Page 273 of Sexting His Assistant

Her eyes stay on mine. “I’m counting on it.”

My stomach drops. I stop talking after that.

The drive is not long, but it feels endless. I try to count turns. Left. Straight. Right. Another right. Rougher road. A stop. A gate rolling open. The smell changes, city stink turning into damp metal and old oil.

I keep my breathing steady because panic will not help me. Luka would tell me to observe. Misha would tell me to stay sharp. I hate both of them for being right when neither of them is here.

The man gets out first and pulls me after him.

I nearly fall again. Meredith catches my elbow.

I jerk away. “Don’t touch me.”

For a second, something moves across her face. Then it’s gone.

“Suit yourself,” she says.

They take me inside through a side entrance.

The warehouse is old and mostly empty, with high ceilings, broken windows covered by sheets of metal, and concrete floors stained by years of use. There are crates stacked along one wall and a few work lights set up near the center. The light is harsh and white. It makes everything look worse.

Including the blood. I see it before I see him.

A dark smear on the concrete. Then a shoe. A hand.

My body goes cold. “Misha?”

He is tied to a chair near one of the metal support beams.

For one second, my brain refuses to accept that the man in front of me is my brother.

His head is hanging forward. His hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat and blood. One side of his face is swollen badly. His shirt is torn and dark in several places, and his arms are tied behind the chair so tightly that his shoulders look wrong.

“Misha,” I scream.

I lunge toward him.

The man holding me yanks me back.

“No,” I shout. “Misha!”

He doesn’t move.

My throat closes.

“No. No, no, no.”

I fight harder, uselessly, stupidly, because there’s nothing else my body knows how to do. The plastic tie cuts into my wrists. The man behind me curses and wraps an arm around my waist to hold me still.

“Misha, please,” I say, and my voice breaks. “Please look at me.”

His head shifts. Barely.

But it shifts.

He’s alive. A sob tears out of me before I can stop it.

“He’s alive,” I whisper.