27. RADOMIR

The buzzing of my phone drags me out of sleep, its insistent hum slicing through the quiet. I groan, rolling onto my side, fumbling for the device as it skitters across the nightstand. Viktor’s name flashes on the screen.

“Someone had better have fucking died,” I mutter, voice rough and cold.

Viktor doesn’t waste time. “Olive’s throat’s been slit. I also sent you a message earlier—no body was found in the cabin Sabrina turned to ashes.”

His words snap through me like a gunshot, jolting me upright. My chest goes tight. No body?

Leigh shifts beside me, turning onto her back with a soft sigh, oblivious to the storm swirling inside me. The sheet slips down, baring the delicate curve of her breast. My cock twitches in response, but I grit my teeth and force myself to look away.

Pulling the sheet back over her, I pause. I don’t want to wake her. I lean over, pressing a kiss to her temple, my lips lingering longer than they should.

“I’ll be back soon, my love,” I murmur.

The words tumble out before I can stop them, leaving a strange heaviness in my chest. My love? The phrase rings in my mind, but there’s no time to unpack it. I swing my legs off the bed, dragging myself into focus.

“Who killed Olive?” I demand, my voice clipped as I clutch the phone.

“We don’t know,” Viktor replies. “The dungeon wing’s feed was cut for ten minutes. When I got here, the guards were already dead—gunshots to the head.”

My blood chills. Someone bypassed my security. My fucking security.

“Get Gunner on it. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I snap.

“Understood.”

The line goes dead. I stare at the phone, my mind a relentless churn of thoughts. Someone is playing a dangerous game—taunting me, sending a message. They’ve proven they can move freely within my organization, slip past my defenses, and leave chaos in their wake. They’re showing me I won’t see it coming until it’s too late.

Beside me, Leigh stirs, curling deeper into the sheets. The soft lines of her face, the gentle rise and fall of her chest—it does something to me, something fierce and unsettling.

She sleeps peacefully, oblivious to the fire creeping closer to her doorstep. And I know, deep in my gut, that my mother was right. Whoever’s coming for me doesn’t just want my empire.

They want my wife.

I dress quickly, pulling on dark jeans and a black shirt. The familiar weight of my shoulder holster settles against me as I buckle it in place. My movements are smooth and automatic as I pull my leather jacket on.

I turn toward the door glancing back one last time. I have to stop the urge to go back and kiss her again as a bad feeling knots in my stomach. She doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s at the center of all of this.

The journals, the burnt cabin, the shadow circling us—it’s all connected to her. To her past and locked up tight in the shadows of her memories.

I clench my fists, steel settling into my bones. Whoever breached my security, whoever slit Olive’s throat—they just signed their death warrant. I step out of the bedroom, my mind already calculating my next move.

No one fucks with what’s mine and lives to tell the story.

I turn to Olive’s lifeless body sprawled on the dungeon bed, her blood soaking the sheets. On her cheek, smeared in her own blood, is a mark—a symbol I know too well.

My breath stalls. My hand instinctively rises to my ring—the signet my mother had made for me after my father’s death. The original was cut from his finger and taken the day he was killed.

The mark on Olive’s face is the same pattern.

A chill slashes through me. The person who did this isn’t just back—they’re here to finish what they started ten years ago. I glance at the small table beside the bed. Scrawled in Olive’s blood are three words:

Gold Key. Journals. Leigh.

And beneath them, in a deliberate, jagged scrawl:

I’m taking them all. Then coming for the rest of what’s mine.

Ice floods my veins as dread coils in my gut.

Leigh!

Suddenly realizing this was all a distraction. I whirl around, shouting to Temur and Gunner. “Lock down the hotel. No one in or out.”

The two move instantly, radios crackling. Viktor and Dolph fall in behind me as I storm toward the elevators, my heart hammering a violent rhythm in my chest.

The elevator doors are halfway closed when a familiar voice shouts, “Get your fucking hands off me, you brute!”

