His eyes widen, and his mouth opens and closes several times. “I didn’t . . . I had no—”
Nikolai clicks his tongue. “I’m sure that’ll teach you to speak more respectfully about women, Ivan, won’t it?”
Ivan nods, still clutching his leg.
“Perfect.” Nikolai claps his hands. “Let’s go.”
Ivan scrambles up, mumbling an apology, before climbing into the SUV.
We do the same, watching them as they back out of the warehouse first. I’m drumming my fingers on my leg, still annoyed with Ivan, and also impatient for us to get out and far enough away from the signal jammers.
The moment we’re in the clear, all of our phones chime with notifications, and Zeno stops on the side of the road.
I ignore all other messages, missed phone calls, and notifications, zooming in on the one that just came through from Nikolai.
The picture takes way too long to load, and when it finally does pop open on my screen, confusion spreads across my chest, followed by a sudden feeling of dread that snakes throughout my whole body.
Zeno leans in and scans my screen. “Isn’t that the same tattoo as—”
“No, no, no.” My brain is spinning a mile a minute as I dial Gemma’s number. The call goes straight to her voice message. “Fuck. Why’s it going to her voicemail?”
Zeno goes into action mode, getting back on the road while I check my security system and go through the different frames until I find Gemma taking a phone call right at the time we met with Nikolai. She looks panicked, with wide eyes and shaky hands, even on the video footage. I watch her running around the apartment, putting clothes on over her workout clothes, and doing who knows what, before she heads to the elevator and leaves.
“Where the fuck did she go?” I roar before pulling up the security footage from the building.
Gemma in the elevator, Gemma walking out of the building, and Gemma rushing to a black town car that’s waiting by the curb. The passenger door opens from the inside, a hand reaching for her to help her in. It’s clearly a guy, but he doesn’t lean over enough for me to see anything above his chest. Like he knows exactly where the cameras are.
But what’s easily visible, like a big, fat neon sign, is the tattoo on his hand. The same exact tattoo as the guy had who killed Tommaso.
“Motherfucker. I’ll kill him, I will fucking kill him. If he hurts one fucking hair on her head, he’ll be begging for a quick death.”
Chapter21
Gemma
As soon as I wake up, I know something is wrong. My mouth and throat are dry like I haven’t had a drop of water in weeks, and my head is screaming at me, pounding behind my skull. My brain is useless too, my memory and thoughts fuzzy, unable to help me figure out what’s going on.
A fresh bout of pain shoots through my head, and I groan until the sound gets stuck in my throat as a soft creak comes from only a few feet away. My heart skips a beat, but my body is too out of it to truly react.
“You’re awake.”
I hear the voice and freeze, my sluggish brain trying to understand what’s going on, but it’s too hard to focus. My entire perception is distorted, and nothing makes sense. Even the voice in my head sounds odd.
Hair covers my face, and I lift my hand to push it away, but I can’t.
I try to lift it, but cold metal immediately bites into my wrist, giving me little to no room to move.
To my surprise, my other hand isn’t restrained, so I use it to brush my hair off my face. Then I peel my eyelids open and immediately regret it. The room is bright, and fresh pain explodes behind my forehead with every single movement. Unable to endure it, I shut my eyes again and take deep breaths through my nose to fight the rolling nausea.
“What’s going on?” My words come out slowly and a little slurred, my voice weak and quiet. None of this makes sense.
I need to see where I’m at.
The light suddenly turns off, and I’m greeted with darkness the next time I pry my eye open. Since it doesn’t feel like my head will explode any more than before, I open my other eye too. Too bad I can’t really see much now in the darkness.
My heart is racing, and it’s hard to breathe past the tightness in my throat.
“Water.” I smack my dry lips together, no clue if that one word came out right or not.