What must that feel like for Nikolai to stand back and watch the woman he cared for so deeply living a life he could never truly be a part of?
"I'm coming to see you." He heard a chair squeak and then the noise of a kitchen. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
As usual, Nikolai abruptly ended the call. Yuri texted Lena to let her know he was on the way and to stay out of that damn office but she didn't immediately reply. He decided she was probably busy with her father.
It wasn’t until he entered the front door of his home that he realized something was wrong. For the first time ever, Sasha didn't bark or run to the door. His heart raced as he took in the eerie silence. "Lena? Feodor? Sasha!"
"Vasya, go check the staff quarters," Derek gave the order in hushed tones. "Find Jake and Kelly."
With Derek hot on his heels, Yuri raced to the kitchen, the place where he expected to find Feodor at this time of day. The sight of the old man sprawled on his back and snoring deeply struck fear in his heart. Derek knelt down next to Feodor and rolled him onto his left side. The movement revealed a syringe sticking out of his arm and cuts on his hands. The bruising on his face proved the man had put up a fight.
Yuri spotted the bloody streaks on the tile and followed them into the mud room. Lena's father had crawled that far before passing out. The knife lodged in his upper shoulder had slowed him down but he'd obviously tried to chase after his daughter. Very gently, Yuri rolled his future father-in-law onto his side. He found Joe's pulse and exhaled roughly. Despite the blood loss, he was breathing steadily and his heartbeat was strong.
Yuri grabbed a towel from a nearby cabinet and placed it around the knife in an attempt to stabilize the weapon and help with the bleeding. "Call 9-1-1. Joe has been stabbed."
"Already on it, Boss!" Derek shouted back. "Sasha's alive but barely. They hit him with a damn tranquilizer dart."
Banging and cursing echoed loudly in the kitchen. Yuri glanced over his shoulder and watched Vasya carting Kelly's heavy body. The Marine was bloodied and snoring like Feodor. No doubt he'd also been drugged.
"The staff rooms are destroyed. He was handcuffed to a sink and left for dead. I couldn't find Jake."
Suddenly the pieces fit together. Jake had bugged his office. Jake had snapped those photos in Mexico. Jake had delivered the threatening letter to Lena.
As he pressed on Joe's bleeding shoulder, he noticed the door leading to the garage was slightly ajar. A bloody streak on the edge caught his attention. Yuri shut the door and discovered the message Joe had left in his own blood.
Jake. Anna. 916 Ord—
He clearly hadn't been able to finish the message but it was enough. He'd started to scrawl the address of the hellhole where Lena had lived with her mother while her father was in prison.
He didn't know the roles Jake and Anna played but there wasn't time to investigate. They had Lena—and he was going to get her back.
There were several sets of keys in the wall box mounted by the door. He grabbed the set for his fastest sports car and quietly slipped into the garage. Where he was headed, he needed no bodyguards. This was something he had to face alone.
Chapter Twenty-One
The walk from the broken curb where he'd parked to the front door of the ramshackle, dilapidated home on the corner was the longest of Yuri's life. Unarmed and uncertain as to what he faced, he walked right up to the front door and shoved it open. As long as these two monsters held Lena, he would do whatever it took to keep her alive. Because the pair hadn't called or texted him with instructions, it was clear they expected him to come find them.
He wrinkled his nose at the musty, moldy scent of the abandoned house. Like the others in this forgotten neighborhood, the house had been condemned and marked for demolition. He chose his steps carefully, uncertain whether the rotting floorboards would support his weight.
The sound of irritated voices sniping at one another echoed at the rear of the house. He followed the sounds to the kitchen. Lena came into view as he drew near. She had her wrists bound together in front of her and her ankles roped too. Her bloody nose and busted lip infuriated him. She noticed him a heartbeat before her captors. The look of relief and love on her bruised face bolstered his courage.
"Stop right there," Jake ordered. Holding a gun on Yuri, the bodyguard slid behind him. "Hands on your head."
Yuri did as commanded. He stared at Anna as Jake frisked him for weapons. His long-time assistant had dyed her platinum blonde hair a dark walnut shade. Gone was the pretty smile he expected. Her features seemed twisted with rage, with revenge. "Katya?"
Her pale-thin lips twitched with sad amusement. "Do you remember me now?"
Yuri shook his head. "No, but Ivan did."
She gritted her teeth. "All these years I've waited for you to recognize me, to remember what you animals did to my father."
Yuri's gut clenched as Katya snatched Lena by her long, beautiful hair and dragged her to a standing position. She was quite a bit taller and manhandled Lena easily. He winced as Lena was jerked roughly. When Katya produced a sharp-edged knife from the counter behind her, his heart stuttered in his chest. The wicked piece of steel nicked Lena's throat as Katya held it in place. The sight of Lena's blood dripping onto Katya's hand enraged him.
"Lena has nothing to do with this. Let her go."
"This is your fault. You shouldn't have fallen in love with this one. I let you have the others. I let them live but this one? This one you loved and so now you have to pay."
Lena's eyes squeezed shut as Katya jerked her back and pushed the knife against her throat.
"No!" Yuri took a step forward but Jake caught the back of his shirt and held him back. He slammed his elbow into the guard's stomach but Jake's hold only loosened for a brief moment. The muzzle of the gun jammed into his side, warning him not to do anything stupid. He wouldn't be any use to Lena dead. "Tell me what you want. I'll give you anything."
"Anything?" Katya laughed acidly. "Can you bring my father back from the dead?"
Anger flared in his gut. "Bring him back? That disgusting pedophile and rapist?"
Jake's grip lessened. "Pedophile? But Katya—"
Yuri laughed harshly. "Let me guess, Jake. She didn't tell you that her father used to pick boys from the orphanage to sell to high-paying pedophile clients? She didn't tell you that her father used to rape little boys in that house of fucking horrors behind the orphanage?"
The gun pressed into his side fell a few inches before being shoved roughly against his ribs. "Katya, is that true?"
"He's lying," she spat angrily. "All those boys were lying little bastards who wanted to ruin my father. They wanted to take him away from me and make me orphans like them. Unwanted. Unloved. Forgotten. They were jealous of me because I had a real family." Katya slammed her knuckles into the side of Lena's head. "Until you took him from me!"
Dazed, Lena blinked rapidly and tried to recover from the unexpected blow. Yuri desperately tried to draw Katya's attention. "I did take him from you. Me. I was the one who killed him."
"Why?"