Chapter 21

Alexei’s POV

Matvey came running into my office. I glanced up at him with tired eyes. “Boss, there is a package for you.” Matvey wouldn’t have bothered me if it wasn’t important so I stood up from behind my desk where I’ve been spending the last 20 hours, trying to figure out where Emily could be.

The black box was waiting in the foyer for me. I took the box and shook it around. Matvey took the box from my hand and walked far away before opening it. This was part of the procedure, for all we know there could be a bomb inside.

When nothing happened, the stress left Matvey’s body. Inside the box was a single black envelope. I knew that whatever was in this envelope would be important. Rubbing my eyes once more I opened it.

Inside was a picture of Emily. She was roped against a chair, her legs and arms bent in uncomfortable positions. They didn’t look broken, it just looked like whoever tied her to the chair, didn’t know how to do it properly. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and took the folded piece of paper out and read it,

My love,

You’ve hurt me. I thought that once you had some of me, you would never want to stop but I see you’ve been keeping yourself busy with other women. I will take their lives, one by one until you only have eyes for me.

See Emily as the first victim, as she is the most recent. I think I’ll keep her for a bit and play with her before sending you the information on where you could get her body. It would have been nice to see you again. It’s a shame you missed me in Mexico.

You’re one true love.

Mia Pavlovich

My blood was boiling. Mia was starting to become a pain in my ass. I stomped up to my office shouting at everyone in my way. I’m going to catch Mia and then I’m going to kill her. And if she laid one finger on Emily, I’ll make her death painful.

Oleg, Adrian, and Michail walked into my office. I glanced down at the photo of Emily. Her bottom lip was swollen and she looked to be in pain. I growled in frustration. “Oleg, get everyone at the lab on the box and photo, I want fingerprints, hair strands even dust, anything that can lead us to where this was taken.

Oleg left my office in a hurry with the box and photo. “Adrian, I need to you to tap into our resources and check video footage of a 5-mile radius of Emily’s hotel, even if you have to get our cops on it, do it.” He nodded and pulled out his phone from his back pocket and called someone while walking out of the office.

“Brother, is there anything I can do?” Michail asked as he took the seat in front of my desk. I stayed silent for a second, thinking about what to do next then nodded. “Get in contact with Valentine and Mia’s ex-boyfriend. Look into Mia Pavlovich like a rat in a testing lab, find anything that is connected to her and any places she might own. Also, send up Maxim and Leonid.

Michail nodded and left my office. Suddenly it was quiet and I could feel my heartbeat in my chest. I could feel the worry swirling in my head and I could feel my anger in my body. I wouldn’t say that I loved Emily but I did have strong feelings for her.

I cared about her and it was I that got her into this mess, therefore, I’ll get her out of it and then leave her be. She is safer without me. The door opening brought me back to earth. Maxim and Leonid were standing by the door waiting for me to give an order.

“Let go back to the room and see what else we can find.

« • x • x • x • »

It took hours for any of the men to get back to me. Maxim and Leonid scouted the area, talking to business owners that might have seen anything. We talked to a few neighbors and some of them said they heard noises but nothing that would have led them to believe that someone was in danger.

In the end, nobody helped and I was about to blow a gasket when Oleg called me. “Boss, we found something.

I got into my car and drove as fast as I could back to my house. I just hoped it wasn’t too late and that I could still save the innocent girl who was caught in the crossfire because of me. “What is it?” was the first thing to leave my mouth as I enter the door. Both Oleg and Adrian were waiting for me in the living room.

“I looked at the cameras and saw nothing, whoever took her was good. So I went down to the lab to find Oleg. He had found a spec of dirt in the corner of the box and after a few hours the result came out as basic sand. So I went back to the video footage and this time Oleg helped.

I tapped my foot on the floor hoping Adrian would jump to the part of what they found. He saw I was running out of patience and continued.

“I talked to our local friends and got more footage where I finally saw a few seconds of someone coming out the door on the roof of the hotel, so we followed that lead and got 2 fingerprints off the door, Oleg ran them and we found a match. His name is Roman Stone.

I shook my head not recognizing the name. “Roman dated Mia back in high school and they got back together about a year ago when his wife died in a car crash. A car crash that was caused by one of our men.

I remembered the event as one of our men fled from a scene where the cops almost caught him, he caused a crash on one of the back roads but we never knew the person died. “Okay so get to the point.

“Roman, owns an old strawberry farm down in Saint Pietersburg and according to satellite footages, there has been activity the last week and as recently as yesterday, another car stopped on the land and we can’t see much but it looks like Roman carrying something over his shoulder.

**Copyright © 2020 by Grace Write**

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