9. Ivan

9

IVAN

“ G one?” Becca clutched the phone until her knuckles turned white. “Hannah! What do you mean she’s gone ?”

She slumped forward, her tone hysterical with this news that her baby was missing.

I reached out, instinctively reacting to guide her to fall on the couch, not the floor. Being near weakened women wasn’t anything new for me, but this deep and automatic need to see to Becca’s comfort and safety was something new.

We’d reached an impasse, her and I. In the middle of fucking her for the purpose of getting some damn answers—ones I suspected she might not actually have for me—I’d fallen into something other than doing my duty and job. With her pussy snug on my dick, her breathy moans all for my ears and her sweet surrender my reward, something bigger developed between us.

I wasn’t lowering my guard so far that I was falling for her. There was no chance of her getting to me and convincing me to give her up, let her walk free. But while she was stuck here to serve as a bait, it seemed that the lines were blurring.

I cared . I was starting to. Hearing and seeing her so distressed about her child taunted me to empathize, to try to understand and make sense of it.

I’d never considered having a family outside of my brothers. For so long, I’d been convinced there was no woman out there who’d tolerate my darkness.

But she did.

What we did was just touching the surface of what I preferred, the basics of my kinks, but Becca not only accepted it, she’d reveled in it.

I had no experience with children to truly grasp how her world was crumbling apart with the news of Emily being gone. But I could suspect how terrible it was. If my sisters-in-law had their children already, if Mila and Amy had given birth to my nieces and nephew due soon, I would move heaven and hell to secure those children’s safety.

Scuffling noises sounded on the other line, then a hard grunt and Hannah’s scream.

Becca whimpered, staring at the cell phone as though it were a bomb ticking. Anxious and holding her breath, she clutched it and waited.

“Ivan. Get over here.”

I took the phone at Dmitri’s order. How and why he was answering, I didn’t know.

“What’s going on?”

“Get to her apartment. Yusef was tracking someone nearby, and another soldier was still watching her place.”

He was running, his footsteps loud from the other line.

I headed to the door, too, aware of Becca hurrying after me.

“No. You stay here.”

“But—” She grabbed my sleeve, eyes wide with panic as she struggled to keep up.

“The soldier watching her place alerted me to the invader. Fuck!” More scuffles sounded. “Just get here. Now!”

The call was dropped, and I thrust the phone at Becca. She fumbled to catch it, mouth open wide and spluttering for me to wait for her as I ran toward the door.

“Ivan! Wait! I need to—” A wretched sob cut her off as I warded her back.

“You have to stay here.”

It could be a trick, a ploy to get her to run from here. Anything was possible. I had too few clues and answers, but I knew nothing would change the fact that she had to remain here as my hostage.

Maybe it’s Murphy. Maybe he’s stupid enough to try to turn the tables and get Becca to escape for her baby.

I slammed the door shut after me, ignoring Becca’s cries and furious shouts to let her go. To bring her with me as I rushed out to meet with Dmitri and take charge.

One stern glance at the soldiers outside the door was all I needed to know she wouldn’t be going anywhere. Despite her yells and fists banging on the door. No matter how much she begged and ordered, Becca would not be the first hostage to slip away from me. Those two men would stand there at the door and prevent her from leaving or anyone entering.

Familiar with Becca’s address from staking out her home, I made quick work of driving over and seeking out my brother. I found him easily. In the alley, he and another Valkov soldier chased down another man, and I didn’t hesitate to sweep in and join them in their efforts.

“Ivan. Watch out!” Dmitri’s warning didn’t make sense until the Italian swung around. He still held something, a black, bulky container I didn’t recognize.

The instant wail of a cry startled me, though.

A baby.

Emily.

She was strapped into the container, a bucket-like carrier. In the blurred frenzy of too much action, I couldn’t slow down time to get a good look at her. All that mattered was this man trying to steal her away.

I yanked the handle of the carrier, pulling the baby out of his grasp as I punched the asshole hard.

He staggered back, dropping out of my reach, but I wasn’t done. One-handed, as I held the carrier out of harm’s way, I leaned up to kick the side of his head.

The carrier left my grip. I spared a single glance back to see that the Valkov soldier was taking it and setting it aside while I rained down more punches and kicks on this fucker.

Dmitri took over, holding up his hand to keep the Italian down. “Is that hers?” He panted from the exertion of chasing this man down from the building, and I retreated to see the infant screaming and crying. All that noise would cause more attention, and I hurried with the buckles and straps to get her out and shut her up.

I had zero instincts with an infant. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, but I hoped to quiet her right now.

