Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            “I can understand that. Try to relax. We are almost there.”

            Be calm, Elena. Be calm. He father’s voice came to her again. She tried to slow her breathing and rein in her thoughts. She had to think. She had to get out of here. He said they were almost there. So, they were still in Nashville. They had to be. If she’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, then they couldn’t have gotten far. Maybe she could make a run for it as soon as he opened the door. It was her best option, but she would have to surprise him, maybe even overpower him, first. She had to be ready to pounce, but she had no idea which side he would open to get her out.

            In the front seat, the man’s phone rang. He laughed and hit the speaker button. “I assume this is for you.”

            A familiar voice filled the car and turned her blood to ice. “Hello, Elena. I hear you’re not cooperating.”

            No. It couldn’t be true.

            “You really are too much like your father. He didn’t know when to quit, and neither do you.”

            Not him. Not Yevgeny. He couldn’t be part of this.

            He chuckled. “I thought that by hiring you, I could keep an eye on you, but you were even further along than I ever dreamed you’d get. That’s the sad irony of this. You’re a hell of a good journalist, Elena. You could have had a wonderful career, but your fatal flaw was the same as his. You trusted the wrong people.”

            She wanted to scream, claw, spit, and fight, but she couldn’t. Grief had stolen everything she had left . . .

            “You were my father’s friend.”

            “And that made it harder than you can ever know to have to stop him the way we did. But he got too close, just like you.”

            “Too close to what?”

            “To unmasking me.”

            “You’re Strazh.” She was dizzy with the rush of rage.

            “I am. Nice to meet you.”

            “You won’t get away with this.”

            “I already have, Elena. More times than you know.”

            “You have daughters. How can you do the things you do and not see their faces every single time?”

            “By not bothering myself with the details. I make money. That’s all it is.”

            “Please,” she choked. “I don’t care what you do to me. Just, please, leave Vlad alone. He knew nothing about this. Okay? You have to believe me. I never told him anything. Please don’t hurt him. Please.”

            Yevgeny laughed. Loud and openly, as if she’d just told the funniest joke in the world. “Do you want to know the last thing your father said?”

            Snot and tears mixed together on her face.

            “He said, Don’t hurt my little girl. She doesn’t know anything. You two are so alike.”

            She didn’t try to fight or argue anymore. The pain this time was overwhelming.

            “I promised him I would look after you. And I tried. I really tried. I’ve known all along where you were, Elena. Every step you’ve taken since that moment, I’ve known where you were. But you just couldn’t leave things alone. You couldn’t have just married that rich hockey player of yours and moved to America and lived a life as a bored hockey wife, could you? You just had to be as much of a pain in the ass as your father.”

            “What did you do to him?” she whispered.

            “Does it matter?” Yevgeny paused. “I’m sorry, Elena. I really am.”

            He hung up.

            Her father was dead. He had died trying to right the wrongs of the world, a noble cause, but he’d left her alone because of it. He’d left her alone with no details on what happened to him. What if she disappeared just like her father and Vlad never knew what happened to her? She had to get back to him. She wasn’t going to leave Vlad with the same unanswered questions, the same guilt and grief, that she’d lived with for so many years. She wasn’t going to let a fruitless quest steal what really mattered from her. Him. It had always been him. She’d just been too blind to see it.