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Nearing my wits’ end, I searched the area fruitlessly until Ivan arrived with a team. They spread out to canvass the entire area I’d already been over several times, and I headed to each of the local businesses nearby to ask about their security camera coverage. On my way to yet another convenience store about ten blocks from the apartment building, I got word about the guards who had been on the way but never turned up.

Both of them dead. At first glance, a hit-and-run collision that should have obliterated the other car as well as theirs. When their car was identified on the police scanner that my guys monitored, it seemed like they’d both been killed by the head-on impact. However, when one of my insiders at the police department got back to me, it was actually bullets to the skull that ended them, after the crash.

The scumbag was behind it somehow.

The investigation would go nowhere once the police knew it was futile to try to bring someone like Arkadi or his upper echelon to justice. That would be up to me, but only when Emerson was safe again.

I was pissed off, and it showed when I entered the store, so when I asked as politely as possible to see their security footage from the last couple hours, the teenager on the late night shift was happy to comply. I wasn’t optimistic, because the last several places had turned up nothing, so I nearly scared the kid half to death when I let out a whoop of happiness to see my wife getting into a taxi on his cameras.

Now, at least I had a direction, and I sent that and the name of the cab company back to my security head.

“It’d be easier if you were here to help me comb through everything,” he said, sounding mildly annoyed.

“On my way,” I said, probably shocking the hell out of him.

There was no longer a reason to be in the area, so I alerted Ivan to gather up his men and wait for further information. It felt like giving up, but it was better to keep everyone ready for action when we found her.

And we would find her. I had to believe that or collapse.

Traffic had settled down at that hour. Either everyone was safe at home or out at a bar or club until much later, and I made it home in record time. As soon as I burst into Bogdan’s office, he looked up with a wizened smile. The security coordinator was around eighty, and a second cousin on my uncle’s wife’s sister’s side, or something like that, and he knew his way around any computer system in existence, despite looking like one of the old guys who hustled you at chess in the park.

He rolled up his tattered cardigan sleeves and waved me over to his screen. “You’re just in time,” he crowed. “I lost the damn taxi for a second in that dead zone over by that private school. I was just about to try calling the company to weasel the info out of them when she popped up again.”

“Where, old man?” I demanded, sitting down and staring at the block of sixteen images on his giant screen.

He pointed to a video loop playing in the middle, showing her getting out of the taxi.

“Goddamn it,” I said. “She went back to Khoroshiy. Then why didn’t anyone there call me right away?” I was coming up with ways to properly punish anyone still at the restaurant for making my head about to explode with worry, as Bogdan ignored my question and tapped at his keyboard.

Another view came up and took over the entire screen, showing the back of my restaurant from its own camera mounted over the rear door. And there was my beautiful wife, as safe and healthy as I could have hoped, heading around the wall and into the parking lot. So many emotions crowded in at once, most of all relief, until everything changed.

Bogdan sucked in a breath at the same time I leaned forward. Someone stepped out from behind their car and spoke to Emerson, freezing her in place. Even from the back view of him, I could make out the arrogant stance of my archenemy. Another second later and, Emerson was trying to race past him. I leaned closer, gripping the sides of my chair as Bogdan enhanced the image as much as he could.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

He had her. That asshole had his hands on her, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Throwing the chair I sat on and breaking Bogdan’s screens wouldn’t help so I kept watching as a moment later she walked to his car to get in.

What the hell? She was so close. It didn’t look like she screamed for help after her failed break for the door.

Bogdan looked at me questioningly. “That’s Arkadi Mikhailov, isn’t it? What’s she doing, going with him? Oh!”

I jerked my attention back to the screen to see Emerson actually throwing herself out of the car as it began to roll away. She knew she couldn’t fight him, so was using her head, just like I’d taught her.

Except the piece of absolute shit nearly ran her over. I jumped up with a feral growl, and could only watch in fury as Arkadi dragged her back into his car and sped off out of frame.

“Follow him,” I demanded. “Pick him up on another camera.”

“You have to give me some time,” he said, nose practically touching the keyboard as his fingers flew. Every few seconds, he looked up at the screen, which had reverted back to a grid of multiple images. “Breathing like an angry bull isn’t going to make me find her faster,” he said, never taking his focus from his work.

I slammed out of the office and called Dima, barely able to get the words out.

“Tell me you know where he lives.”

Dima was the one who had given me a good phone number for Arkadi. They’d been on the verge of merging one of my brother’s construction companies, but Dima got wise and pulled out at the last minute.

“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Dima said after making me calm down and fill him in. “Just his number, which he might have already changed since you called him last.”

I paced, trying to work off the nervous energy that had me wanting to put holes in my walls. “I don’t want to call him; I want to go to his house and break every bone in his body. He has my wife, damn it!”

There was a long pause, and then Dima said raggedly, “I get it. Believe me, I do. I can’t help but feel responsible.”

“Don’t,” I told him. “He’s hated me longer than he’s been pissed off at you. He hates all of us. There’s no place he ever mentioned in passing?”

Dima didn’t recall, but promised to call me back if he thought of something. After I messaged Ivan, who said he’d head my way, I stared at my phone for several long minutes, finally trying Arkadi’s number out of desperation. It rang through to voicemail, which meant he hadn’t had it disconnected, but it was no help if he refused to answer.

I stuck my head back in Bog’s office, waiting until he looked up to ask if he found Arkadi’s car yet. He scowled at me.

“Yes, of course. But you have to understand I need to go from camera to camera. Some are the city, some are private businesses. And when he turns, I have to go through several different directions until I find him again. Give me some time.”

Nodding, I left. Haranguing him wouldn’t help Emerson. It wasn’t a flat-out no. It was only more interminable waiting, while my woman was in danger.

My phone buzzed and I jumped, not sure what I was expecting to hear from my brothers who were also waiting for more information. I wasn’t expecting what I got, which was a message from Arkadi.

You’re going to need to give in to my demands.

What demands? Did he want to go ahead with Dima’s construction company deal that badly? I didn’t think so, because why target Emerson if that was the case? I stared at the message in bewilderment, about to call him again to see what he wanted. It wasn’t like he was hurting for either money or power, but certain kinds of men always yearned for more.

As I scrolled to his number, Ivan called, his voice frantic. Two of our warehouses had just gone up in flames, on complete opposite sides of the city.

I roared with fury, barely able to get it together to coordinate with Ivan about what to do next. This was most certainly a tactic to distract us and scatter our forces, but Arkadi was more of a fool than I imagined if he thought I could be distracted from finding my wife.

Worse, what if it wasn’t a distraction at all?

I ended the call and sank to the floor as that thought hit me like a brick to the forehead. What if I didn’t act fast enough to find out what that madman’s elusive demands were, and he put Emerson in one of those warehouses?