Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing)

I feel like I’ve been cleaved in two with a samurai sword. One half of me knew that something like this was going to happen, and the other half is unable to fathom that my own brother could betray me so completely.

I call Anton, needing to hear about Mikhail’s betrayal from a man who was there. “What happened?” I ask him through clenched teeth.

There’s an awkward silence on the line. “He messed us up real bad. We didn’t wake up until we were in the hospital ninety minutes later.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “My brother, one man, managed to beat you two idiots so thoroughly that you passed out for ninety fucking minutes??

?

“Mr. Ravnikar was…” Anton lets out a gusty breath. “Incredible. You know how big he is, but he’s fast as well. He fought like a man possessed.”

He fought like a man possessed because he was protecting her. If there’s something Mikhail loves above all else it’s being the white fucking knight. When it suits him. Nataša, apparently, could go to hell.

“Get your worthless fucking asses into a car and head to the private airport on the M11. Chances are that’s where he’s headed. I want him and the bitch taken alive.”

I hang up and start pacing up and down, predicting the phone call I’m going to get before it comes in. Fifty minutes later, Anton tells me it’s too late. Mikhail and the Alders girl boarded his private jet, and they took off thirty minutes ago.

“Strange thing, Mr. Ravnikar. The manager at the airport said he saw him carry a woman on board the jet. She was unconscious.”

“Was she hurt earlier this evening?”

“She fell over when we tried to grab her, but she didn’t hit her head.”

I end the call, frowning. If she wasn’t hurt, then Mikhail drugged her to get her on that plane. Why? Because she was upset and hysterical, or because she didn’t go willingly?

I call the terminal at the private airport and ask them to tell me the flight path of Mikhail’s plane, which they do because it’s a company jet. They’re headed for Cape Town, South Africa. Mikhail’s too smart to make that their final destination. He’ll leave South Africa as soon as they land, so if I’m going to take them, it has to be there.

I make another call, this time to Boris. He picks up on the first ring. “Who do we know in Cape Town?” I ask.

Boris thinks for a moment. “We know some security guys. Freelance.”

“I want cars and armed men at all the private airports around the city. Give them Mikhail and Ciara’s descriptions. They’re not to take off again or leave the airport under any circumstances. I want them alive.”

“Yes, boss.”

I hang up and shove my phone back into my pocket, making myself take a deep, steadying breath. I can’t lose my temper over this. It must be done in cold blood.

The memory of my father’s dead blue eyes fills my mind. Cold blood is what will see me through this, too.

But the enormity of what’s happened breaks over me. I no longer have a brother. Mikhail didn’t just take my prey from me. He destroyed the only love I’ve felt for a human being on this godforsaken rock since Nataša died. The most heinous crime a human being can commit against another?

Not thievery.

Not assault.

Not murder.

Things can be replaced. Bodies heal. Dead people are beyond suffering, but the agony of betrayal is a white-hot knife buried in your psyche forever. Now I’m going to take something that’s his and rip it apart with my bare hands.

Oh, now there’s an idea.

I call the airport manager. “Did anyone else board the plane tonight apart from Mikhail and the blonde woman?”

“No, Mr. Ravnikar. No one else boarded that plane.”

“You didn’t see a dark-haired woman, about the same age as the blonde woman?”

“I saw no one else.”