Chapter 29: Corrupted Heart: Chapter 29

I give her twelve hours.

For twelve hours, I allow her to be away from me. To ignore my calls and texts. To not be in our bed.

After that, I snap.

She’s not getting away from me that easily. My monster won’t let her. I won’t let her.

Fuck the safe word. We’re not playing a game anymore. This is real. This is for keeps.

She’s not at her old apartment when I check. I slip a few hundred bucks to the doorman, and he confirms he hasn’t seen her in weeks.

She could be at Vito’s place, or with any of her brothers. But going to those places asking if they’ve seen her is going to raise questions I can’t answer yet. Questions I don’t have the time or patience to answer.

So I try the Mercury Opera House. But when I slip into my usual spot behind the curtains in the private box, my heart sinks. I see her friends, Naomi and Milena. I even spot the two bitches who left her in that alley that night.

No Bianca.

That’s when my skin starts crawling with a nervous, dangerous energy.

Something’s wrong if she’s not here. I know how much dance means to her. I know from her own mouth that she’s literally only ever taken three days off in eighteen years of ballet.

Even with everything that’s just happened, she wouldn’t not be here. Dance is her therapy.

Still, I wait until the bitter end, hoping for Bianca to stumble in late with an apology.

She never comes.

My nervous energy turns to full blown panic as I sit in the darkened box. The stage is empty now, but I’m still glaring down at it, as if I might finally see her pirouette onto the stage.

Eventually, I head down. I poke my head into the dressing room; by now, the other dancers have changed and left. I open a few of the lockers, until I know the one I’ve come to is hers.

It smells like her. The scent makes something in my chest tighten.

Inside, there’s a picture of the two of us, from our wedding no less, tacked to the back wall. It’d be easy to roll my eyes at the memory of the utterly staged shot taken by the photographer no one asked Ya-ya to hire for the day. But when I pluck it out of her locker and look at it closely, a crooked smile spontaneously splits my lips.

“Kratos?”

Slowly, I turn. When I see who it is, my mouth twists angrily.

Alicia Houghton flashes me a weak smile from the doorway of the dressing room. “I know you don’t like me,” she says quietly, her hands twisting in front of her. “But I… I really need to tell you something.”

My brow furrows as I nod. “Yes?”

“You know Grisha Lenkov…?”

“We’ve met,” I growl.

She trembles. “Okay, so, he came over to my apartment last night. We’re broken up, because he’s a complete asshole. But he was drunk and making a scene, so I let him in so he wouldn’t wake up the whole building.”

She chews on her lip nervously.

“He was being a drunk douche, and trying to get me to sleep with him. Eventually, he got a call and stepped into my bathroom to take it. Except, he was drunk, and loud, so I heard…”

Her face pales as she looks up at me.

“He was bragging to someone about how he and ‘the witch’ had taken the ‘Italian princess’, and how they had her now.”

Alarm bells start to ring inside my head.

“I…” she shudders. “I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time. But when I didn’t see Bianca today…”

Oh fuck.

She sucks on her lip, hugging herself and looking genuinely scared. “Kratos… I think Grisha might have Bianca. Like, maybe he took⁠—”

She’s not even done speaking before I’m shoving past her and bolting out the door. I slam open the theater door and race to my car. Just as I get to it, my phone rings with an unknown number.

My blood chills, my jaw setting as I answer it.

“Hello, Kratos.”

The alarm bells in my head turn into an air raid siren when I hear Amaya’s smug voice.

“I have something of yours,” she purrs.

Red swims through my vision.

“I’m going to kill you,” I hiss.

Amaya laughs coldly. “How about instead we make a trade.”

My blood roars in my ears.

“You bring me Drazen Krylov, I give you your little plaything.”

This woman’s insane. “You want me to kidnap a Bratva kingpin?”

“Kidnap or invite, your choice,” she spits. “But if you want little Bianca back in one piece, you’ll bring Drazen, alive, to the West Side development building. Penthouse floor. Tonight.”

My teeth grind. “If you’ve touched a fucking hair on⁠—”

“Come alone, Kratos. Just you and Drazen.”

The line goes dead.

They say fortune favors the brave. Bullshit. What fortune truly favors is a man with nothing to lose, and the woman he loves being held in danger of her life.

Breaking into Drazen’s building would be suicide. The doorman and concierge are both his men. More of his soldiers patrol every floor beneath his penthouse. And there’s no way in hell I’m scaling all the way up to break in through a window Mission Impossible style.

There is, however, a helipad on the roof. And while trying to land your own chopper on it should also be suicide, given that he has yet more men patrolling the roof, that ends up being how I get in.

Thanks to Taylor.

I can’t tell Ares what I’m doing. He’ll either try to stop me or insist on getting involved, and I won’t have any of my brothers getting hurt. But I can confide in my attorney and tell her that I’m in need of a Crown and Black helicopter.

Granted, she thinks she’s helping me get a meeting with Drazen, not kidnap him. But Taylor comes through like a champ. She even has the pilot radio ahead to building security that one of their tenants is a client and has a “legal emergency” that needs dealing with.

Drazen’s three guys on the roof never even know they’ve been played until they’re already out cold and tied up in a corner.

The rest is easy.

Ish.

Down the maintenance staircase to the penthouse level. Take out two more guys in the hallway. Use one of their keycards to get inside Drazen’s place.

Then wake the boogeyman himself up with a gun to his forehead.

“You should think very carefully about your next choices right now, Kratos,” he growls quietly, his eyes on mine in the dimness of his bedroom. “Very⁠—”

“You’ve been playing games with me and my family,” I hiss.

“Kratos—”

“And even though I hate being a pawn,” I growl, “that’s not why I’m here right now.” I lean closer. “I’m here because your fucking games have gotten my fucking wife kidnapped by Chernoff.”

He doesn’t blink.

“So, here’s the deal,” I spit. “You’re going to fix this. Because you’re the one who kicked the hornets nest. You’re the one who poured gasoline on this fire.”

I smile murder at Drazen.

“You’re going to help me get her back.”

Slowly, his mouth curls into a dark grin as he nods. “What exactly did you have in mind?”