Kat and I exchange a worried glance, and I go and knock on her door.
“Nadia?”
I push it open then suck in a breath.
“Where did she go?” I call back to Kat.
“What?”
“Nadia isn’t here.” I check the bathroom. Look around her room.
“Flynn rehearses here on Thursdays, maybe they made up.”
I grab my phone to open the tracking software Dima installed for me to track her phone.
“Blyad’!”
“What?” Kat asks from the kitchen.
“She left her phone here in the apartment. I can’t track her.”
I’m already heading out the door. “I’m going to see if the band is still rehearsing.”
I try to ignore the sense of panic rising in me. I had this before, and she was just with Flynn. She was totally fine with him. Better than fine, actually. She actually bloomed this past month.
Hopefully, whatever lovers’ quarrel she and Flynn had has been resolved, and she’s with him.
I go downstairs to the practice studio, but it’s empty. The band has already gone.
Blyad’. Why don’t I have Flynn’s number?
Kat calls my phone and relief sweeps through me. Nadia must be back. Maybe she went out for a walk or something. I answer, but Kat’s terse tone makes my fingers curl into a fist.
“Adrian. You have to come up here and see this.”
“What is it?”
“Your safe is open.”
I bolt back upstairs trying to make sense of it. Did someone came to kidnap Kat again? They robbed me in the process?
No, that’s impossible. No one gets in this building who doesn’t belong. Maykl makes sure of that.
A brick sinks in my stomach. So that means…Nadia opened the safe.
But why? We have plenty of money in the bank. She wouldn’t need the stacks of cash I keep in there, the cash that comes in from the bratva.
I get out of the elevator and jog back to the apartment and into my bedroom, where the safe is standing open. The stacks of cash are still there.
What’s missing is one of my guns. The one with a silencer.
“Nyet.” I stumble backward, ice and heat flushing simultaneously through my veins. “Nadia.”
“What did she take?” Kat asks.
My back hits a wall. Adrenaline courses through my veins, but I don’t know where to direct it. “My gun.”
“Oh shit. Okay. Where would she go?”
Are we both assuming she’s going to kill herself here? Fuck!
“I don’t know!” I roar.
Kat rushes in to wrap her slender arms around me. “Let’s ask Flynn. Maybe he knows.”
I nod, grateful for the direction. “Story,” I say. I don’t have Flynn’s number, but his sister is upstairs.
Kat comes with me to the top floor where I pound on Oleg’s door.
“We’re down here!” Story opens the main door to the penthouse and waves brightly.
“Flynn. I need to talk to your brother. Where is he?”
“Oh. He’s at home, I think. Honestly, he’s not doing great since Nadia broke up with him. He didn’t come to rehearsal this afternoon. He made up an excuse about having food poisoning, which I knew was bogus.”
I’ve closed the distance between us by now, and I hand her my phone. “Call him,” I order.
Oleg appears behind her, giving me a glower for being a dick to his girl.
Flynn doesn’t answer.
“Call him on your phone,” I snap.
Oleg growls. His tongue was cut out, but he’s fully capable of sounding threatening when he wants to.
“Please. It’s very urgent. Nadia is missing.”
Oleg’s expression softens into concern.
Story runs for her phone and returns with it to her ear. “He didn’t answer the first time, but he should pick up if I keep calling.” She ends the call and tries a third time.
When I hear the low, “Whassup,” from the other end, I snatch the phone from her hand.
“This is Adrian. Do you know where Nadia is?”
There’s a pause, and Flynn’s voice comes through more clearly. “What do you mean?”
“She’s gone, and she has my gun.” I can barely choke out the words. “She left her phone in the apartment. I’m afraid–” I can’t say it. “Where do you think she’d go?”
There’s silence for what feels like an eternity, and then Flynn snaps, “Oh fuck!” I hear his breath catch and release, and the sound of rustling clothing, then jingling keys.
“What?” I roar.
“I know where she is.” A door slams.
“Tell me now.”
“There was this guy last week.” It sounds like Flynn is jogging. “He came to the burlesque show. He smelled like cigars, and the scent triggered her. Like, the worst I’ve seen. And then later, she wondered if he was The Guy.”
I instantly understand his meaning. Nadia doesn’t like to talk about what happened to her, but she’s said enough. She’s mentioned cigar smoke and the guy. Why in the fuck didn’t she tell me she thought she saw him?
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Oh.” I suddenly realize Nadia isn’t going to kill herself. She’s going to kill him.