Page 69 of Savage Little Secret

Andrei ends the recording on his phone and shakes his head. “I don’t know. An ally or an associate? It must be someone close to you.”

I rack my brain for any clues, but I’m so damn exhausted that barely any names come to mind. “I don’t understand. Who is bad for business?”

“He could’ve used better wording,” Andrei mutters as he tucks his phone into the back pocket of his black jeans. “Maybe someone you’re willing to protect that you’re in business with…”

My eyes dart around as I think to myself before landing on Andrei. A thought pops into my head, and I don’t like it in the slightest. “Anyone you pissed off lately, Andrei? Sleep with some powerful guy’s girl?”

His eyes widen. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I step closer to him, making him hold out his arm to try to get me to stop. “You’ve got some targets on your back. You’ve fucked with the wrong people before, and it’s cost you.”

Andrei’s face hardens. “Look, nothing I’ve done is serious enough to warrant your girlfriend getting kidnapped!”

“You’re one of the few friends that I have left! Who the hell else is he talking about?” I question him.

“Fuck if I know!” Andrei bites back. “But it’s not me! There’s someone else that you’ve worked with that has pissed them off to the point of kidnapping Cara!”

I search his face for any signs of deception, but I don’t see any. I just see my angry, confused, frustrated friend staring back at me because I just threw an accusation at him.

A heavy sigh breaks from me as I move to sit on the couch, slumping back into the cushions but not feeling an ounce of comfort. “Fuck, I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Andrei comes over and sits down next to me, a slow exhale leaving him. “It’s fine. You’re just worried and tired and pissed off. I get it.”

I rest my hand over my aching eyes, my body feeling so damn heavy. The stress of all of this is killing me, but I can’t stop. I need to figure out who the captor was talking about.

“I only have forty-eight hours to figure out who they’re talking about,” I murmur. “And I don’t even know where to start.”

“Make a list of everyone you’ve struck up a deal with or collaborated with in the last year,” Andrei replies. “They must be one of the names.”

I lower my hand from my face, my eyes meeting his. “Even if I figure out who it is, I’ll have to find them and capture them because they’re not going to be willing to be handed over to some stranger.”

Andrei frowns. “We’re going to figure this out, Dmitri.”

With every single day that passes, my hope dwindles a little more. It takes a beating every single day that I don’t get a single step closer to finding Cara and bringing her back home. Now, I only have two days to figure out this trade, or I lose her.

For good.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to save her in time,” I tell him in a quiet, defeated voice. “She could be already dead for all I know. They could still be using her to make me do what they want.”

“I believe that she’s still alive,” Andrei replies. “It’s too risky for them to not keep her alive for a trade. The moment that you see she’s dead, they should know that you’ll kill them all.”

My eyes darken. “Even if she is alive, I’m going to kill them all.”

“Then, hold on to that,” Andrei tells me. “Whatever it takes to motivate you to keep going.”

My eyes drop as misery spreads throughout my chest. “You know what’s keeping me going the most?”

“What?”

“We left off with her thinking that I never wanted to see her again,” I murmur, regret souring my stomach. “I thought I was keeping her safe by pushing her away from me. I kissed her that morning and then told her to get out and that I never wanted to see her again.”

Andrei’s face softens. “I’m sure she knows you did that to protect her.”

I shake my head. “You should’ve seen her face. She looked devastated. She wrote me a note telling me that she loved me. And I just…let her go.”

“You didn’t know that any of this was going to happen. No one did,” Andrei reminds me.

I still blame myself, but I give him a grateful look regardless because he’s a good friend. He stands by my side no matter what craziness I get into. I’m sure that I haven’t been easy to deal with lately.