Dimitri POV

"He used to work for you?" I asked, somehow still surprised.
Abe nodded and looked up at me, his eyes filled with pain and something else that I couldn't quite place. "He was my second in command. He did everything that I asked of him."
"Then why is he doing this to her?"
"I don't know." He said, fresh tears running down his lined face.
"He must have a pretty good reason if he's doing that to your daughter." I snapped.
"This is all my fault. She must have told him. They're doing this to punish me." Abe muttered.
"Told him what?" I asked.
"The night that she left, I, we argued."
"About what?"
"Sydney Sage. She's in debt to me but Rose thought that I should let her out of it. Because she'd saved her life." Abe swiped away the tears as they fell. "I said that it was between me and Sage. Rose said that I'd ignored her for seventeen years. She said that when she had children of her own she'd make sure that she did a better job than I did with her."
"That's why she left?"
Abe shook his head. "I called her a blood whore. I said that you two couldn't have children of your own and you weren't going to stand by as she slept with morois."
I clenched my fists and tried to keep myself from hitting him. "You called her a blood whore?"
Abe nodded, his eyes fixed to the ground. I could tell that he was ashamed of himself and watching Nathan drinking from her must have made him feel even worse, but I didn't care. He deserved it.
"I was just so angry. I didn't mean..."
I knew what he was trying to say to me. He hadn't meant for any of this to happen. He'd called her a blood whore and know for all intents and purposes, she was one. She was being fed off and taken against her will, just like so many blood whores are.
I shook my head and just looked at the man in front of me. Abe seemed to have aged twenty years in the last hour. He'd curled in to himself as if he were trying to shut the world out. He wasn't consumed with rage like I was, he just looked as if he'd been defeated. There was something else mixed in with the pain but I didn't have the time to think about it right now. I needed to get to Roza and bring her home where she'd be safe. I turned away from him and went back to Christian and Adrian.
"What did he say?" Christian asked.
I told them and they looked at me in surprise. "What?"
"That piece of shit worked for Abe?" Christian asked.
"Why are you so surprised?" Adrian asked between drinks. "He's the great Zmey, remember. He probably taught the guy everything that he knows."
Adrian had a point. Abe had earned himself a reputation over the years, though I didn't know gthe specifics. He was basically a mobster who took care of people's problems, no matter how big or small. People were afraid of him but they also respected him. He was a no-nonsense kind of man that didn't take on a job unless he knew he could get it done. Apparently Nathan had been one of the men that helped him to get those jobs done.
It still didn't explain how he'd ended up at Galena's though. I supposed that it didn't realy matter. Knowing that he could punish both Abe and I at the same time was probably a dream come true to him. Knowing that I would be able to tear him apart bit by bit before ending him had become mine. I silently vowed that I wouldn't rest until he was dead.
"Did he really say that she'd end up as a blood whore?"
I nodded. "We should go. We've already wasted too much time." I said and headed over to the door.
Christian and Aidan followed behind me, Adrian swaying slightly.
"Wait." Christian said before heading back in to the living room. He came back with the piece of paper that had been in the package. "They'll be waiting for a call."
I nodded and we left, heading straight to the air strip on the other side of Court.

Once we were on the plane and headed to Las Vegas, I took out my phone and dialled the number on the paper.
"You shouldn't use your phone on an aeroplane, Belikov. The signals interfere. We'll crash and die and then we'll never get to Rose." Adrian said.
"It'll be fine." I said and pressed the call button.
The phone rang six times before a female voice answered cheerily. "Breville Hotel, Talia speaking, how may I help you?"
"I'd like to speak to Nathan Francis please." I said.
"Of course. May I ask who's calling?" Talia asked.
"Ibrahim Mazur."
"Of course. One moment please, sir." She put me on hold for a moment, the sounds of classical music filled my ear as I waited for Nathan to come to the phone. Instead, Talia came back. "I'm sorry, Mr Mazur but Mr Francis is entertaining a guest right now and can't be disturbed. He has asked me to inform you that your room is ready. Please come to the hotel at your earliest convienience. Your meeting is arranged for eleven o'clock this evening."
