Cruel Paradise - A Mafia Romance Chapter 173

“Aunt Em!” Josh runs up to me with Shura following behind him.

“Where’s Lazar?” Shura asks. His scowl shifts as he pulls out his phone and starts typing furiously.

Zakhar and Gedeon exchange a glance. “We’ll do a quick look around,” Gedeon says with a reassuring nod.

But there’s a sinking feeling in my gut that I can’t ignore. Keep your shit together. Josh and Reagan are watching.

“Reagan, honey, can you remember if you saw Caroline on the playground at recess?”

“Oh, yeah,” she nods. “She was on the jungle gym. But then she said she was gonna go climb trees.”

“Trees?” I ask. “What trees?”

Reagan is beginning to look nervous. She bites her bottom lip and looks around. “I… I don’t know… Those ones over there, I think.”

She points to a line of trees behind the school. They’re still technically growing within school grounds but they’re far from any of the buildings. Even the playground.

“Don’t worry,” Shura says, moving a little closer to me. “Lazar will be with her. Stay here with the kids, okay? I’m gonna go check the grounds.”

I manage to wait a few minutes before my fear starts drowning out my sense of reason. “Josh, Reagan, go inside and stay there, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Then I start running towards the line of trees, hoping to God that Caroline will pop up behind one of them.

Please, please, please.

But the feeling burgeoning in my chest isn’t in the least bit encouraging. Every time I’ve felt this kind of heaviness, it’s been accompanied by very real problems.

The time Josh was taken.

Running into Remmy at that club.

Seeing my parents at that fancy restaurant.

“Caroline!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “Caro—”

And that’s when I see something through the trees. Except it’s nothing good. The wired chain-link fence that rings the outer perimeter of the school has been torn apart, leaving a gaping hole large enough for a grown man to walk through.

“No,” I gasp, rushing forward. “No, no, no, no…”

There’s no way this was an accident.

“Caroline!” I scream again.

A couple of birds rustle out of the overhead branches and I whip around. Something catches my eye. My gaze lands on the shape and I gasp. I also take a startled step back.

And that’s how I end up on my ass in the leaves, staring at the lifeless body that used to belong to Lazar.

I choke on my own saliva as I fumble to retrieve my phone from the front pocket of my jeans. My vision is blurring fast behind my tears but I still manage to find his number. The call drops before it even connects.

I try again. “Come on, Kirill…”

But this time I get only an automated voice message. “The person you are trying to contact is not in reach.”

“Dammit!” I scream.

But despite my frustration, I have the foresight to enable my live location and send it to Kirill. I’m not entirely sure why I do it. It just makes me feel better to know that he can find me as long as I have my phone on me. Especially because I’m pretty sure I’m going to jump right through that hole and start hunting for Caroline myself.

“Aunt Emma?”

I jerk to my feet the moment I hear Josh’s voice. I turn to the side and realize that Reagan is with him, too.

“I told you two to stay inside the school!”

“But—”

“No buts! It’s not safe! Go back—”

Before I can finish my sentence, I notice Josh’s eyes go wide. He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, something envelopes me. The world goes dark. Strong, muscular arms grip me from behind and the more I struggle, the harder I get manhandled.

I’m aware that, somewhere close, Reagan and Josh are struggling just as hard as I am. No, I want to scream, don’t hurt them! Just take me instead.

But I can’t find my voice. I feel weak. Tired. Strangely removed.

My last coherent thought is—

I wish Ruslan was here.

52

RUSLAN

“What do you mean, ‘they’re not home yet’?”

The security guard twitches every single time I look directly at him. “Ms. Carson left a few hours ago to pick the kids up from school, sir. She hasn’t been back since then.”

“What time does she usually come back home?”

“The pickup never takes longer than an hour. She’s always back at 1:30 at the latest.”

My jaw clenches. Something’s not right. “I’m going up.”

The guard frowns. “What about the access code, sir? You need it to enter the unit.”

I glance at the tag on his chest. “It’s my penthouse, Ken. I have an override code that I use for emergencies and as far as I’m concerned, this qualifies.” I glare at him. “Do you intend to stop me?”

He swallows and doesn’t say a word.

“I didn’t fucking think so.”

Sure enough, he doesn’t make any attempt to stop me as I head towards the elevator where I stamp in the override code. When the elevator doors whisk again, I find myself standing in the entrance foyer, surrounded by an eerie quiet that confirms that Emma and the kids are not home.

I wander through the space, noticing the takeout containers in the trash and the pile of gifts pushed to one corner. All the gifts that I’ve sent to the girls have been opened. All the gifts I’ve sent to Josh and Emma are still wrapped tight.

My gut twists uncomfortably.

I take a lap around the apartment, but it doesn’t look like Emma’s tried to skip town again. All her things are strewn about her room and the whole place still smells like her. I check the room for her music box, just to make doubly sure. I find it sitting on the dressing table in her bathroom. When I touch the button, the lid flips up and a tiny silver ballerina starts pirouetting as a mournful song rings out.

They say that a crowded room can be the loneliest place in the world.

I’m learning now that a silent room with a sad song playing is the quietest place in the world.

But it does mean she hasn’t tried to run out on me. That’s good.

The relief is short-lived, though. Where is she? I have no texts back from her. None from the team assigned to her, either. The last update I got was from Lazar telling me everything was under control. But that was at ten this morning. Clearly, that is no longer the case.