I turn to see Sabrina—disheveled, wearing a long coat, pajamas peeking out, and fluffy slippers, like she’s just rolled out of bed. Her blonde hair is a mess, her arms flailing as Fredrik hauls her forward.

“What the hell is this?” I bark.

“Radomir!” Sabrina glares at me as Fredrik lets her go. “What the goddam fuck man! I get a call that Leigh’s in trouble. She needs me at the Diamond Hotel. I rush here and then your goon here—“ she flails her hand at Fredrik ”—tries to manhandle me. What the fuck did you do to Leigh?”

I don’t have time for this. “Get in the elevator.”

“What? No—“

I grab her arm, ignoring her protests as we pile into the lift. Dolph, Viktor, and Fredrik exchange skeptical glances, eyeing her like she’s lost her mind. To be fair, she looks insane—a tiny, crazy woman in slippers.

“What the hell is going on?” she hisses, her eyes darting between us. "Where the fuck is Leigh? Is she okay?"

“Leigh was safe and okay when I left her,” I snap, the impatience clawing at me. “She was sleeping.”

The ride feels excruciatingly slow. I know it’s in my head, but every second that ticks by gnaws at me like a blade to the gut.

The doors open, and we barrel out into the penthouse, Sabrina nearly tripping over Dolph in her haste.

“Watch it, you galoot!” she hisses as Dolph mutters an apology.

I push the bedroom door open and stop cold.

Leigh is gone.

On the floor beside the bed, a rag and a small glass bottle. Chloroform . Deliberately left behind—just to let me know how she was taken.

“What the fuck is all the noise?” Oleksi’s groggy voice grumbles from behind us as he stumbles into the room.

“Leigh’s been taken,” Sabrina and I say at the same time.

“Radomir!” Dolph’s voice comes from behind me, sharp and tense. I turn to see him staring at his phone. “Temur says a helicopter just took off from the roof.”

The roof.

They used the penthouse door to the rooftop. It had to be someone who knows this place—someone close. Very few know where that exit is. My mind races as I turn to Dolph. “Temur said you’ll want to see the security feed.”

“I’ll go check out the rooftop,” Fredrik says and disappears.

We move fast. Sabrina keeps pace with me as we head to my office, her slippers slapping against the marble. Oleksi, bleary but alert now, looms behind us, casting her weird looks.

“What?” she snaps, shooting him an unimpressed glare. “You’ve never seen a woman in pajamas before?”

Oleksi sneers, smirking like the cocky brute he is. “Women don’t wear pajamas to bed with me.”

Sabrina arches a brow, the corner of her mouth lifting into a mock-pitying smirk. “Oh? Do they prefer armor... or just regret?”

I ignore their bickering as I sit behind my desk, pulling up the security feed. Sabrina’s right over my shoulder, leaning in so close I can feel her breath.

“What the hell...” I mutter as the feed shows the rooftop door opening and a familiar face has Leigh wrapped in one of the sheets from our bed, limp in his arms as he rushes out. Sabrina stiffens, her voice a whisper. “But we blew that motherfucker to smithereens.”

“No body was found,” I inform her.

“That fucking roach!” Then her face pales. “How the hell would he have known about the escape hatch?”

Oleksi steps closer, eyes narrowing at the screen. “Who’s that…? Fuck.” His voice drops. “Is that Michael? Your stable manager?”

“No. It’s...” My voice trails off as the elevator dings.

“I’ll check,” Dolph says, stepping out the room.

There’s a moment of silence before we hear Dolph’s voice, sharp and unyielding.

“Stop right there, or I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”

A British-accented voice replies, low and deadly. “You can try, but I’ll be across the room and have snapped your neck before you even pull the trigger.”

Sabrina’s eyes go wide. She bolts from the room like a whirlwind. “Don’t shoot!” she shouts.

I’m right behind her, Oleksi and Viktor following close. The sight in the living room stops me cold.

