Page 75 of Born into Chaos

They’re gone.

Someone came in and stole my world right out from under my fucking nose. The snow has stopped, leaving the tire tracks visible, and when I check my watch, it’s a little after four. Samantha usually gets up at one for a feeding, so they could be three hours away by now, maybe more, maybe less. I can’t fucking think, and the blind terror is threatening to close in on me.

I force myself to go back inside, and all I can think about is the promise I’d made Sveta earlier. I was wrong. I’d been so fucking wrong.The promise I was so worried about giving her, when all this time I should’ve been makingherpromisemethat she’d be safe, that she’d always be next to me, and that she’d never leave.

Once inside, I do a thorough search of the house, noticing things I’d missed earlier in my panic. Samantha’s diaper bag is gone and so is her car seat. When I check the kitchen, a couple of boxes of formula are missing. Knowing that Sveta was able to grab some basic supplies makes me feel slightly better. Whoever took them allowed it, so he must not want either of them dead, at least not yet.

Grabbing my phone, when I search for Sveta’s location, I’m not at all surprised to see the map showing that her phone is still here at the house. I hadn’t expected her kidnapper to let her keep it, but it sure as fuck would’ve been nice. Swiping down my contact list, I hit the one number I really don’t want to call. Even though I know I’m waking him, Vitaly answers immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone,” I tell him, barely recognizing the hollow sound of my own voice. “They’re both gone.”

“What the fuck happened? And what do you meanboth?”

“Someone came and took them,” I say again, knowing I’m not making sense to him, but I can barely breathe at this point. All I can think about is how scared they must be and how I’m not there to protect them. “Sveta and Samantha, they’re gone.”

“Who the hell is Samantha?” Vitaly growls at me. I can hear Katya’s frantic voice in the background, and a few seconds later, Val’s joins in.

“Our baby,” I whisper.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Vitaly’s words are a confused growl, but before I can even try to answer, Val’s voice is on the line. “Tell me everything you know, Vitya.”

“I woke up and they were gone. There are tire tracks outside, but I don’t know how old they are. Sveta took the first feeding, and that’s usually at one.”

“Don’t move,” he warns me. “Don’t do anything. We’re leavingnow. I’ll get in touch with Niki on the way and see what he has for us. We’re gonna get them back, Vitya.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I hear his dad say before a car door is slammed shut.

“Listen to me,” Val says again. “We’re going to get them back. You hear me?”

“Yeah,” I tell him, but it’s lackluster at best. He hangs up while I fall to my knees. Hands braced on the floor, I try to suck in a breath, but my lungs won’t loosen enough for me to get any air. I haven’t had a panic attack since my brother’s death, and this one hits me hard. It’s paralyzing and suffocating and it threatens to drown me. I can’t lose them. I won’t fucking survive it. My hand tightens on my gun, letting the hard metal ground me and remind me of where I need to be putting my focus. I will find my girls. I can’t allow myself to envision any other outcome. I’m getting them back, and I’m going to get the motherfucker who dared to take them from me and tear him apart limb from fucking limb.

With my focus purely on revenge, I get up and dress in warm clothes before pulling my boots back on. Tucking my gun into the waistband of my jeans, I grab my phone and jacket and then go in search of a flashlight. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and I want to take a look around outside. While I dig through one of the kitchen drawers, I spot one of Sveta’s sketchpads on the counter. I’d been in such a rush earlier that I hadn’t paid it much attention, but when I see the drawing of Samantha, my heart tightens in my chest. I’m so overcome with grief that I almost miss the scribbled writing in the corner of the paper.

Taking it in my hands, I read over the words. It’s Sveta’s writing, but it’s sloppy and rushed, and I know she must’ve hurried and written me a message when she’d been grabbing Samantha’s formula.

White truck, S’s dad.

Beneath the sparse description, she’d managed to scrawl out a quickLove youbeneath it.

My thoughts are all over the place because my emotions are constantly threatening to consume me, so I force myself to take a breathand think. Sveta risked everything to write me this. Part of me hates that she took the chance, and the other part of me is so goddamn proud of her. She knew I’d remember the white truck from the grocery store parking lot, the one I’d had a hunch was following us, but how the fuck could that be Samantha’s dad?

I send a quick text to Val, letting him know about the note and what it means so he can pass it on to Niki and his dad. If anyone can get the information we need, it’s those two. Finding a flashlight in the next drawer I check, I head outside and start looking around. There’s no sign of anyone forcing their way at any of the doors or downstairs windows, so I aim the flashlight at the second floor and do another circle around the house. When I get to the rose trellis, the same one I’d been looking at just a short time ago, I aim the flashlight at the window above me and hiss out a curse. The window is open. It must’ve been left unlocked, and the bastard climbed right up, letting himself in the same way Sveta and Natalya had snuck out. I curse my own stupidity for not double-checking all the windows upstairs, and in a moment of rage, I grab the trellis, ripping it from the side of the house and tossing it aside before following the tire tracks, desperate to find any sign or hint of where they’ve gone.

An hour later, I’m freezing my ass off when I see the burnt orange color of Val’s Jaguar turn onto the drive. I’ve been searching the woods, but there’s no sign of anything being out of place, no hint that anyone’s been watching us, and no other tracks aside from the white truck that evidently drove up, grabbed my life, and sped away with it.

I wave a hand at Val when I emerge from the trees to meet them at the front of the house. By the time I get there, the rest of his family is already pulling in, and Vitaly is glaring at me like he wants nothing more than to pull his gun out and shoot me. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t already.

When I’m only a few feet away from him, he points his finger at me and yells, “I’m going to fucking kill you as soon as we find my daughter. The only reason you’re still breathing is because I need everyone working on this.”

“Dad, you can’t kill him,” Val tells him, ignoring the look his dad gives him. “Sveta loves him. She’ll never forgive you.”

He shakes his head like he doesn’t believe it for a second while Lev gives me awhat the fuck were you thinkinglook. Roman and Luka usher us all into the house, and Vitaly lets out a disbelieving huff when he sees all the baby items cluttering the living room.

“Okay, this is what we have so far.” Danil and Niki set their laptops on the kitchen island while Max starts making coffee. “The house you found Samantha in is owned by Wesley Hicks.” Danil flips his computer around so I can see the image of his driver’s license. I recognize him immediately.

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