“This better be good,” Josef growls. “I have everyone blowing up my goddamn phone.”
“Terrorists after a politician,” I lie. That’s the lie he’ll spin for me too and he’ll be paid handsomely for it. “Set up a press release for the morning. They took my daughter.”
He barks out some orders to someone before saying, “No shit?”
“I need…” I suck in a deep breath, blinking away a wave of dizziness. “I need you to have your men out there looking for my brother.”
“Aris did this shit? Your father would be disappointed.”
No, Father would have already found him and put a bullet through his skull. I’m softer than Father and it shows. I can’t hold onto anything precious to me. Not my mother, not Talia for so long, not my daughter.
“Have the police looking for her. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Six months old. I’ll text you a picture to send to your men.”
“I’ll keep it discreet. We’ll find her.”
I wince as I adjust my position in the seat. Blackness eats at my vision.
“And if we don’t by the time of the press release tomorrow…” Josef trails off.
Adrian shakes his head at me in warning.
“Then what?” Josef asks.
“We go wide with it,” I bite out. Tell all my enemies I have something I want back, even it if means presenting to them my weakness.
Josef is silent. I pull the phone away to make sure we’re still connected before pressing it back to my ear.
“You heard me?” I rasp out.
“That puts a big target on your most vulnerable possession.”
My heart pumps fast and furious. “Right now, I need that target to find her. Make it happen.”
“Of course,” he says with a sigh.
We hang up and I fade in and out the entire trip to the airport. Adrian keeps getting calls and barks out orders. My phone buzzes a few times with texts from Basil. Eventually, he sends me a text with a picture of two very freaked out looking people, but they’re alive. I lift my phone to show Talia and she sobs in relief.
Melody and Stefano are okay.
My phone slips from my grip and tumbles to the floor. Talia picks it back up. Her hand is warm as it brushes along mine.
“Kostas,” she cries out in alarm. “Your hand is like ice.” She runs her palm along my cheek. “What’s wrong with you? Are you hurt?”
“He’s been hit,” Adrian alerts her. “Took a bullet outside and not sure what got his arm.”
“Knife,” I hiss out.
Talia practically climbs onto the console to look me over. Adrian pulls up to the airport and exits the vehicle.
“You’re bleeding everywhere,” she whispers. “And you’re so pale.”
“I’ll be fine,” I grunt out.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Fuck that,” I snarl. “They’ll hold me when I need to be out here searching for Zoe.”
Her lips press together in a worried line. “I want her just as bad as you do, but we can’t look for her while you’re dying on me. I need you.” Tears leak from her eyes and her chin wobbles.
“But Zoe,” I choke out.
“Aris never hurt her or was cruel to her,” she assures me, though I hear the doubt in her voice. “He still thinks Zoe is his. We have to have faith she’s going to be okay with him.”
I close my eyes, suddenly very tired. “I’m sorry I failed you.”
Hysterical sobs escape her and she slaps my face, forcing my droopy eyes back open. “Don’t you dare fucking take the blame for what your brother did. You have done nothing but try to protect us.”
Lifting my weak arm, I swipe away her tear. “He fucking hit you.”
“I hit back,” she tells me icily.
“Good girl.”
“I shot Selene,” she whispers. “But she got away anyway.”
Energy surges through me. “You put a bullet in that bitch?”
“Yes.”
Gripping her neck, I pull her to me and kiss her mouth that still tastes of blood.
“You’re so cold,” she whimpers. “You’ve lost too much blood.”
“I’ll be okay,” I assure her as I text Josef.
Me: Selene—Aris’s bitch—got hit. She might need medical attention so keep eyes on the hospitals.
A wave of dizziness has my head thunking against the window. Talia slaps my face again, rousing me.
“Wake up,” she says firmly. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
“I need Basil to…check the footage…” I blink hard.
She grabs my phone and dials Basil. “Check the footage. See what they drove off in. Send the information to Josef.”
Fuck, she listens well.
Basil says something to her and she huffs.
“If they find him, I want to see his face,” she hisses. “And then I want to stab him to fucking death.”
Adrian climbs back in and shakes his head. “Nothing. They didn’t come here. What now?”
“We neeeed toooo,” I slur, my head pounding as I try to make sense of what I’m trying to say.
“Get back to the hotel. He needs medical attention. Call his doctor because he already nixed the hospital idea. Basil’s pulling up the video footage to get the make of the vehicle to send to Josef. We’re going to go torture fucking answers out of the men you guys caught. And then we’re going to find my baby.”
“Damn,” Adrian says as he peels out of the parking lot. “You’ve been busy.”
“Oh,” she sneers, “and when we find Aris, I’m going to kill him.”
Adrian snorts. “You got it, Boss.”
Her warm lips press to my cheek as blackness pulls me under. Hot words are whispered against my flesh that have me relaxing. “Rest, baby. I need you to get better so we can fix this. Until then, we’ll take care of what we can.”
I didn’t marry a weak Nikolaides.
I married a goddamn mafia queen.
A Demetriou in heart and now one in soul.
Talia
The drive from the airport back to the hotel is spent with me begging Kostas to stay awake. Scared if he falls asleep he might not ever wake up. His forehead is glistening with sweat, and his skin is cold and sticky to the touch. He needs a doctor sooner rather than later. I can’t make out exactly where he’s been shot, or how extreme it is, but based on his pale complexion, I have a feeling it’s bad.
A myriad of emotions are running through me. Fear that I’m going to lose my husband and daughter. Anger that Aris would stoop this low to involve Zoe in his revenge plan. The man barely even paid attention to her the entire time we lived with him. What I told Kostas was the truth. Aris was never cruel to Zoe, but he also barely acknowledged she existed. The only reason he was keeping us there was to get back at his brother. He never even once tried to have sex with me or spend any time with Zoe, even thinking she was his daughter. Zoe and I are nothing more than tools to him. Tools to hurt his brother.
What I don’t get, though, is why he didn’t take me this time around… Taking me would mean hurting Kostas. And then a thought strikes me. Selene wanted me out of the picture, so the two of them could play house. Did he only take Zoe so he could keep her for him and Selene to raise? But he can barely even stand Selene. He treated her more like she was a warm body to sink his dick into when he was horny than like a potential wife.