Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
"Shut up." I cut him off, my free hand already reaching for the gun holstered under my jacket. "Get back to the penthouse. Now."
I ended the call and looked at Artem and Gregor. Artem's jaw was tight, Gregor's hand already moving toward his own weapon.
"Los Infideles?" Artem asked.
"Don't know. Don't care." I was stripping off my jacket, removing the shoulder holster. Going into a police station armed like this would be stupid. The ankle piece would have to do. "Someone took my wife."
The words tasted like acid in my mouth. My wife. The woman who'd become my entire fucking world without me even realizing it was happening.
Gregor was already pulling out his phone. "I'll call Kostya, get him down there with the legal team."
"No time." I was moving toward the door, my brother and Gregor flanking me like we were going to war. Because we were. "I want her back. Now."
The elevator ride to the garage felt like an eternity. My hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the effort it was taking not to put my fist through the metal walls.
"Pavel." Artem's voice was calm, measured. The voice he used when I was about to do something spectacularly violent and stupid. "We need to think this through."
"No." I stepped out as the doors opened, heading straight for the Range Rover. "We need to get my wife back before I burn that entire fucking precinct to the ground."
Gregor slid into the driver's seat without being asked. He knew better than to let me behind the wheel right now. Artem climbed into the passenger seat, already dialing numbers.
"Kostya? Yeah, it's Artem. Hayes Street precinct. Now. Bring everything you've got."
The entire ride to the station, I thought about what they could be doing to her, why they would have her. We had no issues with the local police. To the best of my knowledge, there were no open investigations.
Even if there were, my family was well above their fucking pay grade.
If this was about the US government taking issue with what we’d been doing, the FBI would have brought in Gregor or Artem. Not my fucking wife.
Did they think they could get her to turn on me?
The thought made my vision go red. If some rookie cop thought he could use her to make a name for himself, I was going to teach him exactly what happened to people who touched what was mine.
The second the Range Rover pulled up to the police station I got out, not even waiting for the car to come to a complete stop. I marched in, right past the receptionist and into the bullpen, where a dozen officers stopped and stared.
"Where is my wife?" I said. I didn't yell. There was no need to. Everyone there knew who the fuck I was and what I was doing there.
Two men in suits approached me, detectives, most likely.
"Mr. Ivanov–"
I didn't stop to listen to them. I pushed right past them and went to the corner office where a portly man with a pockmarked face was sitting behind the large desk.
"Where the fuck is my wife?" Anger and promises of violence were laced into every syllable.
He looked up, ready to yell at the interruption until he recognized me. The blood drained from his face as I stalked into his office. His jowls trembled with fear.
"Bring me to my wife, or I'll start with your fingers and work my way up until there's nothing left of you but screams and regret. Then I'll do the same to every cop in this building while your families watch."
He nodded, his eyes wide.
Shaking, he stood and led me through the bullpen and down a long, bland hallway with doors on either side.
"She's in here, just answering a few questions for Detective Cortez. I was just about to come down and check to see if she needed anything, water or—"
He took a ring of keys from his belt and started fumbling with them.
"Is she?" I asked.
"Is she what?" He stopped and looked up at me.
"Is she answering any of your questions?"
"No, actually. The only thing she has said was to call you. She has been very uncooperative."
With no patience for his fumbling, I took a step back and kicked the door in.
Alina sat in the small, sterile interrogation room. She was pale and trembling, her wrists bound in metal cuffs, red where the metal bit into her delicate flesh.
Anger flared in me.
Then when I met her eyes, and she turned her head to the side to show the red handprint across her face, I fucking lost it.
I walked over to Alina and tilted her chin up so I could see the impression on her face more clearly. It wasn't a crisp single handprint—there were several that overlapped. Someone had dared to strike her multiple times.