Cruel Paradise - A Mafia Romance Chapter 100

“… what? What the fuck do you mean… Where… When? Damn it, Maks! Okay. Fucking hurry.

Hell’s Kitchen.” Kirill cuts the line and swipes a hand over his hair. “They can’t find her.”

“I thought you said she was supposed to stay overnight for observation.”

What do they need to observe? What happened? I hate that I don’t know. I hate that I want to know. I hate everything about this situation.

“Yeah, well, she was. Apparently, she opted not to.”

“Stupid,” I mutter. “As per fucking usual. Maksim and the team are heading to Hell’s Kitchen?” “As we speak.”

I clench my fist around a fountain pen hard enough to bend it. “Where else would she go?”

Kirill doesn’t look as confident about that and I have no clue why. But asking him might just encourage him to start talking about Emma and, as much as I want to make sure she and the kids are safe, I do not want that.

“We need to get a team on Adrik, too. The motherfucker knows too much.”

Kirill frowns. “Do you think he might know something about Sergey’s disappearance?”

“I have a feeling he might. He knew about the launch date. And he’s the only one who stands a chance to gain through my failures.”

“So we know that Adrik has something to do with the botched launch. My question is, How?” Kirill starts cracking his knuckles. “This launch was airtight. Only our inner circle knew the details. Only the inner circle even knows that you’re behind Venera in the first place.”

“Sergey’s disappearance feels convenient, don’t you think?”

I’m just thinking out loud, but Kirill shakes his head. “Sergey? You think Sergey’s the mole?” “He has all the information.”

Kirill frowns. “Still—either the preexisting samples of Venera were tampered with prior to the rollout or those unfortunate five were given a different dose altogether. Either way, Adrik had someone inside Alcazar that night fucking with the Venera samples.”

My jaw clenches. “I’m missing something…”

Ring, ring, ring.

Kirill picks up the call and puts it on speaker. “Maks?”

“We just got to Hell’s Kitchen, sir,” the soldier reports. “It looks like she came here but then… she left again.”

Kirill and I exchange a glance. I lean in towards the phone. “Soldat.”

He clears his throat. “Yes, pakhan?”

“I want you to stay there until she comes back home.”

He clears his throat again. “Sir, if I may… It doesn’t look like she’s coming back.”

I freeze. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve got a long lens camera aimed at the inside of the apartment. She seems to have packed up the majority of her belongings.”

Blyat’.

“Keep watch,” I snarl. “I’ll be there soon.”

Kirill follows me as I run to the elevators. There’s a wariness in his face that I don’t care to decipher right now. My head is pinging with warning flares. Why did I think it would be as easy as cutting the cord?

Maksim is parked outside Hell’s Kitchen when Kirill and I arrive. While Kirill stays behind to talk to the soldier, I dart upstairs. It doesn’t take me long to break the lock and let myself into the apartment.

The first thing I notice when I walk in is the broken coffee table. Glass shards litter the center of the living room and I spot little flecks of blood drying on the sharpened edges.

What the hell happened here?

Their clothes are gone. Their shoes are gone. The apartment seems empty compared to its usual comfortable chaos. The only mess is the broken coffee table, which feels ominously symbolic right now. All the little things that are so precious to each child are noticeably absent.

Reagan’s favorite soft toy, a stuffed rabbit she named Mr. Bunny.

Gone.

Caroline’s cloth doll with the handmade dress that Emma crocheted herself.

Gone.

Josh’s boxing gloves. The ones I gave him. The ones I taught him to lace up.

Gone.

As if for added confirmation, I turn towards the mantel. The pictures are still standing in their mismatched frames, Sienna’s smiling face shining out at the center. But there’s an empty square of dust where something used to be and Emma’s words are ringing in my ears.

It’s the first thing I pack and the last thing I unpack.

Her sister’s music box is gone.