Chapter 14

Victoria

 

 

 

The texts and calls wouldn’t stop. They were constant, never ending, and with each one that made my phone go off, the ice wall I had built around my heart tried to crack.

At first, I refused to read them, but as more and more came in until my voicemail was full and wouldn’t accept any more, I realized that maybe there would be something in one of them that would point me in the right direction of my goal hurting him as he had hurt me.

Making sure that door was locked, I buried myself under my covers in an attempt to protect my heart from the pain I was about to inflict upon myself.

The first crack came as soon as I heard his voice. The deep, slight huskiness still had the ability to caress every inch of my body. But there was something different in his voice, too.

Pain.

No, I refused to believe that the answer was that simple. That my walking away from him two nights ago had caused him anything more than a small irritation.

The second crack came at the use of that damn nickname he had given me. Kotyonok. It tried to warm me, but my heart was too frozen to be moved by something as little as a pet name. It pissed me off that he had likened me to a kitten. A defenseless, meek little kitten. That was how he had seen me, and what I had let him believe.

He was wrong.

I wasn’t meek, and I sure as hell wasn’t defenseless.

I wasn’t a kitten. I was a motherfucking tigress.

I erased the voicemail before he could get out more than a handful of words. The next message instantly began.

“I know nothing I say will make you forgive me, kotyonok. I have no excuses for what I did. None. I kept Klara from you, and I would do it again. Because it gave me a moment in time with you that I will never regret.”

He blew out a breath, and at the sound, the third crack hit my ice wall, vibrating through my entire chest and out into all my limbs, making me tremble. My chin began to wobbly, but I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes.

Delete! my mind screamed at me.

Listen, was my heart’s demand through the mile-thick layer of frozen wasteland I had spent the last two days erecting around it.

With fingers that shook, I hit delete.

“Please, just tell me you’re okay. I haven’t heard your voice, other than this goddamn voicemail recording in two days. I need to know you’re safe, kotyonok. A two-word text; that’s all I’m asking for.”

The combination of plea mixed with commanding authority shouldn’t have made my heart squeeze, but it did.

A dozen more messages said the same thing, each one growing more demanding. I told myself that it wasn’t desperation I heard in his voice. That after what he had done to me, he couldn’t possibly care if I was alive or dead in some back alley. Our time together might have been short, but it had been magical for me. Whereas it had only been a little bit of fun for him.

Tears burned the backs of my eyes as I remembered telling him I loved him, though he hadn’t once said how he felt about me. I hadn’t thought he could fall for me as hard or as quickly as I had for him, but I had thought I saw genuine affection and infatuation in his dark eyes.

Fuck, how could I have been so goddamn wrong?

“Victoria.” There was hoarse break in his voice. Then there was a static-filled pause. I could almost picture him having trouble swallowing around an emotional lump in his throat. “I miss you. I miss the smell of your daisy perfume. The sound of your laugh. The way you would look up at me with love shining out of your beautiful brown eyes. Love for me.”

There was another pause, and when his voice came back, it was as if there was no hoarseness to his tone. It was strong, commanding, and it was like a physical blow to my abdomen.

“I know you still love me. I know that this … It didn’t completely kill that love. I accept that you need time, kotyonok. I will respect that. But know that I will never let you go. Never.”

I couldn’t listen to the rest of the messages after that. Not when he was able to so clearly predict that, even though I hated him now, I hadn’t stopped loving him.

That wall of ice I had built wasn’t able to kill the love I had for my Russian wolf.

Nevertheless, I was sure I had found the key to hurting Adrian. The emotion in his voice couldn’t be an act. Maybe he hadn’t been in love with me, but he had cared. And from the desperation I had heard, I realized I was able to hurt him as deeply as he had hurt me.

I was what could hurt him.

 

 

***

“Let’s get a drink,” my sister urged as we stood in the middle of some new nightclub called Red Prism. It was wild in there, but the music was good and Scarlett had promised me it wasn’t in any way associated with Adrian. “We need a good buzz going on.”

Earlier that night, she had come into my room and conned me into going out with her. I knew she was trying to pull me out of my funk, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I was committed to my plan to make Adrian regret ever hurting me. At the same time, I missed him like an amputated limb. He had become a major part of my life—myself—and I was finding it hard to deal without him.

No matter how much I missed him, though, I wasn’t going to fall back into his arms. I wasn’t going to let him pull me into becoming the one thing I had always sworn I would never be. A mistress.

When Scarlett had come into my room and asked me to go out with her, it had pulled my head out of my own ass for a minute. I had realized she was no happier than me. Whatever was going on, or wasn’t going on, with Ciro was really messing with her. If she was willing to go out, when any other time I would have to beg, plead, and bribe her with really good coffee to even get her out the door, that told me she was having a hard time dealing.