Before I could get her out and hold her, assuming that would help, I felt a rubbery piece of a circle. What’s this? A pacifier? Something like it. I slipped it toward the baby’s mouth, and she closed her trembling lips around it. Her green eyes were wide open and glossy as she stared at me with a pout. Fuck me. It was a punch to the gut, seeing Emily’s innocent face so scared, her tear-streaked cheeks.

Dammit.

Guilt swamped me, and it made no sense. I’d never spent any time around kids. Never wanted to. Hadn’t ever planned to. But after one second of seeing this sweet girl so upset, I wanted to pulverize this asshole who’d tried to take her.

Another soldier ran up, slowing in the alley.

“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded. He was the one who should’ve been watching around here.

“The Rossini broke into her place.” He swallowed, catching his breath. “Marcus ran inside to intervene, and the footage shows the man breaking into Murphy’s apartment.”

I tensed, watching the baby. Hearing someone reference Becca by her surname bothered me. That was how I referred to her father, Steven Murphy, and I didn’t like the association of Becca with him.

“He knocked out the babysitter. Marcus is with her, taking her to the hospital and telling her not to speak about this with anyone. Her head hurts, but it doesn’t look bad. She’s more startled and confused than anything. She was about to take the baby with her to drop off something at the college campus, taking the baby with her because she didn’t know where the mother was.”

I nodded, calming as the report clicked and made sense. Hell, I hadn’t known about Emily. If I had, I would’ve planned to retrieve Becca and her daughter as a package deal. Two hostages for one. I hated the thought that she’d been suffering this whole night and worried about being parted from her daughter. Hannah was there, and it sounded like the sitter wouldn’t have left the baby alone when Becca didn’t come home. Still, it was a wrench in the plans I hadn’t accounted for.

“Rossini?” I checked, standing as I lifted the baby carrier. I handed Emily over to the soldier as I studied the man. He looked Italian, all right, and livid. Caught between two Valkov men as they held his arms back, the asshole panted and scowled at me.

“Rossini?” I said again, asking him directly.

“Fuck you.” He spat at my feet, and Dmitri slammed his fist into his stomach.

“Take him to the basement of the Garrent facility,” I ordered, referring to a nearby Valkov property. The old warehouse would do for an impulsive torturing session.

I brought Emily to my car, and as the soldier slid into the backseat and tried to strap her in, I caught the baby’s careful, scared gaze. She watched the man, sucking on that pacifier, and I felt hit once more with this possessive streak of rage. To fight for her. To defend her. To shelter her.

What the hell is happening? I rubbed at my chest, thrown off with how immediately I wanted to protect this stranger’s baby.

No, not a stranger. Becca was no longer just a hostage. She was infiltrating my mind and tricking me to think of her as something far more personal.

“What are we going to do with the baby?” the soldier asked as Dmitri and the other man drove the Rossini to the building.

“ I will handle her,” I told him.

I did. I carried the handle to the seat-like contraption, confused with the awkward grip. Like a large loop, it jutted up and out. This wasn’t ergonomic at all, but I kept her close, surrounded by Valkov men, as Dmitri brought the Rossini to the basement.

Dismissing the stains of blood dried on the floor, I set the carrier off to the side in a room with windows that permitted a view into the torture room. Emily whimpered but didn’t cry out as I stepped away and closed the door to prevent any screams or sounds from bothering her too much. A Valkov man stood on guard in there with her, an older soldier. “Go on. I’ll calm her if she fusses.” He had a few kids of his own, so I knew he’d try his best.

I nodded, grateful for the assistance.

Then I strode out to the other room, extracting my knife from my pocket. Holding it reminded me of how I’d used it on Becca, but I shoved down the memory. Now wasn’t the time. I had to focus. “Start talking,” I ordered the Rossini.

He didn’t. Not at all. I was careful with the wording of my questions. How I posed them could potentially give away information, so I began with general demands for him to explain what he was doing and why.

He said nothing, though, and after a while of punching him, severing his fingers and scalping him, I wondered if he even was a Rossini. He didn’t bear the branded mark many of their soldiers wore as a sign of initiation into their organization, but whoever he was, whatever organization he affiliated with, he would not speak up.

Similar to Becca’s silent treatment, the man who tried to take Emily remained mute. Silent to the point of pain and bleeding out. Quiet with a stubborn stupidity that pissed me off.

“He’s not going to say shit,” Dmitri concluded after a couple of hours.

I shook my head, agreeing with my brother but irked. All this time, and he wouldn’t crack. It happened sometimes, but it aggravated me at the moment more than it otherwise should have.

