Page 19

“You’re not allowed on the premises, lady. Don’t make us use force to take you out.”

“Did you not hear a word I said? Get out of my way. It’s a matter of life and death.”

I had just stepped into the lobby, shaking the rain off my coat, when the noise at the gate caught my attention. A woman raised her voice, and Roman matched her energy, raising his a notch higher. I turned, frowning.

That’s when I saw Elena through the glass.

“Let me in, dammit. I have to see Mr. Yezhov!”

She stood under the rain without an umbrella, arguing with her face flushed from the cold and anger. Her hands moved wildly as she tried to explain something, but another man stood firm with Roman, pointing away from the building.

I wondered what was so important that she’d come to see me after she’d snuck out of the bedroom last night the second I went into the bathroom.

There was a stirring in my chest, but I buried it just as quickly before I signaled Fedor. “Tell Roman to let her in.”

He gave a curt nod and took out his phone to call Roman. Through the glass, I watched him take his phone to his ear and ignore Elena. Fedor gave the instructions briefly and added an extra one to have him escort her up to the building.

I didn’t see his face, but I knew the blond man didn’t take the assignment well, given his huge ego problems. Fedor might have as well asked him to fall to his knees and worship the ground she walked on.

But he adhered, tilting over to whisper to the other man, before they both stepped aside. Hoisting the umbrella, Roman led her through the gate to the entrance, and after dropping her off, he greeted me and turned back to his station.

Her disheveled state concerned me. She stood in front of me, drenched from her head to her sandaled feet. Brown strands of hair clung to her makeup-free face, and her lips quivered.

Closing the distance between us, she reached for my arms and looked up at me, breathily heavily. But her eyes were barely focused. “Damien….”

Fedor glanced between us with creased, inquisitive eyebrows.

“I know you’re probably wondering how I found you, but that’s not important right now.

It’s Katya. She…she called me this morning, and we were talking about a deal she just landed with Starling Records and her project to compose good music for them, and then I…

I don’t know….” She was shaking now and constantly sniffling between her words.

“She said she was walking toward something. I didn’t quite get it because there was a scream and sudden noise in the background.

It was so loud—car horns, people shouting, and then there was nothing. ”

“What do you mean there was nothing?”

My tone was harsher than I intended, but an uncomfortable cold rush spread through my chest, wrapping like icy claws around my lungs.

“I mean, there was nothing! I think she’s in trouble. Damien, you have to find her.”

That cold rush quickly morphed to panic, and I was barking orders at Fedor before I could think anything through. “Track her down. Now! I want my daughter found in the next fucking hour.”

The man didn’t hesitate. He disappeared down the steps and out into the rain, his fingers already flying across his mobile while he shouted more orders in heated Russian at some of the men who were stationed outside.

I turned to Elena, and she flinched.

Damn it. I hadn’t meant to scare her. But I couldn’t control the tremor in my voice when I asked, “I need her details, everything that can be helpful.”

She nodded, and almost immediately, a small, shrill sound broke through. She glanced at her phone screen, frowned, and answered while I waited in the silence.

“Hello?”

I watched her face shift, first in confusion, then shock, then something worse. Her hand trembled slightly as she held the phone to her ear.

“What?” she breathed. “Oh, my God! How is she now?”

I fidgeted with my fingers, clenching and unclenching, and my gut tightened. I didn’t like that look one bit. I didn’t like the tone of her voice.

She ended the call slowly, as if her body had forgotten how to move, and her demeanor screamed an eerie stillness.

“Elena. What is it? Who was it? Fucking say something! Was it Katya?”

She swallowed. Her lips parted, but the words stuck.

Then, finally, she managed with tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I was saved as her emergency contact, and I coincidentally happened to be the last person she spoke to, so they called me. It was the hospital. A facility somewhere in the city. They said…Katya was hit by a car. And…and it was fatal. She’s in a coma. ”

My heart stopped beating, and the panic I’d felt faded, leaving a deafening silence. Around me, sound amplified—the rain, the men running to the vehicles, the tires screeching. All of it. The lobby went cold, and Elena’s image blurred.

I had seen death. Caused it. Ordered it. My hands had been painted in blood more times than I could count. But the last time I’d ever felt something this similar to intense, blinding pain was after I received the news of Irina’s death.

My chest ached at the realization of something else: Elena had been listed as the emergency contact, not me. Elena was the last person she’d talked to, not me.

I turned away before Elena saw it on my face, that flicker of pain and crack in the cold. I didn’t fully understand the extent of how broken our relationship had been until now, and I didn’t like how that made me feel.

I joined the men outside, Elena tailing closely behind me, when Fedor approached me, looking like a murderous machine.

He said they’d gotten her location, the exact hospital she was in, and I marched to one of the SUVs, struggling to contain the red-hot fury that threatened to expand and explode from within while the gears shifted and the cars rolled out of the parking spaces one by one.

Part of the lifelong training I’d gone through was to be realistic. I couldn’t change the past or anything that happened between my daughter and me, but I could certainly do something about the future.

And now….

Now, someone was going to pay.