Feeling like the worst possible twin in the history of twins, I had given in and dressed up for the first time in days. There was no enthusiasm in it, though; none of the joy I would have normally felt over the idea of a night out dancing with her. I was only there for her. If given the option, I probably would have pulled a page out of her book and been in bed sleeping right then.

My phone kept going off with the same texts and voice messages from Adrian. I erased them every night, but he had filled it up again since I had purged the inbox the night before. I didn’t dare listen to them, not until I knew I was strong enough to dish out the revenge I was planning. My heart was way too weak where he was concerned to even attempt it right then.

At the bar, Scarlett ordered us both double shots of tequila. I tossed them back without feeling the sting of the silver liquid as it rolled down my throat. My second shot had barely landed on the bar top when she grabbed my hand and pulled me with her onto the dance floor.

It took a few songs, but I soon let the music take over, relaxed enough to enjoy the music.

I felt Scarlett’s hand on my shoulder, her laugh in my ear making me smile for what felt like the first time in a million years.

I got lost in the music, pushing everything out of my mind except for the rhythm and how good it was to do something I had always loved with the one person I knew loved and supported anything I did.

“Hey, beautiful ladies,” a deep voice spoke loudly over the music, and I lifted my head to find some guy in skinny jeans and a black button-up only halfway done, dancing to our left. “Can I join you?”

Scarlett acted as if she hadn’t seen or heard him. She turned her back to him, rolling her eyes at me.

This was the norm for us when we were out like this. Guys wanting to chat us up, or the bolder ones asking us if we wanted to have a threesome.

Swinging her arms out, she “accidently” clocked him right in the balls. With his skinny jeans so tight, I was pretty sure his boys were already taking a beating. When she connected with his man parts, he bent in half like someone had just stabbed him in the belly.

A giggle tried to burst from my lungs, but I held it back, not sure I remembered how to giggle anymore. Meanwhile, Scarlett kept dancing like she hadn’t just crippled some stranger.

Two songs later, another guy with frosted tips and cologne so thick it burned my eyes tried to push his way between us. I watched as my sister narrowed her eyes and lifted her knee before the guy could even open his mouth. He gasped and fell to his knees, while Scarlett just took my hand and we went back to dancing several feet away from the downed man.

After that, no one else was brave enough to even attempt approaching us, and I wrapped my arms around her waist in a hug of thanks.

We danced in peace for over an hour. All the while, I kept feeling my phone vibrate with more and more messages.

“I need to pee,” Victoria said at my ear just loud enough for me to hear her over the music. “And you look like you need a break. You get some water, and I’ll go to the powder room. Then we can get out of here. Maybe grab something to eat. And a coffee.”

Of course, coffee. She was addicted to coffee.

She walked with me back to the bar where I ordered two bottles of water while she headed off in the direction of the bathroom. As soon as she was out of sight, I pulled my phone from my dress pocket. I wasn’t surprised to see the number of texts I had from Adrian any more than I was the few lines I could read without unlocking the screen.

For several minutes, I just looked down at the words, not really seeing them. He missed me, he said. I saw the words, over and over again in almost every text he sent me. He missed me. And fuck, I missed him, too.

I pathetically traced my fingers over his words then forced myself to delete them, one by one.

Swallowing hard, I picked up one of the bottles of water and took a small sip, glancing around for Scarlett. Even if there had been a long line at the bathroom, she should have been back by now. I glanced down at my phone, my eyes widening when I realized she had been gone for over ten minutes.

Moving away from the bar, I hurried through the crowd toward the bathrooms. I figured I would meet her along the way, but there was no sign of her. I knew she wouldn’t have left without me, and I doubted she would ever go out onto any dance floor without me or someone she trusted with her.

Maybe she had gotten an upset stomach, I told myself to ease the twisting nerves in my own stomach right then. Scarlett was fine. There was probably just an overly long line in the bathroom. Some girl had probably drank too much and now had her head in a toilet.

Those were the lies I kept telling myself, but in my gut, I knew something was wrong. Scarlett could take care of herself, I knew that. She never left the house without the little gun Ciro had given her when we were seventeen. Or the knife that Cristiano had taught her how to use just as good as him. She could handle any situation …

There was no line outside the bathroom door. When was there ever not a line to the women’s bathroom at a club this crowded?

Shaking my head, I opened the bathroom door and nearly tripped over something on the floor. Nausea churned in my stomach as I looked down and saw my sister’s phone lying at my feet. Fear like I had never known was like a shot of adrenaline through my veins.

