Page 38 of Forced Mafia Bride
Silence.
Then, more heavy breathing on the speaker and quick-paced movement of shoes. He was moving with an urgency that could only mean one thing.
“Ronan knows.Everyoneknows. One of the men walked in this morning with the verification of the news that his sister had escaped from your custody two months ago and hadn’t been found till date. I’m not fucking sure how he even got the verification in the first place, but Ronan is mad as hell and has set his men loose like dogs on a search.”
Fuck.
With a sudden burst of energy, I stood, sending my chair scraping backward, and grabbed my phone. Anatoly was right behind, snagging the car keys before we both headed out the door. Aiden was still speaking, trying to provide coordinates of her last sightings, most visited locations while she lived with Ronan, and possible places where she could be. Then, he paused.
“Are you going to do something about finding her, or should I?”
We approached the Tesla, but my feet stopped moving. Aiden remained oblivious, but I’d already sprang into action, mindlessly surrendering to the overwhelming urge to track her down. He was asking me now ifIwas going to do something about it.If I still wanted her.
I knew the answer.Fuck, even Anatoly knew the answer. He stood by the door, waiting for me, knowing the meaning of the tension hanging in the air.
My eyes narrowed as I gazed past Anatoly’s face, my mind consumed by a singular mental focus: Rosalyn. The mere thought of her name ignited a fire within me, fueling a determination that possibly bordered on a thin line of obsession.
She was mine.Mypossession.
No one took what belonged to me and lived to tell the tale.
My jaw clenched as I recalled the events leading up to her disappearance.
Ronan’s brazen attempt to take her from me still simmered in my veins like poison.
We were going hunting to take back what was mine. And I was going to stop at nothing to reclaim her, to make her understand that she belonged to me, body and soul.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“If Ronan has an army of a hundred men, I have a thousand already at my command.”
I hung up and marched to the car, nodding toward Anatoly. “I want every resource allocated to finding her. Leave no stone unturned. No lead unexplored. I want her back, and I want her back today, unharmed and untouched. Not a fucking scratch on her body, got it?”
He nodded, knowing better at this time than to question my resolve.
And when I finally found her….
No one would ever take her from me again.
Chapter 17 – Rosalyn
Brown kangaroos and flying peacocks.
For weeks, that was all I’d been thinking about. What colors I’d paint the baby’s room, the designs I’d plaster from the ceiling, the aesthetics, the cot,allof it.
I’d had such wild imaginations that Hannah had to introduce me to something she said everyone was using now, especially for creative ideas.Pinterest,they called it. She’d gotten us a new phone so neither my brother nor Nikolai would be able to track us and set it up with an old ID she hadn’t used in years. And it had been a lot more than useful. But they didn’t offer much about kangaroos and flying peacocks. Mainly A.I. generated pictures, but I desired something a bit more original. If I went along with the kangaroos and flying peacocks, it would blend for both sexes, whether my little baby turned out to be a girl or a boy.
Humming a crazy morning tune I’d accidentally picked up from one of our neighbors, I moved about the small kitchen space, stroking my midsection while I poured the last of the Cheerios from the box into the bowl. Sighing, I grabbed the remaining milk carton from the hand-me-down refrigerator we’d managed to get at a yard sale and chugged a bit of the milk before pouring it on the cereal.
The last creamy drop from the box evoked an eye roll before I dumped the carton in the trash. Thankfully, Hannah was out for groceries, but I stayed home as I’d consistently done for the past month since my baby bump was now slightly noticeable. Hannah made countless attempts to talk me out of my paranoia but hadn’t succeeded and was not going to. I didn’t want the neighbors talking or asking questions.
I feared that news could spread and word would get to Nikolai, revealing our location and, worse, my pregnancy. If either happened, I didn’t even want to imagine his reaction.
We’d lived in the hood for two months, and the folks in the residence were nice, but we could never be too careful. We’d managed to keep our heads low, and now, when we were so close to finally leaving, I wanted to make sure our heads were even lower.
One week more and, finally, freedom.
I felt a kick and wasn’t sure if it was the baby or my excitement for the experience of true liberation. Whichever it was, I was grateful.