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Chapter Eleven

DEMYAN

“What the fuck do you mean she’s gone?” I yell into my phone.

We’re almost back at the fucking mansion when this call came through. Vitor takes a moment to respond. As head of security, Vitor should be calling with a mundane report, not that some girl beat out a whole team of trained men.

“Well?”

Alina flinches next to me at my bark, but right now, I’m concerned at the lack of security at my compound.

Erin’s not trained. I don’t even think she has anything to do with this. Not really, but the fact she’s not there…

“Walk me through this again, Vitor.”

“Sir, the door of her room was open. Magda discovered it. She’d brought her soup and some water earlier?—”

“If you’re trying to tell me Magda fucked up, I’ll explain in exact detail with my fists just how wrong that is and how much I don’t appreciate cowards.

Magda doesn’t make those mistakes. She would have locked the door.

And even if she didn’t, you’re telling me one female evaded a host of armed, trained men?

” I grip the phone tight as he swears in Russian .

Then he says, “We’re searching a second time, all the rooms and the grounds, but the adjacent property? Mikel thought he saw something, but it was on the street, so…”

Pissed isn’t the word for the thrumming emotion rushing through me. I’m volcanic, about to erupt. The only thing keeping me grounded here is Alina.

She’s a ball of misery, curled in on herself, and her pain hurts me. Worse than I ever thought it could because there isn’t a fucking thing I can do. Even if I kill them all, every last person involved in her kidnapping, in Max’s murder, it won’t ease the pain in her. It won’t make up for her loss.

I suck in a breath. “He thinks he saw something? Thinks? That place is meant to be a first warning lookout.” I switch to Russian. I’m so angry. “What’s the fucking point in having a security team if they can’t secure the damn premises?”

“They were looking for invaders, not someone escaping.”

“That doesn’t make it better, Vitor. Heads are going to roll.

If this Erin could get out so easily, that means anyone can get in, which is fucking unacceptable.

There’s a reason we keep the properties surrounding us in the back.

They’re there to help keep people out, too.

So they’re either not kept up and unmanned or the entire team is useless. ”

“Sir—”

“I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I need to find this fucking Erin.” I hang up on him.

Next to me, Alina stirs and looks at me blankly, eyes swollen, tears leaking, and she’s dazed like she got hit by a Mack truck and hasn’t realized she should be down, not walking around.

No. She looks like the survivor of a bombing.

Or someone who just lost the love of her life.

Fuck.

“Who’s Erin?” she asks, voice slurred, flat, lost. It’s the shock. I take her hand and it’s ice. “What’s going on? ”

I unclip my belt and slide over to her, putting an arm around her to try and warm her. “Someone who got mixed up in the attack at the wedding. She was with you.”

“I don’t… don’t remember anything. Just…”

“Shh, it’s okay, she is—was a friend of Max’s.”

Alina lets out a moan of pain, and I mentally kick myself.

This fucking vehicle doesn’t have a minibar, or I’d have her halfway to oblivion.

I lean forward, looking in the rear window from the back as Ilya drives. Our little convoy seems fine and part of me wishes for an attack, just to get this shit over and done with. Give me something to do, someone to punish.

But most of all, I wish I could take Alina’s pain from her. I’d carry it gladly, but that’s the one thing I can’t do. She has to suffer, and I fucking hate that.

When we get home, I ignore everyone else. “I’m going to take you to your room, and Ilya’s going to bring you some cognac. The stuff you like.”

She doesn’t answer me, just pushes her face into her hands.

I gather her in my arms and carry her in and up to the second floor. I go into her room and call in Magda to help her change. Then I wait outside. But when Magda comes out, she shakes her head.

“Alina will not take off the dress,” she says in Russian. “Go be with her.”

Ilya arrives and hands me a glass and a bottle. “I’ll be out here if you need me.”

Without a word, I go into my sister’s room and she’s curled on the bed.

I set down the glass and bottle and ease out the quilt, pulling it up around her.

The posters of her favorite movie stars and bands are on the walls, old dolls and favorite bears still lined on the pale-pink vanity.

She hasn’t lived with me in a long time, not since she moved in with Max. And even during her college years, her time here was sporadic. But I left it as is, a time capsule of a girl growing into a woman, just in case she needed it, a familiar and safe place.

I’m glad I did.

I just hate it’s under these circumstances.

“Will you have some cognac?”

She doesn’t answer.

“I can run a bath. You still have clothes here.”

Still she doesn’t speak and I sigh, then I get up on her canopied queen-sized bed and wrap myself around her, holding her close, willing my body heat into her, so she’s not a lump of ice, and I kiss her forehead.

“Angel,” I say in Russian, switching to the language we grew up with. “Please talk to me. Anything at all. You can scream and cry. Even hate me, just talk and let me know you’re okay. Please.”

She still doesn’t answer, and a lump grows in my throat as my chest tightens. It hurts. All of it. I bury my face in her hair, willing her to be okay.

Finally, she stirs a little and turns. Her face is something I’ll never forget. The utter devastation there.

“I’m not okay,” she whispers. “I might never be okay again.”

“You have me, Angel.” I kiss her forehead, brushing her hair back. “I’ll stay if you need me to.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Whoever did this killed Max, Demyan. He didn’t do a thing and he tried to stop them from taking me. Go find Erin.”

“What do you mean?” I go still. Erin’s on my agenda and that’s my plan, but …

“You need to find her before these monsters do. She tried to help so they might think she’s important. I remember her.” Alina’s words slur. “I met her a few weeks ago. Once. She’s nice. And she’s the one with the little boy.”

