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I tried not to let the chaos that erupted consume me. One of the warehouses that had gone up belonged to Dima. The other was owned by Aleks and Lev and had been full of a recent shipment waiting to be dispersed to their various companies. Arkadi had my wife, and it was clear he was trying to hurt each of us, one by one, by taking what was ours and destroying it.

Was I too late? Had I failed to keep my promise to protect Emerson? I had to cling to the belief that I wasn’t, that this wasn’t over yet.

Remaining calm was the only thing that would get me to her side, because I understood now that Arkadi was trying to make me crumble. That was half the fun for him, and I’d be damned if I gave him the satisfaction.

Within minutes of the explosions, my phone buzzed from where it was fused to my hand. I needed information, updates… anything that would put me on the trail to bringing Emerson home. Any home she wanted, anything that would make her happy. As long as she was safe.

Alive.

Turning my phone over, I saw it was a photo with no message and clicked on it, unsure of what I was looking at for a second. Then, it became all too clear. It was a picture of Emerson’s wedding rings that I’d taken from the vault at my jewelry store the night it was almost robbed. She had begrudgingly worn them, and one day, I hoped to put them back on her finger at the big wedding Aleks was foisting on us.

The simple platinum band and the huge diamond engagement ring lay in the palm of Arkadi’s soot-stained hand.

I sank to the floor, howling with anguish. Was I really too late? Had I not played his little game properly and Arkadi was ending it like this? A guard rushed over to see if I was all right, and I growled at him to back off.

I wasn’t all right. I was tearing myself in two, ready to kill Arkadi, and desperate to know which location Emerson had been at. Or was still at. Because even through the pain that ripped me apart, my brain wouldn’t let me accept that she was gone. Because there was no way I’d still be breathing if she was gone.

My first instinct was to race to both the warehouse sites, but there was no way he’d hang around. People who were closer were already dispatched to both places to gather intel, so it was a case of more forced waiting.

I made my way up the stairs to the bedroom we had shared and found myself in the closet, staring at her clothes hanging in neat rows. She rarely had the opportunity to wear any of the fine, designer dresses, and I meant for that to change. Like me, the woman was a workaholic, and we both needed more downtime. Time to just be with each other, time to explore other restaurants since we both loved food so much, time to watch cringey comedies with happy endings that were completely unrealistic.

We were going to have one of those fucking happing endings, damn it. This wasn’t over.

I found her bathrobe hanging on a hook in the bathroom and buried my face in it, breathing in her delicate scent. Beyond the expensive lotion, she haphazardly rubbed into her flawless skin, beyond the lingering herbal shampoo, there was just Emerson. My beautiful wife, who was my oxygen. My entire heart belonged to her, and I was determined to breathe her in again.

If Arkadi had stolen her from me for good, it would be the last thing he did. And taking him apart limb by limb would be the last thing I ever did.

Rage and pain washed over me as I stood there, holding Emerson’s robe and roaring out curses. Ivan arrived to find me like that, and tried his best to talk me down from the ledge.

“Arkadi’s a crazy, power-hungry son of a bitch, but he doesn’t have a death wish,” he told me. “Killing Emerson would sign his death warrant, and he knows that.”

This was true enough, and I let him coax me downstairs to where the coffee was flowing for all the people on the security team and anyone else who had ducked in while we made a plan of action.

As soon as we both had a cup of steaming black coffee, both of our phones blew up with calls and messages. All over town, different businesses of ours and our brothers’ were being broken into, vandalized, and even set on fire. It was a concerted, mass attack, and we were already spread thin with the search effort.

Ivan’s face was pale and drawn as he made his way for the door, but I understood that he and the men he’d brought with him had to take care of their own people. My other brothers would have been on their way to whatever buildings of theirs that were under siege. That left me with fewer resources to search for Emerson, but hers was no longer the only life at stake. There were already reports that one of the warehouses might have still had workers present when it exploded, and many more were currently in danger.

After Ivan left, Bogdan came out of his office to clap me on the shoulder, telling me he was getting all the footage that he could salvage from both warehouses. It was just a matter of time.

Time Emerson might not have. I was very close to collapse as I stared down at the images of Emerson’s rings once more. Again, all I could do was wait. And pray that I’d be able to put those rings back on her finger.