Page 116 of Beneath Scarred Vows

I grab the bottle of whiskey from my desk where I've holed up to regroup. I don't bother with a glass, just take a burning swig straight from the bottle. It doesn't help. Nothing helps. Not the five locations we've torn apart looking for her. Not the three men I've personally put in the ground. Not the fact that George Zervas, a man I was ready to execute hours ago, has pledged his resources, his men, his blood to help find her.

My phone vibrates on the desk. I snatch it up, heart beating so hard I can feel it in my throat. Every call, every text could be about her.

It's a message from an unknown number.

A video.

Something in me already knows what I'm about to see, and my hand shakes so violently I can barely press play.

The moment I see her face, I stop breathing.

Katerina.

She's alive. Her eyes are clear. There's a redness on her cheek that looks fresh, like someone just struck her. My vision goes crimson at the edges just seeing it.

Sebastian Makris's voice comes through the speaker, talking about deadlines and demands, but I barely register the words. I'm looking at Katerina, at the barely perceptible tremble of her lower lip, at the way she stares directly into the camera. Not with fear.

God, I hope she believes I'm coming for her. That she trusts me to find her.

Fuck our fight, I will save you.

The realization hits me: any day that I don't acknowledge the fact that she's the center of my world is a day I live as a fool.

"Twenty-four hours, Kastaris," Makris says, and the video ends, freezing on Katerina's face.

"Ares."

I turn to find Theo in the doorway, his own hands bandaged, his shirt spattered with blood. I didn't hear him come in. I don't know how long he's been standing there.

"Did you see it?" I ask, my voice raw.

He nods once, his face grim. "We're trying to find anything that'll give the location away. Also, Dimitri's okay. He's getting patched up. Doctor says the bullet was easy to get out of his arm. He'll be here in an hour."

I barely process this. Dimitri is fine. Good. One less thing to worry about. One less failure on my conscience.

"What the fuck is he talking about? The Nafplio port and the money we took?"

Theo takes a step forward, slight hesitation in his voice. "I have no idea about the money, but the port in Nafplio is the one our dad made George Zervas take if anything should happen to him."

I run a hand over my face, feeling the stubble that's grown over the past day. My mind keeps trying to calculate what they might be doing to her, but every time it starts down that path, something inside me fractures further.

"I don't get it. It doesn’t make any sense. Shit, I wish Dad would have told us what he was working on, why Sebastian and these fucking Athenian Warriors want it, and why he told George to take the port from us."

I start pacing the length of the room. "I need to think, but I can't fucking think. All I see is her face."

"That's why I told you to come back to the house," Theo says, stepping fully into the room and closing the door behind him. "You were going to get yourself killed out there, Ares. And then what happens to her?"

I whirl on him, fury rising so fast within me. "Don't lecture me about this. Not now."

"Someone has to," Theo snaps back. "Because you're not the only one who cares about her. She's got our last name, and clearly your heart, so she's family now. My family. And I need you at your best if we're going to get her back."

When did Katerina become family to Theo? To any of them? When did she stop being a transaction and start being something we would all die for?

"She looked afraid," I say, and the admission costs me something. "She was trying not to show it, but I could see it."

"Of course she's afraid," Theo says. "But she's also strong. She saved Calli at that restaurant, remember? Put herself between our sister and bullets."

I remember. The image of her blood-soaked dress, the way she trembled in my arms afterward but still managed to smile, to reassure me. The woman is steel wrapped in silk.