Chapter 33 - Max

Since I was positive that Luca was behind everything and using his distant family members to orchestrate this kidnapping, I told Dima to lean on the Italians we encountered down in San Diego. I didn’t care if he framed it as a favor, bribed the hell out of them with every last dime I had, or threatened them within an inch of their lives. As long as one of them talked, that was all I wanted.

If they had information at all. Lev’s people were still trying to convince me that this was nothing, but an hour had passed since I discovered my wife was missing, along with her guard, and there was no calming me down.

Lev’s crew had scoured the area and had begun hacking into surveillance cameras in the neighborhood, including the hotel. If I saw her casually walking out beside Pavel, I would only start to relax. I’d still be heartily pissed off, since I insisted on continuing to call his number every five minutes with no answer.

It was too unlike my most trusted security specialist to ignore calls, and even though I saw the blooming friendship between him and Brooke, there was no way he’d ever jump ship and switch alliances. For one, the fact he personally cared about her now meant he was determined to keep her safe on a level that went beyond mere orders from me. If he hadn’t been so happily married to his high school sweetheart and bemoaning every late night I made him watch over Brooke, I might have been jealous of his bond with her.

No, there was no way he wouldn’t be answering my calls unless he couldn’t, and that was something that Lev’s people should have understood. I was pretty sure they did, and were just trying to keep me from tearing the walls down in my helplessness.

We were doing everything possible to locate Brooke, and I’d called every last person I knew who had some kind of relationship with Luca, all the way back to college. The only thing left for me to do was wait and wrack my brain for something more that might help.

What would I do without Brooke? How could I survive the crushing guilt if something happened to her before I found her?

That wasn’t happening.

As I paced, checking my phone every ten seconds and barely refraining from shouting at the two people working at laptops in the second bedroom of my hotel suite, I suddenly stopped dead.

I had contacted every last man and woman I knew who had a relationship with Luca, but that still left the ones I didn’t know. I hurried to grab my laptop and slammed onto the balcony where the fresh air might help me think. I was onto something, and there was a glimmer of a memory struggling to break out. Something helpful, someone who’d want to bring Luca down as much as I did.

There had been an up-and-coming actress about three years ago who’d briefly dated Luca. They had gone so far as to go public, appearing on red carpets together and being anointed the golden couple of the moment. Then she’d begun to get that thousand-yard stare that I seemed to be the only one to notice in the women Luca dated, and she slipped off the radar soon after they broke up.

I’d seen her around for a while after, and that was when my suspicions about Luca crystallized. There was no way she hadn’t suffered something while with him, but at the time, I just figured he was a giant asshole who wore her down with insults. However, at about the same time, there were quiet mutterings among starlets about not getting too close to him, so other people were starting to be aware. Leave it to Hollywood to keep his tendencies under wraps, because God forbid a movie of his might net a few billion less.

And, of course, there was never any proof, because no one ever spoke out.

It didn’t take too long to find her name, from searching old premiere pictures until I found one with her in it. Her social media was still active, and she seemed to be trying to get a break in the acting world. Fat chance of that, since Luca was anything if not vindictive once he’d tired of a plaything.

I messaged her on every platform I could find, and put in a call with her agency, begging for a callback, and promising to make it worth her while. We had met once, briefly, in my diner, when she was having her moment of fame at Luca’s side, and I was hopeful she’d remember me.

A few more restless hours passed with no news from Dima or anything useful from anyone on the search teams. The cameras at the hotel had been conveniently disabled from the time shortly after I left that morning until about an hour before I returned, so that gave us a window of when Brooke had disappeared, but it was a wide one. She had been away from me for far too long, and not knowing anything was killing me.

My phone rang, stopping the frantic pacing that was starting to wear me out, along with the stress and fear. I had eaten a sandwich that tasted like ash to keep my strength up, knowing I might have to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Pulling the phone out of my pocket, I saw it was an unknown number, and I prayed it was someone with information, or better yet, the kidnappers with their demands.

“Is this Max Fokin?” a woman’s curious and quiet voice asked when I barked a greeting.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Danielle Freeman, you messaged me? You said it was—”

“Urgent, yes.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you for calling me.”

“It’s been years,” she said, still sounding nothing more than curious and maybe a bit hopeful I had a lead on a job for her.

“I’m sorry I have no time to catch up,” I said, interrupting her once again. “I need to know some things about Luca. Specifically, where he is.”

There was a long silence, and I checked to see if she’d hung up. “I haven’t seen him in ages,” she finally answered. Now, there was no more hope in her voice. “I don’t keep up with him.”

“Look,” I said. “I know you went through some things with him—” she hissed out a breath, and I waited, but she didn’t say anything more. “I don’t want to make you relive any of that, but I think he’s finally snapped. And he has my wife.”

Once again, Danielle lapsed into silence, and I checked again to see if she hung up on me. The last thing I needed was for her to block me. Not that it would stop me from eventually getting information out of her if she had any, but it would be quicker if she cooperated.

“I can protect you,” I said. “You must know who my family is.” Still nothing but silence, and I clutched at my last straw. “I can give you however much money you want.”

There was a soft sob on the other end, letting me know she was still there. “I don’t want your money,” she said. “Yes, I know who your family is, but I don’t believe even they could protect me. If Luca’s got your wife, I’m truly sorry, because she’s in trouble. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I’ve known him since we were in college together,” I replied, thinking back to those days with regret. “I should have taken care of him back then.” Not going with my instincts where that low life was involved was an oversight on my part that I meant to rectify. “I will move heaven and earth to find Brooke. If that means one less movie star on the face of this planet, so be it. He won’t hurt you anymore,” I swore with all the vengeance I felt bubbling up inside me. “Help me so he can’t hurt her.”

It might have been hearing Brooke’s name, making her a real person to Danielle, or maybe it was my growling promise that I’d take care of Luca once and for all, but she eventually opened up to me.

And it made my stomach turn to lead. There had been a place in the Pacific Palisades that Luca had managed to keep completely off the radar.

“He had a…” she trailed off, making a choking noise. “I don’t want to describe it, or what went on in there. But if he still has that place, that might be where he took her.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” I breathed.

“Just don’t make me regret this, please. I’m not the only one who knows about it, but that doesn’t mean he still won’t suspect me.”

“He’ll never know you had any part of this. Just tell me the actual address.”

“I don’t know it,” she said bitterly. “I was never… he had ways of keeping me from knowing exactly where I was whenever he took me there.”

Fucking hell. I already wanted to get my hands on the vile piece of garbage, but now I was ready to tear his throat out the moment I saw him.

“That’s fine. You’ve been a huge help, Danielle. I’ll stay in touch.”

I hung up before she could answer, already on my way down to my car to head to the airfield. After ordering my pilot to be ready when I arrived, I called Dima to apprise him of what I learned.

“Are you sure you want to divert so many people on a hunch?” he asked. “There’s no reason to think he has her at all, for one thing, and if he—”

“It’s more than a hunch,” I snapped. My brother was entirely trustworthy, but until Luca was neutralized, I was going to keep Danielle’s name close to my chest. “We’ve still got a team looking here, but I need you to go with me on this.”

I gave him some more instructions and let one of Lev’s guys drive me to the airport so I could continue to make calls and lean on people who might know more about this place Luca’s unfortunate ex spoke about.

“Floor it,” I grunted to the driver even as he white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Uh, these streets aren’t actually conducive to high speeds,” he said as we took one of the many sharp turns on the hilly streets of San Francisco. Other cars were careening out of our way as it was, honking as we whizzed past.

“I need you to go faster,” I said, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror.

He went faster.