I frown, a shiver running over me. Her need to get away, her panic, both at seeing me and when I took her. I understand it to a point, but hers was off the charts and…

“Alina, how old’s the boy?”

But my sister just shrugs and rolls over, her shoulders shaking as she starts to sob again.

I set a box of tissues next to her, then lean down and kiss her head. “Get some rest, Angel. There’ll be a guard outside if you need anything. And one word from you and I’ll come back.”

“Where…”

“I’m going to find this Erin.” A pulse of adrenaline and fury flashes through me. “To keep her safe, like you asked.”

She cries louder, and heartbreakingly, I leave.

Downstairs, Vitor is waiting, but he’s lucky I don’t have time for punishment. I look at him. “Do your fucking job and keep my sister safe. And if anything happens to her, you’ll be paying with your life. Slowly, in agony.”

I grab my weapons and leave. Once in my car, I set up my phone and take off. When I hit the road, I call Ilya.

“Find out everything you can about this, Erin. Name, address. Friends. Make and model of her car. I want a list of every man she’s spoken to in the past three years. All her jobs. Family members. I want it all.”

“Boss?”

Irritation cuts through me at the word. “What?”

“Her car will still be at the wedding venue. But it’s…” Papers rustle. “Erin Banks.”

“Get me the rest.”

“Will do. ”

I hang up. Someone, at least, is doing his job. He got back when I did and is already knee-deep in digging up all information on the guests. He’ll make her his priority and… fuck, I don’t know where I’m going.

But I need to do something. And the drive helps. There are people I can see, talk to, intimidate about the events, and that’s my agenda. I’ll hit the sex club where so many of the shadier guys in my world like to hang out. Apparently, the pussy is prime.

I’ve been there for meetings, and the girls are fine, but it’s not my jam, that kind of pussy. If I share, it’s an arrangement with the lady and without money being exchanged. But the club’s perfect for information.

My head returns to Erin.

A kid.

She’s got a fucking kid.

A boy.

Surely, it’s a coincidence. But she didn’t act like someone with a kid when we hooked up. Then again, how the fuck is someone meant to act? It’s not like a woman becomes a mother and has a personality overhaul.

A boy.

Fuck. I don’t even know how old the kid is.

And we had a one-night stand; what’s to say she doesn’t sleep around, doesn’t have them all the time.

She’s definitely single. She didn’t wear a ring; she didn’t mention a husband, and she was there alone.

No man would let me wander off with her.

He might not stop me, but I’d have noticed a dude seething.

Maybe the boy’s father is one of her many one-night stands.

And I’m not slut-shaming. I was worse back then, and I’m damn lucky I don’t have a boatload of kids. I’m careful, but like that night, sometimes, not careful enough .

I also don’t even know if she slept with half of America since I last saw her or just me or only a handful. Is it even my business?

Only if she tried to claim paternity, or I did. And even then… Shit. It doesn’t matter who.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck and fuck.” The bottom line is if she has a kid and it’s mine, that’s all I care about.

For a brief second, I wonder if that is why she came to the wedding, but I dismiss it. If it was, she’d have told me about my child—if he’s my child. No, she was there for Max and I was what? A bad coincidence?

I don’t even bother to acknowledge I gave her nothing on how to find me. People have ways and though I keep the fuck out of the limelight, I’m known.

The phone lights up with Ilya’s name and I punch the button. “What?”

“I’ve got the details of her car, but it’s at the venue.”

Of course it fucking is. “Her address?”

“Got that. And someone called an Uber from there a couple of hours ago.”

“She took an Uber?” What the actual fuck? I slow down because there’s something in his tone. “Ilya?”

“It went to another address here, a suburb away from Erin. One Kara Everton. She has a car. Don’t you think it’s strange she took an Uber?

I mean, her friend was supposedly at a wedding, so it’s not like they had a night on the town.

Anyway, I tracked the car’s GPS. It’s at a motel about an hour out of town. I’ll send through the address.”

The moment it comes through, I hit the brakes, spin the car around, and head in the opposite direction at top speed.

I make it there in thirty minutes.

The car’s easy to spot and I pull up beside it, noting the kid’s seat in the back.

I don’t bother with the fucking reception.

She’s smart. If she’s hightailing it out of town, then the chances are she didn’t give her name.

There’s a light on low, like a TV that lights the curtains with a flickering glow.

Fuck it. I knock once and the light goes off and there’s silence. Almost silence. I can hear the soft sound of a kid.

Fury overtakes me like liquid heat and I kick the door open, wood splintering.

I slam on the light and there she fucking is, half on the ground, terror on her face, trying to shield a little boy.

I don’t even have to see him to know he’s mine.

Her terror tells me. It rolls off her and the futility of her hiding him only angers me more. I’m not being reasonable, and I don’t give a fuck.

The kid starts to cry.

“Sasha, shh, it’s okay, the bad man’s going away.”

Bad… Oh, fuck no.

The kid looks up. Dark hair in soft curls and the pale ice blue of my eyes.

He’s mine.

He fucking looks just like me.

A growl fills the air and the kid—Sasha—buries his chubby face into his mom’s body, and she closes around him, looking at me like I’m the devil incarnate.

Another growl and I suddenly realize it’s coming from me. I force myself calm.

I’m pissed. Beyond pissed, and into a realm I’ve never been before. But I don’t want to scare my kid any more than I have.

“Get your fucking stuff, Erin, and follow my orders to the letter, or you will regret it.”

“What—”

“Shut the absolute fuck up. Now, pack up and get in my car. Now. Or I swear you’ll never see my child again. ”

She makes a sound like a wounded animal, agonized, pitiful, and it should touch me. The little boy hugs her tight.

A son.

Holy motherfucking shit.

I have a son.