Isla POV
"Mom's gone? What do you mean she's gone?"
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Blood in her hospital room. My mother—who'd just had surgery, who was barely strong enough to sit up—was missing.
And there was blood.
"We're going to find her," Dominic said, but his voice sounded far away. Everything sounded far away.
My legs gave out. Strong arms caught me before I hit the floor. Dominic's arms. My brother's arms.
No. He said he didn't believe the test results. Said something was wrong.
But what if he was lying? What if he just didn't want to accept the truth?
"I need you to focus." Dominic's hands gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. Those green eyes burned into mine. "Your mother is alive. She has to be alive. But I need you thinking clearly. Can you do that?"
I nodded, even though my whole body shook.
"Viktor, get every available man searching hospitals, morgues, anywhere someone might take an injured woman. Check traffic cameras around Mount Sinai from the last two hours." Dominic's voice turned to ice. "And find Natasha. Now."
"Who's Natasha?" I managed to ask.
"Someone from my past. Someone I should have killed years ago." He released my shoulders. "Get dressed. Something nice. We have a meeting in twenty minutes."
I stared at him. "A meeting? My mother is missing and you want to go to a meeting?"
"The meeting is how we find her." He grabbed my hand, pulling me toward my room. "The Sokolov family controls half the hospitals in this city. If your mother was taken to a medical facility, they'll know. And they owe me a favor I'm about to collect."
"But—"
"No arguments. You're my translator tonight. These men only speak Russian, and I need to understand every word they say. Every tone. Every lie." He stopped at my door. "Change. Fast. And Isla? Whatever happens in that room, don't react. Don't speak unless I tell you to. These men are more dangerous than anything you've seen."
More dangerous than watching someone get shot in an alley? More dangerous than armed men breaking into the penthouse?
I didn't ask. Just nodded and went inside.
Five minutes later, I wore a black dress Viktor's wife had bought me—simple, elegant, the kind of thing a rich man's girlfriend would wear. My hands still shook as I tried to zip it.
The door opened. Dominic stepped inside without knocking.
"I can't—the zipper—" My voice cracked.
He moved behind me, his fingers brushing my spine as he pulled the zipper up. Neither of us spoke. The air felt thick, wrong. Two days ago, this would have felt different. Now I didn't know what we were to each other.
"We'll figure this out," he said quietly. "All of it. But first, we survive tonight."
The car ride took fifteen minutes. We pulled up to a restaurant in Brighton Beach—Russian neighborhood, Russian food, Russian criminals pretending to be businessmen.
Three men waited at a private table in the back. They looked like regular people—expensive suits, gold watches, friendly smiles. But their eyes were dead. Shark eyes.
"Dominic Volkov!" The oldest one stood, arms wide. "So good to see you, my friend."
"Mikhail." Dominic shook his hand but didn't smile. "Thank you for meeting on short notice."
"Of course, of course. Anything for family." Mikhail's gaze slid to me. "And who is this beautiful creature?"
"My translator." Dominic's hand pressed against my lower back, possessive. Warning. "Isla, say hello."
"Hello," I said in Russian, keeping my voice steady.
All three men's eyebrows rose. The younger one—maybe thirty, with mean eyes—leaned forward.
"She speaks our language?" He switched to rapid Russian. "How convenient. Tell me, pretty girl, does she understand what kind of man Dominic really is? Does she know how many people he's killed?"
"She knows enough," Dominic answered in English, his tone flat. "Let's talk business."
They sat. I stood behind Dominic's chair, hands clasped, trying to look invisible. That's what Viktor had taught me—be there but not there. Listen but don't react.
The conversation started normal. Shipping routes. Territory agreements. Money laundering through legitimate businesses. I translated everything, my voice mechanical.
Then Mikhail said something that made my blood freeze.
"We found an interesting woman today," he said in Russian, smiling at Dominic like he'd just told a joke. "Older lady. Very sick. Someone dumped her at our clinic in Queens with a note that said 'Return to sender.'"
My heart stopped. Mom.
Dominic's expression didn't change. "What note?"
"Written in Russian. 'Tell Dominic his collection is incomplete. He's missing the best piece.' Strange message, no?" Mikhail poured vodka for everyone. "We're holding her until we understand what it means. Until we know if she's valuable."
"She's not valuable." Dominic's voice stayed cold. Bored. "Just a loose end I've been meaning to tie up. You can dispose of her."
What? I dug my nails into my palms to keep from screaming. He was talking about killing my mother like she meant nothing.
