A Dance with Danger

Chapter Seventy

Tiberius  POV

Shit. Just fucking shit.

The entire night had gone south in a way I couldn't even comprehend. I'd been expecting an ambush. Hell, I’d been preparing for one at the base, or maybe my warehouse. Those were the places where I did most of my dirty work, where enemies could expect to find me. But the fact that they hit us in my fucking house, while Estelle was upstairs sleeping—now that was a goddamn declaration of war.

I didn’t know if it was the rage that coursed through me, or the pain from the bullet graze on my side, but something inside me snapped when I realized what had happened. That was my family. My wife. My fucking life. And they thought they could take it from me?

“Shit…” I muttered under my breath, my hands shaking as I gripped the armrests of my father’s old recliner. It was a damn comfort, a piece of history, but right now, all it did was remind me of how fucking useless I felt.

The family doctor, Arianna—Riri, as everyone called her—was stitching up my side. I barely felt the needle as it pierced my skin. My mind was too focused on the catastrophe unfolding.

The house had been under attack for what felt like an eternity. It hadn’t been some small-time hit, either. The ambushers had been well-prepared, and the fact that they’d been able to get so close without me noticing? That pissed me off more than the gunshots, more than the blood that had spilled. My mind kept flashing to Estelle. She’d been asleep when the attack started. The poor girl hadn’t even known what hit her. And now? Now she was gone.

I clenched my jaw, the anger building in me like a fucking storm.

Riri was silent as she worked. She wasn’t much for small talk, thank God. She had that doctor’s focus, the kind of focus that let her cut into someone without flinching. She’d patched up worse injuries in her time, but I was starting to realize the extent of the damage I’d taken.

“Two men down,” one of my guards had reported earlier, voice grim. “We’ve got them under control now, but whoever came after us wasn’t playing around. They knew what they were doing.”

I’d gotten the call about the car crash just minutes later. It hit me like a fucking punch to the gut. A black SUV—one that had been registered under one of the guards I’d trusted to escort Estelle to safety—had crashed near an abandoned stretch of road. The report said the car was wrecked beyond recognition, but there was one thing I knew for sure: Estelle wasn’t in the wreckage.

The bastard had taken her.

I could feel the tension in my chest growing tighter with each breath I took. They’d used the guard I trusted to get her to safety. That guard, the one I told to escort her to Ilya and Damien for protection, had been compromised. And now, my wife—my everything—was gone.

“Shit,” I muttered again, running my hand through my hair, only to realize I was covered in blood. My own blood, sure, but also the blood of my men. The damn blood that now stained everything. It was a fucking reminder of the mess I’d let happen.

“Do you need anything else, Mr. Kavouris?” Riri’s voice was low and careful as she finished stitching up my wound. She didn’t look at me, but I knew her well enough to sense the concern in her tone. She didn’t say it, but she knew the magnitude of the situation. We all did.

“I need to find her,” I growled, the words coming out like venom. I didn’t even realize how loud I’d gotten until Riri looked up, her eyes narrowed with a mixture of concern and caution.

“You’re not going anywhere in your state,” she warned, and I could tell by the way she was eyeing my side that she was trying to keep me from doing something stupid. “You’re not in any condition to chase down anyone right now.”

I shot her a glare, but she didn’t flinch.

“I don’t give a fuck about my condition,” I snapped, my voice growing sharp. “I will burn this whole city down if I have to. I will find her.”

Riri sighed, her face softening as she finished up her work. She placed the needle down and wiped off the excess blood with a gauze pad before securing the bandage in place. “You can’t help her if you’re dead.”

I gritted my teeth, not liking how she was making sense. I didn’t care about my body right now. Estelle was in the hands of someone who would torture her, someone who would make her feel the pain I had fought so hard to protect her from.

“I’ll call in the team,” Riri said after a moment, her voice firm. “We’ll track her down. I’m not letting you do this on your own, Tiberius.”

I didn’t argue with her. I couldn’t.

She moved to leave the room, but paused just before the door. “Do you want me to call your father?”

I shook my head, my jaw clenched so tight I thought it might crack. “No.”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask for help from anyone who was connected to my father. Cesare had been my fucking nightmare growing up, and while he had given me some tools for this life, he had also made me who I was—cold, calculating, and driven by rage. And right now, I was fucking consumed by that rage.

Riri left the room, and I leaned back in the recliner, the quietness of the moment eating at me. All I could hear was the beating of my heart, slow and heavy like a war drum. The room felt smaller, suffocating. My mind kept going back to Estelle—how she had looked when I’d last seen her, the way her hair had cascaded down her back, the softness in her eyes as she trusted me to protect her.

Now she was out there, taken by someone I thought I could trust. A guard I’d known for years. That betrayal cut deeper than any physical wound ever could.

I was so fucking angry. My mind kept racing, trying to piece together how it had all gone wrong. Why the hell would someone betray me like this? I’d given them a job. I’d told them what to do, where to go, and how to keep her safe. That’s all they had to do.

Now, here I was, sitting in my father’s recliner, injured and helpless, while the woman I loved was somewhere in the hands of someone who had every intention of making her suffer.

God, I hated this feeling. The helplessness. The anger. The sense of being fucking powerless. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to lose her.

I stood up abruptly, ignoring the pain in my side as I paced across the room. I couldn’t sit still. Not now. Not when I had to get her back.

Every second that passed felt like an eternity.

I wanted to feel the satisfaction of revenge—of taking the bastard who did this and making them pay. But I knew that wouldn’t do Estelle any good. She needed me. She needed me to get my shit together and focus. She needed me to find her, to save her, to get her back.

I didn’t give a fuck about anything else.

Estelle was mine. And no one—NO ONE—was going to take her from me.

Not now, not ever.

The fire in my chest ignited, and I gritted my teeth, ready to do whatever it took to get her back. My men were already on the move, tracking every lead, combing through every inch of the city. And I’d be damned if I wasn’t right there with them, leading the charge.

My blood boiled, the adrenaline coursing through my veins like a drug, making me forget the pain in my side.

“I’m coming for you, Estelle,” I whispered to myself, my voice low and determined. “And when I find you, I will make them pay.”