I could choose to send my men out to look for her, but this is one of the rare times when I feel like I truly need Stepan’s advice. He didn’t like Millie, to begin with. Maybe he really did see something that I couldn’t. Maybe I was too blinded by love.
Stepan’s phone rings twice before he answers. “Yeah, what’s up?” he says, slurring a bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was drunk. In fact, that’s what I had predicted.
“Millie isn’t in the house, and I have no idea where she is. I’m wondering if I should call the hospitals around here to make sure they don’t have her,” I say, hearing anxiety in my own voice.
“You really think she’s fighting for her life in the hospital right now? How do you figure she didn’t just leave you?” he replies nonchalantly.
I’m already too emotionally raw to deal with his bullshit comments about her, but I know that things are looking worse for his impression of her every minute that she’s missing.
“Can you just come here and check out the apartment with me? Make sure
I’m not crazy? She could have been kidnapped by the rival gang as collateral or something,” I reply, speaking so quickly that I’m almost rambling.
“How about you calm down, and I’ll come look it over with you. But Viktor, I need you to prepare to face the possibility that she really is just gone,” he says.
We hang up the call, and I obsess over every object in the apartment that looks slightly out of place. Millie’s toothbrush and makeup are still here, which creates more questions than answers. She wouldn’t have just left like this. She was planning a surprise for me. Surely, it wasn’t just to reveal that she wanted to ghost me.
When Stepan arrives, he’s as unconcerned as he could ever be, and I’m half expecting him to gloat to me about how he knew she wasn’t a good woman from the beginning.
“Why do you think she was kidnapped? The place looks a little messy, but nothing unusual, especially not for her. She never was great at keeping a house,” he comments, lightly kicking a throw pillow that Millie insisted on buying.
“I just want to make sure we’re considering all possibilities. Different scenarios require different approaches, you know?” I say, and I notice I’m sweating now. “You know it’s not impossible that she was taken by someone. They’re obviously pissed that I killed Erik and are trying to get after me.”
Stepan walks around the living room, eventually making his way toward the bedroom. His overfamiliarity with my personal space is annoying, but I need another set of eyes to make sure I’m not just seeing things.
“Her stuff is kind of all over the place, do you see that?” I say as I point out the disorganized clothing in the dresser.
“Well, wherever she is, it looks like she was trying to get there as soon as humanly possible. I don’t see any blood or a true sign of a struggle. I’m sorry, Vik, but it looks like she left you,” he replies smugly.
Even though I knew he never liked her, his ambivalence toward the fact that she’s missing causes a wave of fury to ignite in my chest. I can’t retaliate, however, because I need him by my side for the counterattack on the rival gang.
“Have you tried calling Nikolai? He seems to be very close with her. Maybe a little too close,” he continues, making his way into the kitchen and swiping a bit of flour off the counter and onto the floor.
“Shit, really? You’re right,” I mutter, picking up my phone. I attempt to call Nikolai, but the number has been disconnected. He couldn’t answer even if he wanted to.
“That’s fucking weird. First, you couldn’t get ahold of him, and now he’s disappeared at the same time as Millie?” Stepan says as I double-check the number.
“What are you trying to say, Stepan? Jesus, just fucking say what you need to say already,” I reply angrily, growing increasingly exhausted of his passive-aggressiveness.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that they were spending so much time together? And then he suddenly became harder and harder to get ahold of?” Stepan suggests, and while I would never accuse Nikolai of sleeping with my girlfriend, the evidence to the contrary is adding up fast.
“I’m going to send the men out to look for them both, starting with the clubs that Millie used to work at. Even the one Erik owned. Actually, especially that one,” I say, my throat so tight that the words are thin and quiet.
Stepan rolls his eyes at the suggestion. “Viktor, remember that conversation we had about American women? She was raised with no values, no respect for the man of the house. It’s no surprise that she left like this, honestly,” he replies smugly.
I resist the urge to punch him in the face at his irreverence to the situation. He continues to pace casually around the house, pretending to make mental notes of indications that Millie hadn’t left of her own free will.
“Viktor, you’re a smart guy. It’s time for you to let go of this fantasy that you’ve built up around this woman. It’s a little pathetic, to be honest. I think your father would be disappointed that you’ve fallen into such a suggestible state of mind,” he continues, offering up his invaluable advice with all of the tact of an impatient elementary school teacher.
I’m seething at this point. I don’t even know who or what I’m upset at.
Am I angry at Millie for not being here, whether she was kidnapped or not?
Am I angry at Stepan for being so ambivalent about it?
Am I angry at Nikolai for being too distant and spending too much time with my girl?
“Maybe you should come over again for dinner tonight. Katya’s cooking for the whole family. I’m sure she’d love to have you there,” he suggests, losing any trace of manufactured empathy he had been projecting before.
“Absolutely fucking not. I need to figure this out by myself if you’re not going to help me. I don’t have the energy for you to be whispering shit in my ear while I’m making a plan to get Millie back,” I reply, stopping short of shouting at him for suggesting something so inappropriate.
Stepan eventually leaves, scoffing at me as I glare at him as he enters the elevator.
I couldn’t ever blame Stepan for Millie’s disappearance, but the fact that he refuses to have any empathy about the situation at all bothers me to my core. If Katya had gone missing, he would be pointing fingers, accusing everybody within a ten-mile radius of harming her. When the situation doesn’t impact him, it might as well not exist at all.
But it exists for me, and the only thing I’m going to be able to think about is getting Millie back. If something bad has happened to her, I’d never forgive myself for dragging her into this mess.
I need her. I can’t live without my precious girl.