An eerily familiar man stands there, calm and confident, his hands raised in surrender. Anger bursts through me, while Sabrina freezes mid-stride, staring at him like she’s seen a ghost.

“You!” I snarl. “You have some balls coming back to the scene of the crime.” I’m about to tell Viktor and Dolph to seize him but Sabrina stops me.

“No, wait!” Her voice rises as she points to him, saying sharply, “You can’t be here without a password!”

"Jesus Christ, Sabrina." I whirl on her. “This isn’t the fucking time—“

But the man answers, his voice even. “I promised I’d buy you a yellow T-shirt with a pink winky smiley face the next time I was in town.”

Sabrina’s voice cracks with relief and joy. “Uncle Nik.”

She flies across the room, throwing herself into his arms. He catches her effortlessly, folding her into a hug like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Oleksi growls, his voice tight with disbelief. “Didn’t we just see this prick abduct Leigh?”

Nikolas stiffens, eyes darken, his voice dropping to something lethal. “Someone's taken Leigh?”

Before I can blink, Nikolas moves.

In a blur, he disarms Dolph, spins me around, and presses a gun to my temple. His grip is like iron. I’m pinned in a way I can’t get to my gun and his voice is a venomous snarl in my ear.

“How the fuck did someone get my daughter? You were supposed to protect her.”

“Daughter?” Oleksi grunts, his jaw slackening before he sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re Nikolas Vasilikis!”

“Duh!” Sabrina pulls a face at him like he’s a particularly slow child before turning back to Nikolas. “We thought it was you, Uncle Nik!”

“Well, Radomir and the jolly giant”—Sabrina points at Oleksi with exaggerated flair—“thought it was you. I didn’t, because he didn’t answer the password question. I thought, could it be the same jerk who killed my father? But I thought you'd have killed him by now. Then I blew him up, and he survived, so it must’ve been Carlos because he knew where the escape hatch was—”

Nikolas stiffens, his voice slicing through her rambling. “Did you say Carlos?”

“Can you lower the gun?” Oleksi interjects, his tone as dry as sandpaper before Sabrina can answer Nikolas. “This will go a lot better for you if you just surrender now.”

“Please don’t surrender,” Dolph mutters darkly. “I’m really looking forward to shooting you.”

“No one’s shooting anyone!” Sabrina snaps, exasperation radiating off her like a storm. Her voice cuts through the tension like a clap of thunder, making five grown men snap to attention. My mother would’ve been proud.

“While you’re all comparing the size of your cocks, my best friend has been kidnapped by Carlos the psycho who—“ She stops abruptly, her eyes widening with a dawning horror.

“Oh my God.”

She pivots and bolts toward my office, muttering under her breath as she goes. Nikolas lowers the gun, shoves me away, and hands the weapon back to Dolph.

“You’re taking a chance giving it back to me,” Dolph growls, his eyes narrowing.

Nikolas’s gaze flickers over him like he’s an annoying ant. “Point it at me again, and I won’t leave you standing this time.”

That man has more fucking confidence than anyone I’ve ever met, and the worst part? I’m certain he can back it up as I’ve never seen anyone move like he did. I also get the feeling he’s aware of every move around him without so much as turning his head. I follow Nikolas into the office, Dolph and Oleksi trailing behind.

Sabrina is already at my desk, frozen, her gaze locked on the screen. We crowd behind her, our collective breaths held as she zooms in on the rooftop camera feed.

The image freezes. The helicopter door comes into focus, the emblem painted across it in stark clarity.

Sabrina points at it, her voice barely above a whisper. “Iceman Industries.”

The breath leaves my lungs. My fists clench at my sides as ice creeps into my veins, colder than any storm I’ve ever faced.

Nikolas mutters something low in Greek, his tone a deadly promise. I tear my eyes away from the screen and look up—straight into Nikolas’s chilling green stare.

He’s thinking the same thing I am.

Leigh’s nightmare has come to life.

But the Iceman didn’t just come for her.

He took her. Right from under my nose.