Page 62 of Kidnapped By the Boss

Chapter Twenty-Two: Katya

Vincent’s phone blaring through Sascha’s silent and comfortable room was a rather rude awakening to what had been a really calm and cozy sleep. Even though we were on the floor, under a blanket that was just barely big enough, being wrapped up all together made it worth it, and with all the stress behind us, I had some of the best sleep I’d had in weeks.

Or I was, until the phone call.

Vincent jumped in response to his phone, which made Sascha jump, and he immediately started to cry.

“Shoot, sorry buddy,” Vincent said.

I quickly grabbed Sascha out of Vincent’s arms so that he could go for his phone, getting to my feet so that I could bounce Sacha up and down and try and get him to calm down. “It’s okay, baby,” I sang to him. “Daddy scared you? Shhh.”

“Mario, what’s going on? It’s like four in the morning,” Vincent growled into his phone. Then a few seconds later he hollered, “What?!”

Sascha jumped again and started to scream more, and I waved for Vincent to leave the room. He walked out with his phone, angrily hissing something about, “When did you find out?” but because I was dealing with Sascha, I’d have to wait to see what that was all about.

In order to help calm him down, I sat down in Sascha’s rocking chair and then lifted my shirt so I could feed him. He was still crying until he realized what was happening, then he latched on and began to suckle, although a few remaining crocodile tears slipped out before he finally settled all the way down.

“There,” I said quietly to him. “It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”

I kept looking towards the door, wondering what Mario had called about when it hit me that this was a preview of things to come if I decided to step down as Capo. Vincent would be running off to deal with work and I’d be stuck not knowing what was going on until he came back home for the day, or maybe not even until several days later depending on how it happened. Oddly enough, the feeling in my gut was not total disappointment. I was enjoying being here with Sascha, helping him calm down after waking up suddenly, and itwasreally nice to think that I might not have to deal with whatever stress Vincent was battling right now, but then there was another emotion as well.

Fear of missing out?

It was kind of like I was feeling all the action and excitement drifting from my life. My past few days had been embroiled with gun battles, and chaos, and death, and both losses and victories, and the thought of having the most exciting thing happening in my day be my son crying left me feeling sort of empty. I didn’t necessarily want to be out constantly feeling danger, but that had been my whole life ever since I was born. People feared the last name Petrova all over Russia, and there was no telling when someone learned that was my last name if they were going to want to befriend me or kill me. Then I came to New York and got caught in the crosshairs between the disagreement between my father and Vincent’s, and that lasted until I decided to be with Vincent for good and became his caporegime. Every single day of my life had been filled with excitement and danger and risk.

Would I be okay having that just… not be the case anymore?

I thought about my mom who filled her days with trying every hobby under the sun before sunbathing by her personal pool. CouldIlive a life like that? Was it selfish of me to even consider my comfort level?

Maybe it needed to be done…just because that was what needed to be done.

Eventually, Vincent would come walking back through that door, and whatever issue Mario had brought to him on the phone would need to be dealt with. Vincent would be expecting his upper ranks to assist in dealing with both that, and the aftermath of this war with The Wreckers, which would certainly include me.

In short, by the time Vincent walked back into this room, I needed to have made a decision. I needed to know if I was going to continue being his capo, or just step down and be his wife and Sascha’s mom. But the more I thought about it, the more pros and cons I was adding to both sides of the coin.

I had absolutelynoidea what I was going to do.

Eventually, Sascha finished eating and was falling asleep in my arms. I snuggled him against me and rocked him back and forth until he was all the way asleep, then I carefully lifted him and set him in his crib. I gave his head a sweet pet and was overcome with a feeling of just how much I would enjoy being around for him more. It was so difficult to know what the right choice was, but I knew I loved my son. Whatever decision I made, ultimately, it would be for him.

I walked out of Sascha’s room and heard Vincent’s voice coming from our bedroom, so I walked down the hallway and let myself in. He was pacing the room back and forth, speaking rapidly to Mario, slinging instructions in every direction, until he turned around and saw me in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said. “I need to fill Katya in. Start with that stuff, and I’ll call you back in a second… Okay, bye.”

He hung up his phone and tossed it on the bed before looking at me with an exhausted expression. “Lyn escaped.”

My eyes widened. “What?! How?!”

“No one was watching her unit,” he replied. “Yesterday when we left, I told Annie and Taylor that I didn’t give a fuck about Lyn, because honestly I didn’t, and I pulled them both from watching it and didn’t replace them with anyone else.”

“Still. Her cell should have been escape proof, how did she get out?” I asked.

He frowned. “It seems she figured out that the wiring that powered the lock on her door and the wiring that powered the camera in her room were on the same circuit. She managed to get up to the camera and get it off the wall enough to fuck with the wires, then she shorted it and it unlocked her cell.”

“Innocent little girl, my ass,” I responded. “Well… Fuck. What do we do now?”

“We have to find her,” Vince said. “We can’t just leave her out there. She’s obviously smarter than she first led us to believe. Who knows what she’s capable of? Especially once she finds out that Antonio and all of The Wreckers are dead.”

“Do you think we should send my mom and Sascha away?” I asked. “They might be safer somewhere else.”