My heart slams against my ribs, and sweat runs down my forehead.
I blink, disoriented for a moment, and then the cabin around me comes into focus. Cream-colored leather seats. Polished wood panels. The soft glow of overhead lights.
I'm not in Bra?ov, I'm on a private jet.
I rub my face, wiping away the sweat, and force myself to breathe.
It was just a dream. It's not real.
Except it is real, isn't it? Elena being ripped away and her screaming. That part happened, I just wasn't there to stop it.
I check my Rolex. One hour and seventeen minutes until we land in Bucharest.
Relief floods through me. I need to be on the ground. I need to move, to act, to do something other than sit here and let my brain eat itself alive since I discovered all this back in LA.
The flight attendant, a blonde, professional-looking woman, appears at my elbow with a tray. A glass of whiskey and a cup of water sit on it.
"Mr. Ionescu, can I get you anything else?"
"No."
She hesitates. "Are you sure? You look..."
"I said no."
Her smile falters as she sets the two cups down in front of me and nods as she retreats.
I grab the whiskey and drain it in one swallow. The burn does nothing to settle the chaos I'm feeling inside.
Elena's alive.
The thought loops in my head, over and over, a broken record I can't shut off.
She's alive, and she's been in Moscow for over a year.
Sold for fifty million dollars.
The number makes my stomach twist.
Not because it's high, but because it means something deeper. It means she's valuable, and other things must have come with her as part of the deal.
You don't fake a person's death to kidnap them. That's too much effort.
I lean back in the seat and close my eyes, but that's a mistake. All I see is her face in that photo.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars.
She trusted me, and I let her get taken.
Worse, I didn't even know. For 18 months, I thought she was dead. I stood at her grave. I put flowers. I drank myself into oblivion because living without her felt impossible.
And all that time, she was alive.
Being sold. Being used. Being kept like a fucking trophy by the Volkov Bratva.
The Russians.
I have to refrain from punching the table.