“What do you mean?” I asked even as I was already working to figure it out on my own.
“The last war started very similarly, Edison. You and I were too young to really remember it, but I asked some of my elders and they connected the dots for me. Years ago, prior to the war, things were tense. There was product being stolen, groups being ambushed at nightclubs, and it all pointed towards the Serbians just like how it’s all starting to point at you and your men.”
A sick feeling began to form in my gut. “Are you trying to tell me that you think the Serbians were framed?”
“I’m not a hundred percent… but it’s almost too good of a coincidence to ignore. There’s one thing I’m worried about though, all of that shit wasn’t what actually started the war, no, what started the war was a—”
“Kidnapping,” I finished for him, my voice hoarse.
“No,” Rhodes growled next to me as he leaned forward and muttered something to the driver.
The car started to accelerate.
“The kidnapping of Aine Keane was what started the bloodbath that took out an entire generation of young made men and now we know that it was seemingly orchestrated by the Russians, so Edison, I just have one question for you: where is your wife right now?”
“Where’s Perrie?” I barked at Oona as soon as we were through the front doors, my feet already turning in the direction of the East wing.
The panic I was barely keeping a rein on was threatening to bubble out of me in the form of a scream and I turned to the shocked housekeeper again. “Where the fuck is my wife, Oona?”
“She’s in her room where you left her, Master Edison, why? What’s happened?” Oona asked, falling into a hurried step beside me, her wrinkled brow drawing together as she glanced between me and Rhodes who’d gone stonily silent ever since I hung up the call with Shuuhei Saito twenty minutes ago.
Yanking the door to the long hallway that led to the tower open, I turned to her again. “When was the last time you checked on her?”
“Just after you both left, so maybe two hours ago? Edison Keane, you tell me what is going on right now or I swear I will put bleach to all of those black suits you love so much.”
“My mother wasn’t kidnapped by the Serbians. She was kidnapped by the Russians.”
Even as I said it out loud, it all made complete sense. My mother’s worst nights had been those where we couldn’t convince her that she was safe and that the people who had taken her had been wiped off of the face of the planet years ago.
I remember being a little boy watching Oona try to soothe her for hours, dodging vases and anything else my mother could throw, and my mother insisting that they were still out there. That they were just waiting for her to let down her guard before they would come for her again.
We’d all just written it off as the ravings of a crazy woman.
But now I knew better.
“Oh,” the word left Oona in a ragged sigh. “Oh no.”
Crossing through the humid greenhouse, I flew up the stairs and into the open door of Perrie’s room.
It looked untouched, the swathes of nesting materials that made up Perrie’s nest still in the same configuration as we’d left it only a few hours before.
“Perrie?” I called and was met with silence.
No, no, no, my inner alpha howled as I grabbed the first bit of nest and pulled and then the next, tossing it behind me as I dug in looking for my omega.
Every bit of the space smelled of her sweet strawberry scent and I inhaled it raggedly as I searched in vain.
Perrie would scold me later for ruining her perfectly crafted nest—it was something she’d been meticulously putting together for the past week, humming under her breath while I sat in the chair by the window watching her instead of doing the work I would bring with me.
It was a sign her heat was coming soon, even if she hadn’t realized it yet.
And now the empty nest was a symbol of what I’d lost. What we’d lost.
“Edison,” Rhodes’ soft voice cut through the blazing fear that had set my mind alight. “Edison!”
This time the other alpha grabbed me and dragged me by my waist away from the destroyed nest.
“She’s gone,” I whispered brokenly to him, turning to find his dark eyes full of pain. “And I don’t know where.”
“We’re going to find her, Edi, I promise,” the other alpha swore, pulling my face into his neck.
I clung to him, inhaling the last bits of Perrie’s scent still on his skin from earlier.
“We’re going to find her,” I murmured into his skin, “but what state will she be in when we do?”
Thirty One
Confusion was the first emotion I felt as I returned to consciousness once again. My surroundings were cold and it seeped into my skin, making my bones ache as I tried to take stock of them.
Had Rhodes left the window in my room open again? The alpha usually overheated amongst all of the materials in my nest, so it wasn’t outside of the realm of ordinary for him to push all of the windows open despite the chilly autumn weather outside.
But when he did that he usually made sure I was snuggled up in between him and Edison, using them both as my own personal heaters.
Had they been pulled away for business again? Edison had been frowning more often as of late and I wondered if whatever was happening behind the scenes was finally coming to a head.
