Page 65 of Marrying the Mobster
Jovan has his doubts about Elena, too. I can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes when our gazes meet and he wrinkles his forehead in concern.
I smother the flames roaring in my belly so I can think clearly. That’s been my problem this whole time—thinking with my dick and my heart instead of my head. My instincts have been dulled and I’ve gotten soft.
“Find them. Viktor should have a safehouse somewhere outside the city. He knows I’m looking for him, so his best bet is to get to an isolated area where we can’t sneak up on him. I want them alive … both of them.”
With a quick nod, Jovan leaves the room. Jaime lingers in the doorway, a slender tablet hanging from one hand. He approaches with careful steps—like he’s sneaking up on a hungry lion—and offers it to me.
“I think you need to take another look at the footage,” he says.
I narrow my eyes at him when he doesn’t elaborate, hands still clenched at my sides. Jaime shrugs and tosses the tablet onto the bed before backing away.
“You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
Once I’m alone, I can’t hold in my fury anymore. With a guttural roar, I swipe the contents of Elena’s nightstand onto the floor—her romance novels, her glass, refillable water bottle, her booklight, a framed photo of her with her sister and nephew at our wedding, her design book and pencils. It isn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped.
My fist crashes into the wall, leaving an apple-sized hole, then another and another. The walls rattle until the framed art crashes to the floor, the glass shattering and littering the rug. A half-empty bottle of Scotch slams into the window, which hasn’t been boarded over for a month. Because I trusted Elena and believed she wanted to stay with me.
Huffing and snorting like a demon, I stare through the hole in the window, the last rays of sunlight making trickles of liquor glow with amber and gold prisms. The color reminds me of her eyes.
“Fuck!” I bellow, going back to pacing with restless energy that makes me vibrate from head to toe. My shoulder throbs and sends shooting pains down my arm.
I consider taking a handful of painkillers and losing myself to numbness. The pain in my chest is far worse than my arm, and it makes me want to carve my own heart out with a knife. My mother’s words come back to me now, taunting and cruel.
“No woman is worth compromising your empire. Not your girlfriend, not your sister or any daughters you might have. Not even me. A boss with a weak heart doesn’t deserve to wear the crown. He’s a pussy and a wimp and deserves everything he gets for letting himself be led around by the dick.”
The bitch would laugh at me if she were here and remind me that she told me so.
Sinking onto the bed, I let my head fall into my hands and try to chase Mother’s voice out of my thoughts. Nothing that woman ever did was for my own good; it was always for her benefit. Her lessons weren’t meant to make me strong, but to keep me from replacing her with another woman. She was determined to rule the underworld through me, and couldn’t have a pesky daughter-in-law or grandchildren getting in her way.
I glance at the tablet resting near my hip, the screen gone dark. Jaime’s warning smothers the unwanted memories of my mother. What else is there for me to see on the security footage that I didn’t already witness? I saw Elena walk through those doors and get into that car with my own eyes. What reason would she have for her actions other than what I’ve already figured out? Elena wanted out and saw Viktor’s lust for her as the perfect escape route.
Still, the need to make sure I’m not wrong makes me snatch up the tablet and unlock it. The same videos feeds from the control room are framed in the screen, and each one plays in sequence. For the first few viewings, I can only see a woman executing the perfect plan to gain her freedom. I white-knuckle-grip the tablet with an aching jaw, torturing myself by taking in every detail.
I toss the thing aside with a grunt, annoyed with myself and with Jaime for trying to convince me there was anything more there than what it seemed. It isn’t until I stand up to walk away that my gaze falls to the second-to-last feed from the camera overlooking the foyer. The frame is frozen to show Elena standing in front of that mirror, checking herself over before she walks out of my life.
It struck me as inconsequential the first half-dozen times I watched it, but something about it in stillness doesn’t sit right with me. Why would a woman who’s desperate to escape her batshit crazy, mobster husband stop to look in the mirror before leaving? A sane woman would have run screaming through those doors and vaulted through the window of the waiting car, not even bothering to use the door handle. She would have looked back while she walked down the front steps, searching for eyes pinned to her from one of the upstairs windows.
Picking up the tablet, I play the video of her in front of the mirror. When first walking up to it, her shoulders are slumped and her head lowered. Looking at her reflection, Elena’s chest swells with a deep breath before her shoulders go straight, her proud chin lifting with defiance. It’s as if she’s working up the courage to leave. Then comes the footage of her walking down the front steps to get in the car. Her steps are slow and her body is stiff. She doesn’t look confident and bold, or desperate. She looks … timid. Afraid. Unsure?
“Why didn’t you look back,gatita?” I murmur at the screen, leaning closer and watching over and over.
It happens the same way each time: Elena walking to the door, Viktor rolling down the window. Elena doesn’t get into the car right away. She doesn’t wrench the door open and jump in. She seems to wait for direction. For Viktor totell herto get into the car.
My body is already moving, even before the truth finally clicks in my mind. I rip the door open and rush to the stairs with my heart in my throat and my insides frozen over. My anger flames hotter, but the gasoline that’s poured over it is mixed with fear and guilt.
I nearly knock into Jovan rushing into the control room, where I find Jaime and two others working at the various computers.
“I was just on my way—”
“Elena didn’t leave with Viktor willingly!” I blurt, cutting Jovan off. “He took her. He fucking came right up to my front door andtook her!”
Jovan places steadying hands on my shoulders, seeming to sense I’m about to lose my shit. If I thought I was spinning out of control before, the sensation is ten times worse now that I know what really happened here.
“We found them,” Jovan says, giving me a little shake. “That’s what I was coming to tell you. There’s a beach house where Oleg vacations with his family for the holidays. It’s isolated and far enough out of the city for Viktor to feel safe there. Are you sure he took her? It didn’t look that way in the video.”
“I watched it again,” I reply, giving Jaime a nod. “Again and again. She wasn’t running. All the times she ran, none of them were like this. Why is that?”
“There’s no camera in the bedroom,” Jaime says with a shrug. “But … her phone. Why would she have left it behind? I took the encryption off like you asked me to, and that enabled him to call her. He could have told her anything to convince her to leave without a fight.”