"Thank you, Talia."
"You're welcome, Sir. Have a lovely day." She said and then hung up.
"What did he say?" Christian asked.
"He couldn't come to the phone. He was too busy entertaining a guest." I said, my stomach rolling as I thought of him 'entertaining' Roza. "He asked Mr Mazur to go to the hotel at his earliest convenience. They have a meeting at eleven tonight."
Christian checked his watch. "We'll land at nine. That gives us plenty of time to get there."
I nodded and closed my eyes for a moment, hoping to get some sleep but all I could see was Roza's naked body as Nathan drank from her and dropped her to the ground. I snapped my eyes open and frowned, wondering if I'd ever be able to rid myself of that image. Or if I even should.
"How're you doing?" Christian asked, his eyes full of sympathy.
"I'm fine."
"You don't have to lie to me, Dimitri. Rose is like my sister and I want to burn the bastard to ashes."
"Don't worry, you'll get your chance." I said and sighed. "I'm fine for now. I just need to focus on getting her back. I can break down later."
Christian nodded. "If that had been Liss..."
"It wasn't. Roza would never give Vasilisa up, no matter what it cost her." I said simply. We both knew that Roza would sacrifice her life before she gave her best friend to anyone. For most dhampirs, it was just the way it was, another part of the job, they come first. For Roza, it was so much more than that. Vasilisa wasn't just her best friend but her sister. They'd been bonded together, they'd run away together and they'd faught so many obstacles together. Christian wasn't just Lord Ozera, he was her brother, the person that he best friend loved. Adrian was, well, Adrian. He was charming but misguided, but I knew that she loved him in her own. Roza would have died for any one of them in a heartbeat, without a second thought. She'd throw herself in to situations without thinking them through properly, just to make sure that they were safe. She would have done it for any moroi, royal or not, but with those three it was more. She loved them and they loved her.
I wanted to tell Christian that, but I couldn't find the right words. Besides, Roza wasn't taken because of Vasilisa. None of this was happening to her because of who her charge was. This was happening because of her father and to a certain extent, me. Nathan had been living on Galena's estate when I had been a strigoi. He'd been her second in command, much like he'd been Abe's. Then I arrived and everything changed, at least for him. Galena had heard of my reputation as a dhampir and was pleased that it had only intensified as a strigoi. My morals had vanished along with my dhampir life and I was... evil. There was nothing that I wouldn't do to achieve whatever I was trying to achieve, much like Nathan. I'd never taken things as far as he had, though I had tortured Roza in my own way.
In my mind, I'd been doing her a kindness in offering her the gift of immortality but in relaity, she was just another thing for me to own. Nathan had wanted her then but I'd forbidden it. Roza was mine and if anyone else tried to touch her, I'd have killed them. That was the one thing that I hadn't lost from my days as a strigoi. Roza was still mine and I'd nearly lost her too many times already. Nathan had touched her and he was going to die for it.
I pulled out my book, trying to take my mind off of everything but it didn't work. I was too busy graphically imagining all of the ways that I could torture Nathan and make him pay. It would help some of my guilt, or so I thought at the time. Even if Nathan wasn't doing this because of me, I was still partly responsible. Mama raised me to be a gentlemen and by not walking Roza home, I'd failed the two most important women in my life. It wasn't that Roza couldn't take care of herself, she could, but she'd been held captive by strigoi before and it handed ended well.
Mason Ashford, one of her best friends, had been killed by the strigoi that were holding them. It had changed her, and Eddie Castile too. They felt guilty. Whether it was because they'd survived and he hadn't or whether it was because they hadn't saved him, I didn't know. I did know that Roza felt worse because Mason had gone back to help her and he'd died for it. His had been the first spirit that she'd ever seen and now she was back in the same place. She was being held by strigoi except this time there was no one to take the focus from her. She was suffering alone with God only knew how many strigoi there. I was potentially walking in to an elaborate trap with two royal moroi as back up. I hadn't thought this through.
I took out my phone again and dialled another number, though this one I knew by heart. "Alberta." I said when she answered. "I need your help."