Chapter 10
1078 Words
VIKTOR'S POV
The vodka bottle shattered against the wall of my office, exploding in a spray of glass and alcohol that rained down on the expensive Persian rug.
It didn't help.
Nothing helped.
Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours since Isabella Volkov walked out of my life, and I still couldn't breathe without feeling like someone had their fist wrapped around my lungs.
I poured another glass from the backup bottle I kept in my desk drawer. My hands are steady despite the amount of alcohol already coursing through my system. Years of practice had taught me how to function while drunk...a useful skill in my line of work.
A useless skill when it came to forgetting that storm-gray eyes and the sound of her crying.
"I hope your fear keeps you warm at night, Viktor Konstantin."
"It doesn't," I muttered to the empty room, downing the vodka in one swallow. "It f*****g doesn't, Bella."
A sharp knock interrupted my descent into self-pity.
"What?" I barked.
Alexei entered without waiting for my permission, his face grim. That expression on his face is the one that said he had news I wouldn't like, it had become depressingly familiar to me over the past three weeks.
"We have a problem."
I laughed, the sound bitter and harsh. "Another one? Let me guess...the Italians are moving on our territory again? The Chinese want to renegotiate their contract? Someone tried to poison my f*****g breakfast?"
"It's about Bella."
I was on my feet before he finished the sentence, the vodka forgotten. "What about her?"
Alexei pulled out his tablet, his jaw tight. "You said to monitor her discreetly. To make sure she was safe."
"And?" My heart was already racing, adrenaline cutting through the alcohol fog.
"She's been in Kotor for the past three weeks. Working at a café under the name Elena Petrov, living in a small apartment above a bakery. Shes been keeping a low profile, and staying off the grid." He paused, and something in his expression made my blood run cold. "Until two hours ago."
"What happened two hours ago?"
"Sokolov's men found her."
The world tilted and for a moment, I couldn't process the words or make them make sense.
Sokolov. Bella. Found.
"How?" The word came out as a snarl. "How the f**k did he find her?"
"We're still investigating. But Viktor..." Alexei swiped to a video file on his tablet. "You need to see this."
He turned the screen toward me. It is a security footage from a street camera in Kotor's old town. Though grainy and distant, but it is clear enough...
Clear enough to see Bella climbing out of a second-story window.
Clear enough to see two men climbing out after her.
Clear enough to watch her inch along a narrow ledge, her whole body shaking.
"What the f**k is she..." The words died in my throat as Bella's foot slipped.
I watched her catch herself, pull herself back up and the men gets closer to her. She look back once, calculate her odds and then she jumped.
"NO!" The word tore from my chest as I watched her leap across the gap between buildings. It was too far. She wasn't going to make it. She was going to fall and...
She hit the opposite ledge hard, her hands scrabbling for purchase on the windowsill. For one terrible second, she dangled in mid-air. Then she pulled herself up and through the window, and disappear inside.
The men pursuing her stopped at the edge, clearly unwilling to make the same jump.
The video ended there.
I stood there, frozen, my hands gripping the edge of my desk hard enough to make the wood groan.
Bella had jumped between buildings, she could have died or worse fall two stories onto cobblestones and break her neck all because Sokolov's men had found her after I'd pushed her away. So she'd rather risk death than be captured by my enemies.
"Where is she now?" My voice is eerily calm, the kind of calm that everyone knows comes before violence.
"Unknown. She disappeared into the building. Our surveillance lost her after that. We have people searching, but..."
"She's gone." I knew it instinctively. Bella is smart. She wouldn't stay in that building, or risk being cornered again. She'd run. "How long has it been?"
"Two hours, seventeen minutes since the attempted grab."
Two hours. She could be anywhere in Kotor by now. Or on a bus out of the city. Or hiding in some dark corner, terrified and alone.
All because of me.
I grabbed my phone and started making calls. The first to my pilot.
"Get the jet ready. We leave in thirty minutes."
"Destination, sir?"
"Montenegro."
I hang up before he could respond and turned to Alexei. "Get everyone. I want every available man on a plane within the hour. And I want you to pull every camera, every piece of surveillance, every f*****g byte of data from Kotor for the past three weeks."
"Boss..."
"I want to know where she's been, where she might go, who she's talked to. I want to know every step she's taken since she left Moscow."
"Viktor, we don't even know if she's still in Kotor..."
"THEN FIND OUT!" The roar echoed through the office. I swept my arm across the desk, sending papers and the vodka bottle flying. "Sokolov's men tried to grab her. They know who she is. Which means she's a target now. Which means every hour she's out there alone is another hour she could be found, captured, hurt, or..."
I couldn't finish the sentence. I couldn't voice the possibility that Bella might already be dead, broken on some Montenegrin street because she'd rather jump between buildings than let Sokolov's men take her just to not be another Elena.
"I'll make the calls," Alexei said quietly. "But Viktor? What's the plan when we find her?"
"I bring her home."
"What if she doesn't want to come?"
I met his eyes, let him see the truth in mine. "Then I will make her. Because Sokolov knows about her now. Which means she's not safe anywhere except here, under my protection."
"She's going to hate you even more than she already does."
"I know." I grabbed my jacket, checked the weapons I kept in my desk drawer. Two guns, a knife, and spare magazines. "But she'll be alive to hate me. That's all that matters."
- Writer
