Emperor of Rage: Chapter 43

Exhaustion weighs me down like iron chains as I push through the sterile halls of Mount Sinai Hospital. My mind is splintered into a thousand different fragments, trying to cling to sanity in the face of the thousand questions crashing through my brain.

I’m here at Mt. Sinai because I, being in London, was closer to New York than anyone from our organization in Kyoto. There’s nothing I’d like more than to be aiding Kenzo, Tak and a small army of Mori-kai men as they tear that city apart looking for any clues to where that fucking psychopath might have taken Hana and Freya, but given that I’m positive the attack on Kir was also Jonas’ work, I’m here because Isaak, against all odds, survived that attack.

The man might not talk much, but he’s got eyes and ears. He might remember something that could lead us to wherever Jonas has them all.

Two big Russian motherfuckers stop me outside Isaak’s room. Again, the guy doesn’t talk much, so it’s easy to forget he’s not Kir’s bodyguard or anything, he’s actually the number two for the entire Nikolayev fucking Bratva.

I bite back my impatience as the guards give me a thorough pat down. I need to talk to Isaak. I need answers, now, because we are running out of fucking time.

All I can hear echoing in my head is the sound of her screaming over the phone before Jonas ended the call. All I’ve been able to think about for the last eight goddamn hours is the fact that he has her.

That he’s hurting her.

The fact that these two fucks think I have the slightest interest in bringing a weapon into Isaak’s hospital room is infuriating.

But finally they give a nod, open the door, and usher me inside.

Every eye in the room swivels suspiciously to me. On the one hand, I don’t blame them. I’m the odd man out here. The one person not part of the Nikolayev brotherhood, and their top boss just got kidnapped in broad daylight.

But I ignore their stares, heading straight for Isaak, who’s expecting me.

The guy is a fucking mess—bandaged up and connected to countless machines that beep and whirr. He took four bullets in the attack, and the SUV he was in with Kir got hit by a goddamn dump truck and rolled six times.

He’s pale, his face lined with pain and badly cut from the broken glass. But there’s still a fierceness in his eyes that speaks to his unwavering loyalty for his boss.

“Mal,” Isaak rasps, his voice rough but steady. He nods at the other men. “Ostav’te nas.”

I get a few more glares from everyone else. But then they nod solemnly, turn and file out of the room, leaving me alone with him in the sterile, quiet room.

Isaak turns his head slightly, wincing at the movement. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he says, grimacing.

“You look like hell,” I mutter, taking a seat next to his bed. “Your men on the phone said you were refusing to be sedated?”

He grunts. “I wanted to speak with you personally. Right now, I don’t actually know who I can or can’t trust within our ranks. It’s possible this was an inside job.”

I frown. “If it helps ease your mind, I doubt it. I think the man who took Freya and my cousin also took Kir.”

Isaak nods thoughtfully, wincing again.

I lean forward eagerly, my thoughts racing. “Tell me what happened.”

Isaak takes a deep breath, his face hardening. “It was a setup. We were driving down the West Side Highway, then a dump truck—out of nowhere—plowed right into us. The driver and the man riding shotgun were killed instantly. The two SUV’s behind us with our men formed a perimeter. But there were about a dozen fuckers who came swarming out of the back of the dump truck—masks, tactical gear. Real pros,” he grunts venomously. “I was defending Kir from inside the car, but…”

He grits his teeth and his eyes turn bitter.

“But you got shot four fucking times. Maybe cut yourself some slack,” I mutter.

“No.” Isaak shakes his head. “No slack. No excuses. My sole purpose is to protect Kir. I failed.”

I don’t have time to soothe Russian guilt right now.

“Anything you remember about what happened? Before you faded out?”

He nods. “Da. They were definitely professionals. I caught a few of their tattoos. Pretty sure they were Krvi i Novca.”

Fuck.

“The Serbian mercenary outfit?”

Isaak nods again. “Da. Good, well trained. Very expensive.” He bites back obvious pain as his eyes swivel to me. “This man who took Freya and your cousin… Who is he?”

My blood turns to acid.

Someone I should have killed years ago, right after I’d run Kasper through with that hay fork after he’d killed Filip.

I should have known. I should have known that the evil in him even as a boy would only grow, and fester, and spread like poison.

“Just someone from my past with an ax to grind,” I mutter, my voice edged and cold.

“He’s wealthy? Well-connected?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Not that I was aware of.”

“He is if he hired Krvi i Novca,” Isaak grunts dourly. He shakes his head. “Fuck. Kir and Freya…taken.” His face darkens, pain flickering in his eyes as he raises them to me. “He isn’t just my boss, and she isn’t just my charge to protect, or a co-worker,” Isaak grunts. “They are both like family to me. They are my family, along with Annika, even now that she’s married to your cousin.”

Part of me had thought to confront Isaak tonight and ask him if Kir knew Freya was his daughter. But it’s pretty obvious that Isaak himself isn’t aware of that connection, and I don’t have time to play family tree with him.

