I don’t fear much. But Ivie and I have become friends over the past several months, and if my life weren’t well and truly a shitshow, I’d take it much, much further with her.
If anyone touches a hair on her gorgeous head, I’ll fucking skin them alive.
“Rich’s organization fell,” Carmine reminds his fiancée.
“We don’t know that now,” Nadia says, shaking her head. “Maybe this is tied to that. Maybe someone thinks they can get something out of Annika, or punish her by taking Ivie.”
“We don’t know what’s going on,” I remind everyone. “Let’s get to Annika’s place and figure things out.”
My mind is racing. I haven’t slept in seventy-two hours, and aside from the stale sandwich, I haven’t eaten.
And I don’t give a shit.
I need to find Ivie. Make sure she’s safe and whole.
Annika’s house is an hour from the airfield.
“You should sleep,” Nadia says to me, her voice soothing. “I can see that whatever job you were on took a toll. You need rest if you’re going to help Ivie.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” she counters, and I barely stop myself from rolling my eyes at her.
Nadia is a fierce woman. I don’t need her to kick my ass over an eye roll.
“I’m fine,” I repeat and narrow my eyes at her.
“What is it with the Martinelli brothers and being so fucking stubborn?” she asks as she turns back in her seat and scowls out the windshield.
“It’s just part of our charm,” Carmine says, but Nadia shakes her head.
“No, actually, it’s not charming. It’s dumb. He’s going to hurt himself if he keeps overworking like that.”
As if I have a choice. I can’t exactly tell her that I sleep when the fucking president says I can.
So, I just grunt and watch Denver whiz by outside the window. The few hours it took to get here is, unfortunately, valuable time wasted. Time that I could have spent trying to find Ivie.
Jesus, where is she? What are they doing to her? And who the fuck are they?
“Almost there,” Rocco mutters and sends me a sympathetic smile.
I know my brothers are aware of the massive crush I have on Ivie. I’ve never had a crush on anyone in my fucking life. But I saw her once, and that was all it took.
I know that Rocco and Carmine don’t understand my attraction. That’s because she’s a little awkward and has a classic, girl-next-door look about her that I find absolutely hot as hell. She’s not the type that would usually turn my head, and my siblings know it.
In the past, that may have been true.
But Ivie attracts me in every damn way. She’s funny and sweet. So damn sweet. We’ve spent a little time on the phone, talking. I’m not much of a talker, but it comes so easily with Ivie.
How my brothers don’t see the amazing woman she is, is beyond me.
I know that a relationship—hell, a future—with Ivie is out of the question for someone like me. My job consumes my life, and what’s left over belongs to my family. Between the government and the mafia, I’ve killed more than any one man should. My time doesn’t belong to me.
But if things were different, if I were free to be my own man, I would scoop Ivie up and make her mine in a heartbeat.
“She looks worse than the day she found out that Rich was a lying asshole,” Nadia says as we pull into Annika’s drive and see the woman standing in the doorway, waiting for us.
Her eyes are red-rimmed from crying, her nose chapped from wiping it too much. And when Nadia hurries to her and engulfs Annika in a hug, the other woman falls apart once more.
“Let’s go inside,” Carmine says, urging the women into the house and to the living room.
When Annika’s seated and wiping her wet eyes, Carmine speaks again.
“Now, tell us again exactly what happened.”
“Okay.” Annika takes a long, deep breath and then tells us again about seeing the call from Ivie, but how she let it go to voicemail because she was getting into the shower and how she didn’t remember about the call until this morning.
“So I finally listened to the message, and my blood ran cold.”
“Play it,” I say, sitting next to her as she pulls it up on her phone, taps the screen, and it starts to play.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know a Laryssa. I’m Ivie. And we’re closed for the day. But if you’d like to make an appointment, I can help you with that.”
“You know, I thought for a long time that your father was an imbecile. Stupid. He didn’t cover his tracks well. But you’re different. You covered your tracks very well. And I know that you couldn’t have done that alone. Which tells me that your father isn’t as stupid as I thought.”
“I don’t know what you could possibly want from me. I’m just living my life.”
“And a nice life it is,” the man says. “Good for you, Laryssa. I couldn’t make your father pay for his sins when he was alive—and we both know that those sins were many. But now I’ve found you. Now, don’t do something silly like try to get away. You’re coming with me. And you’re going to pay for the sins of your father.”
There’s a pause.
“There, now. Come along, Laryssa. We have plenty of work to do.”
“After that, it’s dead air for a couple of minutes, and then it ends,” Annika says, locking her phone.
“Do you recognize his voice?” I ask her.
“No. I didn’t recognize his face, either.”
My head whips up. “You saw his face?”
“Yes, we have security cameras at the spa, of course. I looked at the footage, but I don’t know who he is.”
“I can find out,” I reply. “I’ll need to see it.”
Annika nods, but Carmine shakes his head.
“He kept calling her Laryssa. That’s not her name. Could she be a victim of mistaken identity?”
“No,” Annika says softly and then stands to pace the room. “I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this, but she’s in danger, and you have to know.”
My hands curl into fists.
“Know what?” I demand.
“Ivie’s real name is Laryssa Pavlov. Her father was a Bulgarian asshole, but she escaped him when she was young. Made a new life for herself—one she could be proud of.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. After all the hours Ivie and I spent talking, she never told me any of this.
“So, this guy really is trying to punish her for her father’s sins,” Rocco says, blowing out a breath.
My brother’s eyes haven’t left Annika. It’s no surprise he doesn’t give me a hard time about Ivie. He, too, longs for someone he can’t have.
It’s a shitty situation to be in.
“What was her father’s name?”
“Ivan. Ivan Pavlov,” Annika says. “I can’t tell you much about her past. She told me the story in confidence, but this definitely has something to do with her father.”
“Get me that footage so I can find this motherfucker and get Ivie home where she belongs.”