbered. That Lev will find him and make him pay for this, because I know he will. I know when they find my body, it will ignite a rage in Lev that no one could ever prepare for. He might not be in love with me, and he might be resistant to any kind of commitment to me, but I know I mean something to him. I can feel it in his touch, in the way he kisses me, in the way he makes love to me.
But I don’t have a chance to say any of this to Vlad because, with one more violent punch of his fist, he mercifully knocks me out cold.
47
LEV
I’m deep in conversation with Feliks when my phone vibrates on the desk in front of me.
It’s the third time it’s rung in the last minute, and I’ve ignored it twice. But something tells me not to ignore it a third. I flip it over, and I see Igor’s name on the screen.
“If she’s given you the slip again, Igor—"
“She’s been taken,” comes Igor’s frantic reply.
Three simple words. And they’re more fatal to me than any other words I’ve ever heard before.
“What do you mean she’s been taken?”
Across the room from me, Feliks looks up from his phone. “What the fuck?”
“Tell me what the fuck happened,” I snap.
Igor sounds like he is driving. “They were too fast to stop, Pakhan.”
“Who?”
“I’m not a hundred percent. But I think it was Vlad.”
Vlad.
The mere thought of that mudak even being in the same proximity as Brooke makes me see red, let alone putting his filthy hands on her.
I grip the phone tighter. “Tell me everything.”
“She went to the restroom. When she didn’t return after a few minutes, we went to check. The restroom was empty. There’s a fire exit along the same corridor as the restrooms, and it was ajar. As I got outside, I saw a four-door Maserati screeching out of the parking lot. No plates. Blacked out windows.”
A Maserati with midnight tint.
That’s Vlad’s car.
I feel the fury grow beneath my skin.
Him taking her is a declaration of war against me and my bratva, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure he knows what a big fucking mistake it was. Once I get Brooke back, he’ll pay with everything he has—his money, his home, his family, his business, his fucking everything.
And when I’m done with all of that, he will pay with his life.
“Where are you now?”
“In the car, searching for her. They can’t have gone far.”
“We won’t be far behind you. Call me if you get eyes on them.”
I hang up and throw Feliks the keys to my Lamborghini. “Vlad has Brooke.”
“Fuck.” He grabs his jacket. “You sure you want me to drive?”
“Yes, because when we find him, I’m going to be using both my guns.”
As we leave my office, I call Jerry, one of my tech experts attached to the bratva, an ex-FBI agent who used to work in cybercrime and can find out anything about anyone. “I need to know every piece of real estate Vlad Bhyzova has in the city. And I need to know it in the next minute.”
Vlad won’t want to spend any more time on the road than necessary. He knows I have people all over this town. He’ll want to get somewhere private as quickly as possible. That means he has to have somewhere close by to hide.
“It’s going to take a few minutes, boss,” Jerry says. “I need to filter his name through any shell companies and trusts he might be associated with.”