Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva), Nicole Fox [life changing books txt] 📗

can be strong and soft at the same time, who knows the right lullaby and which stuffed animal is the one for car rides and which is the one for sleeping.

I need Charlotte.

But first, my daughter needs a bath and a bedtime story and to be tucked in and kissed good night. After I see to those things, I will decide about Charlotte.

By the time I’m finished and Tiana is snuggled in her bed with her bunny and her mermaid, a teddy bear, and a baby shark, I am wrung out from the day. I walk to my bedroom, wanting to fall into bed.

But I have a thousand things left to do. I have to call the agency and arrange for another caretaker for Tiana and work out a damage control plan for the now-viral video of my altercation with the gossip reporter.

I should probably examine why his characterization of Charlotte sent me into a rage, but I have about a thousand voice mails to check. Most of them probably reporters calling for comment, but since it’s the easiest task to cross off my list and one I can take care of while lying in bed, I tackle the voice mails first.

The first four are from reporters who want a statement on the “brawl” outside the office today, a couple from a business associate on too low of a level to have my number—it’ll require a discussion with Yelisey and a meeting with Vlad—but it’s the one from Charlotte that makes me feel worst.

“Kostya, it’s Charlotte. I’m so sorry about my mother. She just wants my sister home. It’s been …” There’s a long pause, but I can hear her panic. “Anyway, she won’t go to the police. She doesn’t have any proof anyway …” She’s crying now and my gut tightens. Shit. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep you and Tiana safe. You have my word. Please call me back so we can talk.”

Before I can process her words or what they do to my insides, the phone rings again. “What?” Yelisey had best have a good reason for interrupting.

“Kostya.” His voice is soft, and I know the news is bad. Worse when he sighs. “When is the last time you spoke to Charlotte?”

My head starts a slow throb behind my left eye. I don’t believe in premonitions or weird psychic phenomenon, but my hackles are tight. “It’s been a few days. Four, I think. Since I fired her.”

“They found her car at one of our buildings.”

“Okay?” But my gut is roiling.

“The door was open, the car was running, and Charlotte’s gone. Without her purse or cell phone.” He clears his throat. “I have Vlad on the street with Dmitri. Looks like the Whelans, but I don’t know.”

Blyad.

“I want every man we have on it. Get to all our contacts. I want to know where she is. Now.”

I let her down. Threw her out. Left her unprotected. Then showed my hand when I went after that fucking reporter because he mentioned her. Shit.

If they hurt her to get to me … There’s no coming back from that. I don’t have to wonder why I feel that way because I already know.

I love Charlotte. And I will do whatever it takes to save her.

19

Charlotte

Every bone and muscle in my body aches.

I’m perched at an odd angle with my hand over my head and I can’t move it. Even with my eyes refusing to open, I know something’s wrong. Maybe especially because my eyes refuse to open, to see the reason why I’m on a cold concrete floor with my back against what can only be a car door—also cold, also hard, and metal.

As I sit, I listen for clues as to where I could be or what could be happening. I still can’t convince my eyes to open.

I smell gasoline and oil. The floor is cold. There is a buzz from a light overhead.

Carefully, slowly, as I brace myself for the pain I know is coming, I lift one eyelid and take in my surroundings.

It’s a mechanic’s shop. I’m handcuffed to an old car’s door handle.

Now, I open both eyes, and, right on schedule, pain shoots through my head, behind my forehead, down my face, and through the back of my skull to my neck and spine. My limbs are coming back to life, and there is unimaginable agony shooting down my legs, which are bent just behind my ass. When I try to swing them around in front of me, I gasp at the stiffness.

Through the pain and fogginess, I look for Lila.

No. Wait. She left.

Went home? Yeah. That’s right.

I think. Nothing feels certain.

“Char, I have to go home. My little girl is sick.” She woke me up and whispered the words in the early morning hours in the hotel room where we were staying. That was … two nights ago? Unless I’ve been here longer than a few hours.

Oh shit. What if I’ve been here longer than a few hours? And no one knows.

What happened? I checked out of the hotel. Went to look at a move-in-ready apartment that worked with the amount of money I took out of savings.

Where is my purse?

I scan the area, twist my neck as far as I can in each direction. Fuck. That’s my entire life savings. Not to mention my cell phone. My car keys. The little bottle of pepper spray Mom gave to me for Christmas last year. Obviously not here.

The weight of it all is too much in my head for my neck to hold up. I sag back against the car and try to breathe.

“You want to talk about that?” Back at the hotel, Lila nods to the bag in my lap, the one holding the pregnancy test. The one we avoided talking about in the store and in the car.

“Not really.” In our family, we don’t talk about things like this. We don’t talk about anything. But, since that’s how