No, she was fine, I kept telling myself. She was just in one of the stalls.

“Scarlett?” I called out, but the bathroom was oddly silent. “Scar?”

Behind me, the bathroom door opened and several women tried to enter. I searched each one’s face, but none were my sister.

“Excuse me,” one of the three women drunkenly mumbled as her and her friends headed for the empty stalls.

“Fuck,” I whispered as I stepped out of the bathroom. “Where are you, Scarlett?”

She wasn’t there to answer, so I did the only thing I knew to do.

I called Ciro.

 

 

 

Adrian

My apartment was in complete darkness, the only light coming from the city below as I looked out into the stormy night. It was pouring rain, lightning and thunder acting like a symphony to the chaos that was raging inside me.

Three days. Three fucking days since I had seen Victoria. Since I had heard her voice on anything other than that three second recorded greeting for her voicemail. Three goddamn days since everything that made my world bearable had left me.

I hadn’t slept. My mind wouldn’t shut off. The last night I had held her in my arms haunted me day and night.

I wanted her back. Fucking needed her back.

The men I had inside the Vitucci compound couldn’t give me any information, other than she was locked in her bedroom. I had others watching the compound, making sure she didn’t leave. So far, she had only gone out once, to some non-profit charity thing, and then she had returned right after.

Every night, I had gone to the same place where I had picked her up not far from the compound and sat in my car, waiting for her to appear. Each night, she never showed. Tonight, I had stayed home, figuring the storm would keep her inside. She was too smart to go out in this shit.

My phone went off for the tenth time in the last half hour. I barely glanced at it, expecting it to be Donati or Cristiano. They probably wanted to bitch about Jr. or some other shit.

None of my men had set eyes on the sonofabitch in the last few days, but I had them looking. Ever since he had appeared outside the Iron Hand, I hadn’t wanted to chance him doing something either to my sister or her beloved club.

When I saw the name that popped up, everything inside me stilled. My heart paused in my chest as I gave the phone a more thorough look. My thumb didn’t hesitate as I swiped it over the screen and lifted it to my ear. “Kotyonok.”

“Adrian.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, breaking on a sob as she spoke. Everything inside me turned cold. “I need your help.”

I was already moving toward the elevator as a hundred different scenarios played through my head. “Are you hurt?” I demanded. “Where are you?”

“Volkov.” The voice that answered me wasn’t Victoria’s, but Ciro Donati’s. Just that one word and I knew something was seriously wrong. His voice was just as cold and emotionless as always, only there was something just under the surface that told me this was important. “Jr. took Scarlett.”

Shit. No wonder Victoria was so upset.

“How long ago?” When the elevator doors opened, I hurried inside then stabbed the ground floor button. “Where did he take her from?”

“The Red Prism.”

I bit back a curse. It was one of the places my men had followed Jr. to a few weeks ago.

“She’s been missing for almost an hour now. Will you help me?”

I knew how much that must have cost the capo, but it only made me respect him more. If it had been Victoria missing, I probably would have asked for the other man’s help, as well. Nothing, not even my own pride, would have stopped me from getting her back.

“I’m on it,” I assured him without hesitation. “I’ll call you back when I know something.”

As the elevator slowed, I hung up with him and called Anya. When she answered, I could hear the noise of the club in the background.

“Scarlett Vitucci has been taken by Carlo Santino Jr.,” I told her before she could so much as say hello. “I want you to go over to the Red Prism and get Victoria. Bring her back to my place. I want to know where she is at all times. I need to know she’s safe. Understand?”

“I’m going out the door now.” Her voice was just as calm as it always was. “Good luck finding Scarlett.”

Six of my men were already in the lobby as I exited the elevator.

“Stop dicking around. I want Jr. found. Now. I don’t care what you have to do to find him.”

“He’s a ghost, pakhan,” Oleg told me with a bored expression on his pocked face. “We haven’t had eyes on him in nearly a week.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” I snarled at him, causing my men to stand at attention. “We will find him tonight. He took Vito Vitucci’s daughter. We find him, we find her.”

“Yes, pakhan,” Oleg and the five others said in unison.

I followed my men to the garage and got in the front seat with Oleg behind the wheel. I didn’t know what kind of shape I was going to find Scarlett in, but I knew we needed to find her sooner rather than later. There was no telling what Jr. would do to her. That sick bastard would get off on hurting and raping Vitucci’s daughter.

I leaned back in my seat, forcing myself to turn off the part of myself that wanted to protect Victoria and her sister so I could turn on the part that would do whatever it took to get my kotyonok’s sister back to her alive.