Chapter 23 - Lev

Sergey's house was in a chaotic state of violence and panic. There were several men scattered throughout the lawn, injured or dead, and there were still more running through the halls inside the estate. My men and I swarmed through the home like locusts, taking out the remaining asshole who looked to be assaulting the Vadim household and staff.

My main goal was to locate Sergey, but aimlessly wandering the corridors wouldn"t help me achieve that. The only way I could gather any information about this place was by finding the family leader.

"Fan out. Take out the fuckers causing this bullshit. If you find Sergey, radio me."

We were all equipped with walkies for easy communication, and since we'd been given the time, we all made sure to don our lifted bulletproof vests as well. Pietor hurried up, his gun leveled at the hallway just ahead of us.

"Information, Lev. We need it."

I sighed, grumbling to myself about the unfortunately correct statement.

"Find one to question. We want information about what Pavel's up to."

My men nodded in unison and then took off down the several halls that splintered off from this main vestibule.

Pietor stayed with me, and as we rounded another corner that led to the upper east wing, we spotted one of the intruders crouching behind a broken desk that had somehow made it out into the hall.

Nailing the fucker in the leg, Pietor slowed him down, and I shot through his hand when he went for his piece. We hurried over, and I kicked the gun away to be out of reach of our new friend, and Pietor pinned him to the desk, stepping down on his leg wound.

"Fuck!"

We snapped our eyes to each other, and I furrowed my brow as the guy's voice rang out through the otherwise empty hall. Irish accent.

"Well, well, well. It looks like we know who'd been helping Pavel with his little excursion into the Vadim property."

I knelt down, putting the barrel of my gun beneath the guy's chin and forcing him to look up at me. His eyes met mine with no shortage of rage, and he clenched his teeth as Pietor's boot squeezed down on the man's leg.

"Fuck off, you bastard. I'll never give you anything. You might as well just kill me now."

Without a doubt, the man"s accent was noticeably strong, indicating that he was most likely from Dublin. I'd studied people, dialects, and customs from all over the globe, always thinking ahead so that I could be one hell of a force to be reckoned with, and I just smirked at him.

"You've already given us quite a lot, haven't you? And what would O'Connel himself think about how easily you gave it up? Hmm?"

Growling, the Irish fucker fought against the hold Pietor had on his leg, but he was going nowhere fast.

"I gave you shite. You think this was the play? Just this? We've already accomplished what we set out to do."

I snapped my attention to Pietor again, frowning as I read the truth behind the man's words.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Pietor lowered his face into the man's stare as he asked.

But good old O'Connel boy clammed up.

Pietor stepped down hard on the man's bullet wound, and he cried out.

"Let's try that again, shall we?" I dug my gun harder into his throat.

He didn't want to speak now, however. I cocked the hammer back again and put my eyes right in front of his, giving the asshole nothing else to look at.

"Spill it. You're testing my nonexistent patience."

The guy just smiled, a laugh bubbling up through him, and then shook his head. "Ding dong, Mr. Vadim. Ding dong."

I squeezed the trigger, sending his brain matter flying across the wall behind him, and stood back up. As Pietor relaxed his leg, I eyed him hard.

"Call the house. Now."

My cousin just nodded.

Pulling out my cell, I dialed a number only I had. The other end would ring a phone that I'd hidden in my nightstand. Loud and clear enough for Parker to hear as long as she was in the room.

"Pick up, damn you."

It rang once, twice, three times, and no answer.

"Fuck!"

My blood roared through my veins, a throbbing sensation in my temples that was the tell-tale sign of an impending migraine like I had never experienced before. I pushed it aside, dialing the number again. Nothing. I dialed again. Still no fucking response and I was damn near cracking the phone in half as it rang over and over.

Pietor looked over, shaking his head.

"Get someone on the damn phone now!"

I dialed again. One more time.

Nothing.

My heart was so loud in my ears that I couldn't hear Pietor on the phone with whoever he'd reached. I couldn't truly think or see either. All the signals were being processed. I objectively knew that the world still existed around me. Still, everything felt as if I was interacting with it through gloves or underwater.

