Page 122 of Punish Me, Daddy

“They stepped outside the frame. Eight seconds later, a black van pulled out onto the service drive. No plates. No marks.”

“How long ago?” Maxim asked under his breath.

“Seventeen minutes,” Ivan replied. “We caught it ten minutes late. By now, they’ve got a lead.”

My hands curled into fists.

“Too long.”

“I know,” Ivan said, meeting my gaze without flinching. “We’re already working it.”

Maxim’s voice was low, gravel and fire. “There’s only one person this could be, and that’s Stillwell.”

Ivan nodded once, eyes still on the surveillance feed. “He’s the only one with the motive, the reach, and the money to pull this off. This screams organized. This isn’t a cartel hit.”

Aleksei crossed his arms. “This could be retaliation for the sting that’s already in motion.”

“He took her,” I said. “Or he paid someone to do it.”

This wasn’t some opportunist. This wasn’t a power move by a rival family or a cartel looking to make noise.

This was a message, sent by a man too arrogant to understand who the fuck he was playing with.

They took what wasmine.

And they had no idea what that would cost them.

I looked at each one of my brothers in turn. We’d survived blood and war and countries that chewed men up and spit out their bones. We’d burned our way into Boston and carved a throne out of glass and blood.

But this was personal.

“Run every street feed within twenty blocks. Check traffic cams. Burner signals. I want thermal imaging, drone sweeps, noise pings. I want to know everything,” I said, my voice hard.

I turned to Maxim.

“Flush every contact tied to Stillwell. Every backroom deal. Every shady shell corp. Every suspicious phone call. We find where he’s hiding his dirt and put him down. For good.”

“I’ll dig up everything there is to dig up,” Maxim confirmed with a nod.

Sergei looked at me without blinking. “And when we find him?”

I stared at him. The answer was already on my lips.

“Stillwell dies.”

Maxim slowly stepped forward then, the way he always moved when something dangerous had taken root behind his eyes.

“If we kill him,” he warned, “we start a war we’re not prepared to fight. It’ll be political, not a street war. He’s still protected. He’sstill clean in the press. If we pull him down wrong, we look like the criminals they’ve always said we are.”

I nodded once. I understood what he was getting at, but I didn’t fucking care.

I was going to kill him with my own bare hands.

Sergei met my eyes, understanding flashing in his own.

Aleksei leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, his usual smirk replaced with a mean scowl. “We don’t just need a body. We need astory.A scandal. Something the public can eat up when his body eventually gets found.”

Ivan cleared his throat. “Look, this is how we spin it: Kingsley’s daughter. Your soon-to-be wife. Kidnapped by Stillwell’s people to cover up a trafficking ring of underage girls. That’s not a scandal. That’s a funeral.”

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