A Highland Wedding

This Is A Family Thing

Alexei

I scowled at the phone wondering when Gregor Mackenzie was going to get it through his thick skull that we no longer wanted him to be a part of this. He was the reason that Anna was abducted.

“We could use him to help us. He does know more about that psycho than we do.” I glowered at my father who put his hands up in surrender.

My phone rang again and I didn’t recognize the number, my father glanced at the screen and gestured for me to put it on speaker.

“Nikolaev speaking, who is this?” The phone had a lot of static on the other end and I could barely hear the person on the other end.

“Who is this? You need to speak up I can’t hear you over all the static.” I was ready to hit the end button when the call dropped.

Scowling at the phone I felt my stomach churn with worry, was it, Anna? Was she trying to contact me to tell me where she was? I looked at my father who was on the phone with one of our family tech guys to see if the phone number could be traced.

The phone rang again and I hit the green receive button, I could hear my pulse racing in my ears. I hoped it was Anna, I just wanted to hear her voice.

“Hello? Alexei Nikolaev?” The man sounded familiar but Alexei couldn’t place his voice. The guy was also whispering, why was he whispering?

“This is Alexei, who is this?” There was the sound of a door closing and Claire’s voice in the background yelling about something. I knew better than to say anything, I didn’t even breathe.

The door slammed again and the man on the other end of the phone breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, whoever it was, they were afraid of Claire. This did not give me any confidence that Claire would leave Anna unharmed.

“This is Maddox Ferelli, I want to say it was not my idea to kidnap Anna. This is all on Claire. I want to help.” He was whispering now and speaking quickly.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” There was a bitter laugh on the other end of the phone and then he covered it with a cough.

“I wouldn’t trust me either, but you see Claire isn’t thinking straight and while I love her. I do NOT want to be on a Nikolaev hit list.” My dad raised his eyebrows at me and I shrugged. He did have a valid point about my family.

“I see, so why come forth now and not earlier?” There was a sigh again and then silence, maybe the call was dropped and I hoped they were able to track the call.

“Look I will try contacting you and keeping you abreast of where we are. Right now we are somewhere in Italy. Our end game is going to be Germany.” I cursed silently. They weren’t even in the country anymore.

“Don’t bother trying to track the phone I have to keep it off and it is a burner anyways.” Alexei wanted to go through the phone and strangle the little peon.

“Is Anna, ok? I swear if you hurt her in any.” He left the threat unsaid. Maddox did in fact reach out to them so he was not a complete i***t.

“I am doing what I can to keep her safe and out of harm’s way. She received a blow to the head. I am going to try and get some medical attention for her. I have to go.” The phone went dead and I sat down on the barstool.

“Well that was useless, I will see what Basil can do about this.” My father stalked out of the kitchen and Eugenia started fussing over me. She was devastated when she found Anna gone. The dogs were beyond controllable.

I was glad that Daniel decided to stay here because I would not be able to handle everything. Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair and felt like the world was weighing me down.

“We will get her back. Now you need to eat. Isn’t your grandmother arriving with us soon?” I smiled sadly, my babushka was supposed to be meeting Anna, she even invited my grandmother to live here.

“How is Caleb handling all this?” I forgot to ask about the boy, Jer and Daniel have been doing very well with distracting the boy. He has been having night terrors as well now. I slammed my fist on the table and Eugenia raised an eyebrow at me.

“I swear if I get my hands on Claire, I am going to kill her.” Eugenia sighed and patted my hand.

“I would rather not know what you will do with the girl. She is not well and needs help. That however does not excuse what she did. Now eat.” She shoved a plate of food in front of me and I heard my stomach growl in protest.

“Thanks Eugenia.” She smiled and turned away from me, Eugenia and Sinclair were not handling this well. Jer was beyond himself and spiraled into a tailspin.

“We will get her back Alexei; I have faith that we will get her back.” I certainly hope she was right. I wasn’t finding any comfort in the fact that even with our security system they still snatched the woman I love from under our noses.