Chest aching in a way I could scarcely comprehend, my mind circled back around to the only other time I'd truly felt like this.

I could see my brother walking down the hall of my old home. I'd rushed down the stairs after I'd heard a gunshot, my own weapon poised in my hand. His back was to me, and the door to the study where our mother read was open.

Smoothing across the oriental rug was an expanding pool of deep crimson, and I pushed the door open enough to see her dead on the floor, a massive hole blown through her head.

My stomach clenched, and I nearly threw up on the spot. But then reality had crystalized around me, and I had been immediately aware of what my brother had just done.

I'd flung myself down the hall after him. I'd only been seventeen. He was twenty-seven.

Memories of him referring to me as the oops baby had swelled in my mind. The words about our mother having gone soft, of our father fucking off and dying instead of dealing with her, had swirled through my veins.

When I'd reached him, I'd held my gun up with shaking hands.

"You're not going to do it, you little piss ant. You haven't got the balls."

I had been nearly sure he was right. But then he'd smirked at me, wiping the blood that had splattered on his face off with his sleeve.

He'd killed her. The one woman in all the world that I'd cared about, who'd been kind to me.

I fired as he'd taken another step forward, dropping in on the spot with a similar head wound.

Bloody. Fatal.

And I had been left alone in the now quiet house.

"Lev!"

My mind clicked back to the present as Pietor screamed my name, and I realized what was worming through my nerves like a disease.

Fear.

"What." It wasn't a question.

"This is wrong. The house isn't answering, and I just got our driver on the line, who says the front door is locked. We need to go."

"Fuck."

It had been a trap. We'd been lured here. Just as the thought occurred, I saw several of the Irish family still alive fleeing the house. Sergey was hot on their tails, delivering justice to anyone who landed in his sights.

When he saw me, sergey sprinted over.

"What the fuck is this all about?"

"Pavel. He wanted me gone from the house. He wanted…Fuck!" I kick the dead Irishman at my feet, knocking him over. "He's got Parker. I just know it."

Eyeing me with a combination of annoyance and intrigue, Sergey cocked a brow and gestured down the hall.

"Get the fuck back there then. Deal with this, and take that fucker down."

I just nodded. There wasn't time for anything else, and then Pietor and I were running for the front door of Vadim House.

***

My men had caught up with Pietor and I, getting us back to the house. The place was eerily quiet, and when we arrived at the front door, it was locked.

The team grabbed the battering ram from the Escalade's emergency kit and broke the thing down so we could get inside.

More of the house's guards were dead or incapacitated. It looked like whoever had been in here had been more concerned with speed than ensuring there were no survivors.

I didn't wait to see more of them, running down the hall and up the stairs to my room. The door was open, and all along the floor on the way to the doorway was a trail of blood drops.

"Parker!"

Pietor was on my heels as I ran with everything I had, and I still couldn't hear anything from the woman who should have been in there. My heart raced even without exertion, and a part of me deep behind my ribcage felt like it was cracking apart under enormous pressure.

This can't be happening. Don't do this. Don't fucking do this, you piece of shit universe.

Still, silence came from my bedroom. I pulled up to the door, swinging myself inside using the wooden frame. It was empty. No sign of Parker or whoever had been here, but plenty of evidence that suggested a scuffle.

The chaise was knocked over, the covers on the bed were rumpled, and the closet door, which was normally closed, was open. I hurried in that direction, going on instinct, and found the clothes Parker had been wearing.

"She must've changed."

I wasn't talking to anyone in particular, even if Pietor was just behind me. I scanned the floor, noting that the boots I'd bought her were gone.

"Parker assumed she'd be needed to help people. She changed."

"Okay," Pietor sounded from just past the door, "what's that mean?"

I shook my head. "It means whoever was in here had waited for her to come out of the closet to jump her. He'd watched her come in."

Slamming my hand against the wall, I welcomed the pain that licked through my fist.

"Dammit."

Turning around to check the room for anything else, I stopped short when Pietor didn't move.