The young one with mean eyes laughed. "Dispose of her? Dominic, you're getting soft. In the old days, you'd have done it yourself." He switched to English, looking at me. "What do you think, beautiful? Should we kill the old woman?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe.
"She doesn't think," Dominic said. "She translates. That's all she's good for."
The words cut like knives. But I saw something in his eyes—a message. Trust me.
"I want the woman delivered to my warehouse," Dominic continued in Russian. "Tonight. Consider it part of our new arrangement."
Mikhail nodded slowly. "Of course. But first, let's toast our partnership." He raised his glass. "To profit. To power. To—"
The mean-eyed one stood suddenly, walking around the table toward me. "Let me see her hands."
"Sit down," Dominic ordered.
"I just want to see if she's really Russian, or if you hired some American whore who memorized a few phrases." He reached for my wrist.
I jerked back, but he was faster. His fingers clamped around my arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise.
"Let go," I said in Russian.
He grinned, pulling me closer. "Make me, little—"
The sound of breaking bone cut through the restaurant.
Dominic had moved faster than I could see. One second he was sitting. The next, he held the man's hand at an impossible angle, fingers bent backward, snapping like dry twigs.
The man screamed.
"Rule one," Dominic said calmly, still breaking fingers one by one. "Don't touch what's mine. Rule two—when I give an order, you follow it. Rule three—" The man's thumb broke with a wet crack. "There is no rule three. You're dead."
He shoved the man backward. The guy collapsed, cradling his destroyed hand, sobbing in pain.
Mikhail and the third man didn't move. Didn't help their friend. They just watched.
"Apologies," Mikhail said, like nothing had happened. "Dmitri is young. Stupid. He doesn't understand respect yet."
"He won't get the chance to learn." Dominic sat back down, not a drop of blood on him. "Send the woman to my warehouse within the hour, or our deal is off."
"Of course. Of course." Mikhail snapped his fingers at the third man. "Make the call."
I stood frozen, staring at Dominic's hand—the hand that had just destroyed another human being's bones without hesitation. He'd done it for me. Protected me.
Or maybe he just didn't like people touching his property.
The meeting ended quickly after that. Viktor drove us back to the penthouse in silence. I sat as far from Dominic as possible, my wrist still aching where Dmitri had grabbed me.
"They'll deliver your mother in forty-five minutes," Dominic finally said. "She'll need medical attention, but she's alive."
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Don't thank me. This isn't kindness. Your mother knows something about Natasha. About my father. About why someone wants both of you dead." He turned to look at me. "And when she's stable enough to talk, she's going to tell me everything. No more secrets. No more lies."
We reached the penthouse. Viktor was already there, phone pressed to his ear, looking grim.
"Boss," he said. "We got a problem. The Sokolovs just called. They're bringing the woman, but—"
"But what?"
"She's asking for a priest. Says she needs to confess before she dies. Says she has sins that need forgiving." Viktor's jaw tightened. "She keeps saying one name over and over. Dimitri. She keeps begging Dimitri to forgive her for what she did to his son."
The room went silent.
My mother was dying. And her last words were about Dominic's father.
About sins that needed forgiving.
About what she did to his son.
Dominic's face went white. Then red. Then empty.
"Which son?" he asked quietly. Dangerously. "Which son is she talking about?"
The door burst open. Two of Mikhail's men carried my mother inside on a stretcher. She looked terrible—pale, weak, blood soaked through bandages on her side.
But her eyes were open. Aware.
And when she saw Dominic, she started screaming.
"No! Not you! Anyone but you! I tried to save you! I tried to take you away from him but he caught us and he—" She sobbed, reaching toward him with shaking hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I left you behind. I'm sorry I only saved one."
Dominic staggered backward like she'd shot him.
"What are you talking about?" His voice barely worked. "Saved one? Saved one what?"
My mother's eyes rolled toward me. Tears streamed down her face.
"I couldn't take you both. Dimitri would have killed all three of us. So I chose." Her voice broke. "God forgive me, I chose. I took Isla and ran. But I left you behind, Dominic. I left you with that monster. And every day since, I've prayed you'd survive what he did to you."
The floor disappeared beneath my feet.
"No," I whispered. "No, that's not—that can't be—"
But Mom wasn't finished. She grabbed Dominic's hand with the last of her strength.
"You're my son," she sobbed. "Mine and Dimitri's. Born two years before Isla. I'm your mother, Dominic. And thirty-three years ago, I abandoned you to save your sister."