Page 116 of Cruel Obsession

Gavriil?

Arkady’s father.

These are his men.

Why would his men take me?

The question burns dimly as consciousness slips away. I try to hold onto it, try to piece together what this means, but my mind is shutting down, section by section.

The older man’s face appears above me, expression unchanged. He might be looking at a package, a piece of cargo. Nothing human in his eyes.

“Sleep now,kukulka,” he says. “Long journey ahead.”

“Arkady…” I whisper. His name feels important. Like if I can just say it, he’ll know. He’ll come.

“Quiet,” the man says. “No one is coming for you.”

The van doors slam shut. The sound echoes, final and absolute.

Darkness crowds the edges of my vision. I fight it, but it’s a losing battle. My last coherent thought is of Arkady—will he realize this isn’t me running away? That I’ve been taken? Will he know the difference? Will he come for me?

The engine starts. Vibration through the floor. Movement.

Then nothing.

Just darkness.

Thick and complete and swallowing everything whole.

Chapter Forty-One

Arkady

My fist crashes through the drywall before I realize what I’m doing.

Plaster dust rains down, coating my knuckles already slick with blood. Three hours. Three fucking hours since Mirabel’s phone went dark.

I wrench my hand free, barely registering the sting. The pain is nothing compared to the acid churning in my gut, the pressure building behind my eyes. I stare at the tracking data again, the map on my screen taunting me with its little pulsing dot, frozen at her father’s house. My messages sit delivered but unread, each one more desperate than the last. I must have called her twenty times at least.

“Where are you,zaychik?” I whisper hoarsely, despite having my suspicions.

Something is very fucking wrong. Mirabel would never ignore me like this. Even when she’s furious—like after catching her in the Secret Room or when I snapped at her about moving too slowly—she pushes back, challenges me. She doesn’t ghost. She never goes silent. Never disappears.

“Yobany v rot!” I slam my bloody fist against my desk, welcoming the sharp crack of pain. Physical discomfort is better than this hollow dread consuming me from within.

I pace my office, replaying our last conversation in excruciating detail. She claimed her father was in the hospital. But what if she lied? What if there’s something else happening? I should have verified her story, checked every fucking hospital in the state instead of taking her word for it.

Instead, I let her go because she looked at me with those big brown eyes, and my cock hardened like I was some green teenager instead of the head of the Laurov Bratva. Weak. Sloppy. Potentially fatal… for her.

Pizdets!

The thought chills me. For a moment, I see Mishka’s face superimposed over Mirabel’s—both lost because of my failures. I glance toward the east wing, where the Secret Room holds my brother’s ashes.

Not again.

I can’t lose someone else because I wasn’t vigilant enough.

The knock at my door is sharp, precise. I don’t answer, but Stefan and Yanis enter anyway, reading the murderous tension in my body like an open book.