TWENTY
Luka
There's a forceful knock at the door. "Come in," I say.
Madisyn slowly opens the door to my office and pokes her head in. I gesture for her to step inside, and my stomach flips when I see the red envelope from last night, which Mark had left for Hannah.
"Where did you get that?" I ask. I can see the contents torn open upon further inspection, although I don't know what the letter said. I never read it.
"Hannah gave it to me. She wanted me to leave with her."
"Leave?" I leap up from my desk and brush past Madisyn. "Did you let her leave?" I head for the study where Bay had been playing earlier in the afternoon.
"I'm not her keeper," Madisyn says as she follows me down the hallway. She folds her arms across her chest when I glance into the study and see the toys abandoned but no sign of Hannah or Bay.
"Where did she go?"
"You should have been honest with her," Madisyn says. "She was going to find out eventually. What did you think would happen when she discovered the truth from her ex-fiancé?"
I sneer at her suggestion. "He wasn't supposed to tell her. He's dead!"
Mikhail steps out of his office, hearing the commotion. "What the hell is going on out here?"
"Hannah left with Bay," I say. "She found out that we're bratva and took off with my kid."
"Bay is her kid too," Madisyn says. "She's just trying to protect her. She'll come back."
I glare at Madisyn. "You don't know Hannah. She's not coming back." I head toward the garage and grab a set of keys.
"Where are you going?" Mikhail asks. "Unless you know where she's going, you'll never find her."
That's the point. She doesn't want to be found. Hannah doesn't have a cell phone that I can track, and I never put a GPS tracker on her vehicle.
"I can't just let her leave with my daughter!" I run my fingers through my hair. "What do you suggest I do?"
"We can hack into surveillance footage of roadways and follow her vehicle to wherever she goes," Mikhail says. He's calm. Like he's done this before and is not the least bit concerned.
Sweat beads at my forehead. My stomach is in knots, and I'm hoping not to get sick. Maybe I shouldn't care, but Bay is my daughter, and if Hannah wants to leave, Bay stays in my custody.
"Have a seat in my office," Mikhail says, and I do as he asks.
My skin is crawling, and my leg bounces, antsy to do something. I'm not a man who sits still and waits. Everything inside of me aches with the knowledge that she's gone, and it's because she's angry with me.
How could I not have seen it coming?
"Just sit tight. Let me find Nikita," Mikhail says and hustles out of his office and down the hallway. He leaves the door open.
Madisyn stands by the door. "I'm sorry," she says, her hands clasped together. Her apology is sincere, but it doesn't remove the pain or ease what happened.
Will I ever see Hannah and Bay again?
Even if I find them, how am I going to fix this? I'm bratva. It's a part of who I am. I can't just walk away from it, even if I wanted to leave.
I exhale a heavy sigh and lean forward, my head in my hands. I royally fucked up. "Just when things were finally going right," I mutter.
"It can be fixed," Madisyn says. She leans against the doorjamb and folds her arms across her chest.
"How?" I glare up at her.
"Explain it to her," Madisyn says. She's calm, but she knew from the beginning that Mikhail was the leader of the bratva.
"I don't think a bouquet of roses and an apology will fix this situation."
"Chocolates," Madisyn quips with a grin.
I'm not smiling. "It's not funny." How can she laugh? Oh right, it's not her kid's life that was whisked away. "I blame you."
"Me? What did I do?" Madisyn scoffs and steps farther into the office, standing in front of me.
"You’re friends with Hannah."
"And?" she stares down at me. "What's that have to do with anything? I didn't introduce the two of you."
I clench my jaw, ignoring her as she hovers and steals my personal space. "Back off," I snarl, wanting space and to be left alone.
"Fine," Madisyn huffs under and stomps off like a little kid.
There is no easy way to fix what happened. Groveling isn't my strong suit. I'm usually direct and take what I want, but Hannah isn't going to fall back into my arms because I tell her I want her in my life.
As I sit in silence, Mikhail doesn't return for quite some time, tracking down Anton and giving him orders to hack the traffic cameras. I didn't realize he could hack anything, but maybe he's reaching out to the associate who handles that type of work.
My phone buzzes with an alert. I yank my phone from my jacket pocket, unsure what to expect. Most of the alerts on my phone are on silent, like texts and emails. The notification alerts me that there is motion at the apartment.
Hannah's apartment.
"What the hell?" I open the application and get a live feed of Hannah and Bay in the living room of the apartment.
Thankfully, Mark's body was removed, and evidence of our involvement was cleaned up.
I turn on the audio feed, making sure not to turn on the microphone so she can't hear me. "What is she doing?" I say, watching her scrounge through the apartment.
We grabbed a bunch of clothes already and toys for Bay.
Hannah isn't packing anything. It's like she's looking for something.
I can't sit around and watch, waiting to see where she goes next. I hurry out of Mikhail's office, breezing by him in the hallway. "She's at her apartment," I say, rushing toward the garage to grab the car keys.
"What's she doing there?" Mikhail asks.