Emily had fallen asleep, sucking on that pacifier, and I sighed as I glanced through the window at her on the table in that other room. She hadn’t stirred.

Dmitri lifted his gun to point at the man, but I held my hand up to stop him.

I didn’t need a gunshot to wake Emily. Instead, I returned to the man and sliced his neck.

While Dmitri gave orders to have the place cleaned up, another man approached to report in. “I’ve handled the other woman. She’s at the hospital, and with concerns of a head injury, amnesia can help explain away what she saw.” He handed over a large bag. “She won’t talk, too scared, but we’ll keep a man on her to make sure she doesn’t report Becca and Emily missing.”

I nodded, not taking the bag while using a handkerchief to wipe the blood from my hands. “What’s that?”

“The woman was preparing to bring the baby with her to turn in an assignment due for a class. She had a bag of diapers and baby stuff prepared.”

Probably thinking she’d need to stick with Emily all night.

“We have a crew cleaning up the break-in at the apartment building. Someone is altering the security footage as well.”

“Good.” I took the bag, sighing as I looked back at Emily. This was how things went down. We came, we saw, and we conquered. As a family, we worked together to deal with whatever shit came at us. I had complete faith in my men, in these soldiers who’d erase evidence of Becca and Emily being missing.

Now, I had to bring Emily to my hostage. There was no question in my mind to unite the mother and daughter. Keeping them separate served no purpose. Becca was a hostage to lure Murphy out, but she didn’t need to suffer any undue stress of missing Emily and worrying about her.

On the drive back to my building, I peeked again and again at Emily sleeping in the backseat. This need to see her and check on her felt weird, but I couldn’t stop.

Becca’s pleas for me to make sure her baby was safe kept replaying in my mind, and I looked forward to being able to deliver on that request. I led a violent life, but I wasn’t so cruel as to hurt an innocent baby. My wrath and anger were best suited for adults, for the men and women who threatened my family.

Calming down from the rush of torturing and killing that man, I considered too many questions that I couldn’t answer. Intrigue filled me, and I tried to filter through all the new things to figure out.

How the hell is an innocent infant mixed up in the middle of all this?

Is she? Maybe she isn’t.

It could all be a decoy.

Murphy could be trying to use her as a decoy. A diversion.

To what? Get Becca away from me so I couldn’t get to him? He had to be aware of how I was hunting him down now, if I hadn’t made it clear enough. Murphy was a long-standing enemy of the Valkov Bratva, but the men I supervised had let word slip that I was after him now.

What could I be missing? One more look back at Emily filled me with more confusion. This baby was a surprise, but I didn’t want to linger in wondering how and if she mattered in this vendetta against Murphy. Of if she played a part in whatever Murphy was trying to do with the Rossinis.

After I parked and carried Emily up to Becca in my penthouse, I couldn’t shake this paranoia that I was being watched. Not in this building, but in the city. Trying to hide Becca and Emily here seemed like a challenge, and I wished I could have more distance from any potential danger here.

Someone trying to reach Emily was a conflict I didn’t want to worry about. Keeping the mother and daughter together would make it harder for anyone to sneak in and interfere. Distancing them from this epicenter of the city would be a smart move to keep things in my control, further from any Rossini or Murphy himself. While I intended to keep Becca as a hostage to lure Murphy out of hiding, I didn’t plan to have him approach me here , at home or wherever Becca was. I’d arrange for a neutral meeting point, somewhere else for him to speak with me for his killing blow.

My building was guarded. This was a safe location. No one was getting in or out without my knowing about it. But it no longer seemed like enough.

Keeping Becca as a hostage was critical. But seeing to her security seemed like a more important responsibility that I didn’t want to mess up. She had to be safe and secluded not only to lure Murphy out, but also because I needed to know she was all right.

“Ivan?” Her quiet greeting came as soon as I set foot in the penthouse.

Walking toward me, she watched as I turned and revealed the baby carrier. She had to have been waiting and watching the door all this time because as she ran toward me, crying tears of relief at seeing Emily, she looked one step away from collapsing from exhaustion.

Too bad. Now wasn’t the time to relax or rest.

“Get ready. We’re leaving.”

She hurried to unbuckle Emily, glancing up at me.

“I don’t trust staying here or being in the city,” I explained. I didn’t answer to her. I didn’t need to tell her a damn thing, but I wanted to soothe her. I wanted to erase that etched-in expression of tension.

Seeing her in the throes of passion and pleasure would have been nice too, but I caught myself from thinking about fucking her again.

I wondered if I’d erred to do so in the first place. Because it was becoming too easy to see her as my woman, not my hostage.