“Isaak—”

We’re interrupted by a nurse walking in. She takes a few readings from Issak’s machines, and then smiles at him.

“You’re ready now?”

“Da, thank you.”

I watch her inject something into his IV.

“What the fuck is that?” I growl.

She glances at me curiously. “Are you family?”

“No.”

She doesn’t answer, just turns back to finish administering whatever it is she’s giving to him. She tosses the syringe, makes a few more notes, pats Isaak’s hand, shoots me a not-so-hidden dirty look, and then heads back out.

I frown as I turn back to him. “Isaak, what the fuck did she just give you?”

“I am like you, you know,” Isaak murmurs. “I was alone in the world, without family. But then I met Kir. And through him, my brothers and sisters in the Nikolayev. Damian. Annika. Freya…”

Swearing under my breath, I stoop down and reach into the trash, pulling out the little vial the nurse chucked.

Fuck.

It’s fucking morphine. My gaze rips back to Isaak, and it’s only then that I realize he’s been holding the little switch in his hands to call the nurse for pain management.

Isaak is one tough son of a bitch, but it would seem he finally needs that edge taken off. Which means I’m out of time to get any details of the attack out of him.

“Issak, if you can remember anything else⁠—”

“I am sorry, Mal, there’s nothing,” he grunts in his thick Russian accent. His eyes drift to mine. “Found family is important. Mine saved me. I don’t know you, but I think maybe yours saved you.” His blinking slows. “Before, I didn’t trust you with Freya. But I do now. You care for her.”

My voice cracks. “I do. Very fucking much so.”

“Da, good. Then find her. Find our found families…”

His eyes start to flicker closed. His words slur as the morphine takes hold.

“Family does not need to be blood,” Isaak murmurs. “Family is where you call home.”

It hits me just as he fades out.

Family is where you call home.

I’m out of my seat and bolting for the door in an instant.

I think I know where that psychopath took her.

The air is cold and heavy as I step out of the SUV into the stillness of the Norwegian night.

I’ve been awake for thirty-two hours. I’m exhausted, disheveled, and I need a fucking shower.

Darkness and an eerie fog swallow the landscape around me. The wind howls through the trees, echoes of a place I swore I’d never return to.

The farm on the edge of a black lake, surrounded by black woods.

My grandfather’s prison camp, the birthplace of almost every nightmare I’ve carried with me since the day I killed the bastard and fled into those very woods.

The land is empty and desolate, the farmhouse and barn rising out of the ghostly moonlight like a broken monument to everything I’ve tried so hard to bury. I take a deep breath, the sharp, bitterly cold air cutting into my lungs.

It’s been twenty years since I last set foot here. Twenty years since I watched Filip die, snapped, and turned on Kasper.

But I know Jonas. I know how his twisted mind works. If he’s holding Freya and Hana anywhere, possibly Kir too, it’s here.

It has to be.

I check the house first. It’s dark and half gone to nature, with the roof caved in on one side, and what looks like the remains of a squatters’ camp in what was once the kitchen. The stairs to the second floor are mostly gone, but it’s clear there’s nothing up there but bird shit and demons.

The basement brings a fresh wave of nausea as I stand in the middle of the empty space, staring at notches I remember all too well on one of the crumbling support beams.

A hook on the wall where a wooden paddle once hung, carved with the swastika and eagle, so it would leave the imprints of hate on your skin.

My blood staining the floor—faded, but still there, after all these fucking years.

But that’s all I find in that forsaken basement: blood, dust, and the ghosts of my past.

No Freya. No Hana. No Kir.

Outside, I push open the barn door, the creak of the wood echoing in the dead silence. My footsteps are loud on the dirt floor as I slip through the shadows, my heart pounding in my chest.

More memories hit me like blows—Kasper’s brutal “lessons”…Filip’s innocent eyes filled with terror…and Jonas, always watching, his face twisted in a mixture of admiration, fear, and excitement as Kasper spouted his sick, hateful dogma.

I stare at the spot where Filip died, where Kasper broke him beyond repair. I can still hear his screams, still see the way his body crumpled under Kasper’s whip—and then, minutes later, the way Jonas looked at me when I ran that hay fork through Kasper.

I walk through the barn, my heart sinking lower with every step.

They’re not here.

I’m furious at myself for thinking it would be this easy. That Jonas would be stupid enough to bring them here of all places, when it’s me who’s looking for them.

Hopelessness settles in my chest, thick and suffocating, as I realize I have no fucking idea where else in the entire world Jonas could be hiding them.

The image of Freya, trapped and screaming, gnaws at my insides. The thought of her at Jonas’ mercy, of what he might do to her, rips through me like a blade.

I’ve never felt this kind of fear before. Not even as a kid, when my grandfather’s cruelty threatened to break me.

This… This is different. It’s paralyzing.

And for the first time in years, I feel utterly lost.