Chapter 31 - Max

It took me less than twenty minutes to have some of Lev’s men meet me at the hotel. Three of his best guys set off to scour the surrounding area for any sign of Brooke or Pavel, while Lev’s second-in-command tried to calm me down.

For the third time, he peered at the smudge of blood on the door frame. It was hardly visible, and had taken me a while to notice it myself.

“This could be old,” he said. “It might not even be blood. You’ve got to hold it together and not panic. Maybe they just went somewhere for breakfast.”

Not panic? That brilliant suggestion would have had me laughing if I wasn’t already neck-deep in it. Panic was in the rearview mirror already. I was well on my way to losing my shit. There was no way this was nothing, not with Pavel not answering my calls. He knew better than that. Even one missed call would have been cause for alarm with someone as trustworthy as him. That’s why I had assigned him to Brooke, but now I knew it should have been me.

I should have dropped everything from the start and never let her out of my sight. I got complacent, somehow tricking myself that this was a vacation. Because I had started to feel guilty for keeping her locked up, I forgot the reason I was doing it in the first place.

She was still in danger, that had never gone away.

“Hey, are you still breathing?”

I turned to my older brother’s second-in-command and shook my head. “Barely. There’s no way she went out for breakfast. No way Pavel would have allowed it.”

He raised a brow at me, silently asking if I was sure. He didn’t know the whole story, because Lev didn’t. Lev couldn’t, because that would have meant Jenna finding out. Then all hell would break loose.

As if the gates weren’t breaking open right now.

I shook my head again, not bothering to explain. I was certain I’d convinced Brooke how dangerous Luca was, but no one really knew what the psychopathic movie star was capable of, especially being deprived of what he considered his prize for so long. Waiting impatiently for news from the search team, I started calling up all my contacts in Hollywood. It was time to call in some favors.

No one knew where Luca was, and I believed that the people I spoke to weren’t holding out on me. Luca was famous and powerful and could probably hurt their careers if they spilled secrets, but I could hurt them if they kept quiet. I instructed each of them to get in touch with me if they heard from him, and I reiterated that they better not wait around to do it.

My last hope was his agent, someone who also owed me a favor or two, but someone I didn’t trust in the least. I didn’t like doing it, but I insinuated some pretty unpleasant things befalling his family if he wasn’t upfront with me.

“I swear I don’t have a clue,” he said, voice quaking over the phone. “And to tell you the truth, he’s been pissing me off so badly with his erratic behavior I’m about to drop him. He’s risking the premiere coming up and—”

“This is a little bit more important than a movie premiere,” I cut in. “But you’d be smart to drop him, if you’re serious about that. I think he might have finally gone off the deep end.”

I waited patiently as the Hollywood veteran swore quietly on his end, and then promised to keep me apprised if he learned anything about Luca’s whereabouts. He had the audacity to ask me not to get the press involved, and all I could do was laugh bitterly about that before ending the call.

No, the press wasn’t going to be involved when I found Luca. His agent would disagree with me, but having a bunch of witnesses with cameras would only help Luca out once I got my sights on him.

It was only when I ended the call with the obnoxious man that I realized I’d come to the end of the line with people who might be able to quickly locate him. I still had no idea where Luca was. Or where my wife was. Worst of all, I didn’t know how long it had been since she was taken. I was gone the entire morning, so they could be hours away by now. More if they put her on a plane.

I nearly sank to my knees in terror and made it to the couch before I crumbled. Barely letting myself think about what he might do to her if he got his filthy hands on her, I forced myself to concentrate on finding her. And then what I’d do to him.

My next call was to Dima. “Get ready to move on a moment’s notice,” I said, quickly filling him in.

“I’ll get my guys on surveillance and start making calls,” he said. “And put people on all of Luca’s known properties.”

“Good thinking,” I said gratefully, always able to count on him. I stared out the wall of windows at the bridge in the distance, the bright sun and surprisingly blue sky at complete odds with the darkness threatening to overtake me. “That fucking madman has her,” I said, choking on the anger that had nowhere to go. “I just know it.”

“Hey, Max,” my brother said, his voice as calm as it always was. “I know it’s too late to tell you this, but don’t panic. We’ll find her and get her back.”

All I could do was wait and pray he was right. And that we found her before it was too late.