"You going to get out of my way, or do I need to move you?" My voice was a low growl.

He frowned at me, and I swear to God I was this close to slugging the fucker.

"I need you to be honest with me."

Pietor's stare was serious, something he reserved for rare occasions, and I folded my arms over my chest.

"Fine."

Exhaling hard, I noticed the slight roll of Pietor's eyes before he spoke. "She means something to you. More than leverage against Pavel."

It wasn't a question. He already knew it. My cousin just wanted me to admit it.

There was no point in denying him now.

"Yes."

Thankfully, he left it there. He really did just want me to admit it, and knowing the asshole like I did, he probably thought he was doing it for me. The thing was, though, I'd already come to a time of truce with myself about it.

I was more than aware that I shouldn't feel dick about Parker. But I did. End of the fucking story, mate.

"I smell shitty men's cologne. It ain't yours."

Pietor's comment snapped me back into focus, and I took a deep breath. I could smell it, too.

"I recognize it." I sighed, rolling my eyes as I ground my molars. "That fucking office of Pavel's wreaked of it. It's got to be one of his men."

We each turned away from the other, scrounging all over the room for anything that we could use.

That's when I noticed it.

A tiny slip of paper was placed on Parker's pillow. Running over, I snatched it up. Scrawled in sloppy writing was a brief message and a phone number.

"You want her so fucking bad. Come and get her."

I crumpled the note in my grip, looking at Pietor. "He's ransoming her."

A beat of silence passed before I grabbed the bedside lamp off the nightstand and hucked it across the room. The sound of glass shattering was nearly music to my ears, but it wasn't the crack of bones.

That's what I really wanted—to hear Pavel's skull crunch under my boot.

"Fuck!" I looked at Pietor. "Get the men downstairs sorted. Call our fucking doc, then let Sergey know the play."

He just nodded, leaving me to fume. I reached into my pocket and retrieved my cell phone, which I must have subconsciously remembered to put there. I opened the keypad and dialed the number. I stared at it on the screen for a few moments before I hit the green button and let it ring.

Putting the thing on speaker, I gripped my phone with white knuckles as it rang—once, twice, and then it clicked open.

"Lev. Good to hear from you."

Pavel's voice was damn nails on a rusty chalkboard, and I clenched my jaw.

"What the fuck did you do with her?"

"Tsk, tsk." He chuckled, and it took everything in me to not throw the fucking phone across the room. "You can come and get your little tart. We'll call it a trade."

I had to force myself to take a deep breath through the nose. "What do you want, Pavel?"

That annoyingly confident chuckle sounded out of him again, and I looked up at the ceiling. I promised anything that was up there watching this unfold that I was going to tear the fucker's tongue out with my bare hands.

"That's easy. You."

My internal functions stopped, skipping a moment in time before I blinked, and the world came back into reality again.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Pavel must have moved somewhere because suddenly, his voice was echoing on the other end of the line.

"You're quite the prize for a new up-and-comer like myself. I imagine there would be few who'd be so willing to fuck with me if I could boast about taking you out of the game."

"You want to use me as a fucking stepping stone. Get fucked, Pavel."

He sighed. "I mean, it's up to you. You want Parker back to your place unharmed? Then, you come alone, no weapons, and you hand yourself over."

My jaw ached from the strain of squeezing it shut so damned hard.

"She's your daughter, you piece of shit."

With a scoff, Pavel sighed—like he was bored.

"She was a fucking accident, and her mother wouldn't get an abortion, so don't think I'm holding onto the feels."

He was a disgusting excuse of a man, but there was nothing I could do right now. I'd been outplayed, and as much as I hated to admit that, I needed to at least go along with this part so I might have success later on.

"Deal."

"Wonderful." His tone was chipper, and I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat. "I'll text the address to this number. See you soon."

With that, he hung up. I stared at the phone until I saw the location come through.

My guts twisted as I looked at the screen. I had to go. I had to get her back. So, I walked to the closet to do a little changing of my own. Unarmed was one thing. I wasn't stupid enough to go in unprotected, however.

"Hang tight, little one. I'm coming."