“It’s okay,” Uri tells me. “You’re safe now, Alyssa. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” He tucks me close into his embrace. “It’s going to be okay now.”
Then he bends his lips to mine and kisses me. It’s the lightest of kisses, so soft that it might as well be a dream. I’m Sleeping Beauty in this one and he’s my prince—but this is no fairy tale. Because even though his kiss brings me back to life just enough to make out the hazy, blurry outline of his frame silhouetted against the light spilling through the door, the things I have to say to him are terrible.
“Polly,” I whisper.
Uri stiffens instantly, his eyes growing wary. “What about her?”
“Sh-she’s gone.”
6
URI
I let my relief get the better of me.
Seeing that I arrived just in time to stop Alyssa from being violated by that lecherous mudak… it made me lose my head. It made me touch her and look at her and hold her in a way that I had vowed never to do again.
And that kiss…
Big mistake.
Especially because now, I can feel it on my lips as I pace the house wildly, trying to figure out where the hell my sister is.
“Well?” I demand every time I pass one of my men in the corridors.
“No sign of her, sir.”
“This room is clear, sir.”
“The house is empty, sir.”
I’m ready to blow the whole place up, Boris right along with it. The only reason I don’t is because he’s the key to finding out where Polly is.
The basement door bangs open and Nikolai appears with Alyssa in his arms. She’s got a blanket wrapped around her body. I had the forethought to cover her up a little before my men appeared. But after that, I’d gotten as far away from her as possible. Her eyes roll strangely as Nikolai coaxes her towards the front door of the safehouse. She keeps fading in and out of consciousness, murmuring, mumbling, and twitching sleepily.
“Uri.”
I turn to my brother reluctantly. “We’ve got to get her back home so we can flush her system. The motherfucker drugged her.”
I flinch away from looking at her. Despite how pissed off I am right now, I feel the possessive beast inside me rear his head. She should be in my arms right now, it’s roaring. Not his. Mine.
“Get her back home. Send her with Stepan and Josef. I have to find Polly.”
“Boris is down there?”
I nod. “And he’s gonna cough up some answers.” Then I blow past my brother and head back down to the cellar.
Boris is still deeply unconscious when I reach the bottom of the staircase. I kick him with my boot and he falls onto his back. “Hanz! Dmitri!” I roar back up. “Bring me water.”
A few moments later, Hanz appears with a bucket filled to the brim. I grab it and pour the whole thing right onto Boris’s face. He splutters desperately, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.
I pass the empty bucket back to Hanz and squat down so that I’m at eye level with Boris. When I see that he’s awake now, I pull my gun out and place the nozzle directly on his forehead. “Talk.”
He blinks, his eyes crossing as they land on the gun between his eyes. When he finally pieces together what’s happening, his beaten-to-shit face splits into a bloody, gummy grin. “Your woman has the nicest tits I’ve seen in a while.”
Breathe, I tell myself. Don’t let him win.
I shove the gun harder against his forehead, causing him to fall back. “Tell me where my sister is.”
The bastard just smiles at me some more. There’s not a trace of fear on his face. “You have a sister?”
He knows that I can’t kill him now. Not until he gives me what I want. It’s giving him power, confidence. I pull the gun off his forehead and point it at his leg. When I pull the trigger and blasts his knee to bits, he howls.
I get to my feet and wipe the blood off my hands. “You think I’m playing, motherfucker?” I growl. “I will take a piece of you, one inch at a time, until you give me what I want. Each will hurt more than the last. Now, where the fuck is my baby sister?”
Boris snarls at me for a second. “Your sister… oh! you mean that little slut I sold to the auction rings? That sister? She’s long gone by now.”
My body goes cold. Not the rings. Anything but the fucking rings.
“You’re lying.”
He grins again. “Am I?”
Furious, I drop my gun and start punching. I keep punching until he’s even bloodier than before. I don’t stop until someone physically pulls me off him. I’m about to whirl around and punch the asshole who stopped me before I realize it’s Nikolai.
“Brother,” he says gently, “we don’t want the bastard dead just yet.”
“I’m going to kill him one day. Slowly.”
“And I’ll be happy to help. But for right now, we need him alive.”
My fists are aching for more, but there’s no denying that Nikolai is right. I nod and he orders the men to load an unconscious Boris into the back of one of our armored jeeps.
“Make sure to secure him down in the cellar. Restrain him with everything we have. I don’t want him to be able to even blink.”
They salute and jump to carry out my orders. Meanwhile, I drag myself up the stairs and out of that nightmare house. Slumping into the seat of the lead car, I sigh and close my eyes. Nikolai joins me behind the wheel.
“Alyssa?” I ask gruffly without opening my eyes.
“She should be almost at the estate by now. I’ve ordered Stepan to put her in one of the bedrooms and lock her in.”
“No.”
Nikolai’s eyes snap to me. “No?”
“She’s proved time and time again that she can’t be trusted. I want her back in the basement and this time, I want the door locked and bolted. No one gets in or out without my permission. I don’t want Lev having access to her, either.”
Nikolai stays uncharacteristically silent.
“What?” I bark.
“Nothing. If those are your orders, I’ll see them through.”
“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
He shrugs. “Lev has been asking for her since we brought him back home.”
“Exactly. He’s far too attached already. She’s not going to be around for very much longer and he needs to adjust to life without her.”
Nikolai falls back into silence. I decide to not let that irritate me. By the time we get to the house, Alyssa has been locked down in the basement and Boris has been confined to the shed cell with Alan.
But my head is a mess.
Polina’s still out there. A fresh new pawn circulating in the skin trade. And extracting her has just gotten ten times more complicated.
I walk into the living room and start pacing. I need to plant men in the ring. I need to get information on future auctions. I need to determine where she’s being moved. If she’s already been sold.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK!
“Brother.”
I come to an abrupt stop and turn to Nikolai, who’s standing in the threshold of the door. “Take a breath,” he advises.
“You take a breath. How can you be so calm?”
“Because we can’t both be a mess right now.”
I glower at him. “I’m not—”