The Ones Who Failed Us

Chapter 38

Elijah's POV

I was on the third floor in my office with Lucas going through the videos Demetri had sent us, hoping for some clue as to where my baby sister was. We had already gone through the videos hundreds of times, but we were still holding on to the belief that we would notice something new. It was naïve, but what else could my brothers and I do? We were powerless against the Russians, and had made absolutely zero progress on finding Ava in the past month.

And then there was the sounds of muffled crying in the background of one of the videos. None of my brothers recognized it, but whoever it was, we had vowed that we save them along with our sister. No innocent person deserved to be treated this way, and especially not at Demetri's sick hands.

Shutting the computer, I stood up from my seat and paced the room, my fingers running through my hair. "What the fuck are we going to do, Lucas?" I shouted, kicking a chair over. "It's been a month, and we are no closer to getting her back than we were when she first went missing. And now Demetri is going to kill her in a week."

"I know, Elijah, but we're going to find her. We have to." Lucas walked towards me, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Why don't you take a break, and we can try this again later?"

I pushed Lucas off of me and walked towards the door. "How can I take a break when my sister is out there being tortured by Demetri? I'm going to go to Alessandro's office, and see if there's anything there that he might have missed."

Leaving my office, I walked to Alessandro's office where I saw a light shining from the bottom of the door. I reached for the gun that was tucked in my waistband, preparing myself for whoever was behind that door.

I slowly opened the door keeping one hand on my gun behind my back, but tucked it back in my waistband when I saw who it was.

Teddy.

His back was turned to me as he watched the video had sent to Ava from Alessandro's computer, soft sobs coming from his mouth. Not wanting to scare him, I walked towards him and gently closed the computer. I kneeled behind him and turned him towards me only to be met with his tear-stained face that soon hardened into a glare.

"How could you?" he sobbed.

I furrowed my brows trying to understand what Teddy was saying. "What do you mean, Teds?"

Instead of answering me, Teddy rained punches on my chest, yelling, "This is all your fault. If it wasn't for you, Ava would be safe with us. I hate you, Elijah. I hate you so much."

A stampede of footsteps neared the office, and Teddy was soon restrained by Alessandro. The twins and Leo watched the scene from the doorway, confusion clear on their faces.

"What is going on?" Alessandro asked.

"Let me go," Teddy yelled, struggling against Alessandro's hold. "None of this would have happened if it wasn't for him."

Alessandro turned his gaze to me, raising an eyebrow. "What's he talking about?"

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I don't know. I found him here watching the videos of Ava-"

A string of curse words left Alessandro's mouth. "He watched the videos?" Alessandro asked, raising his voice. He tightened his hold around Teddy, who was still struggling against Alessandro. With one stern look down at our little brother, Teddy huffed and stopped fighting, but the glare directed at me never faltered. Whatever had elicited this anger from him scared me. I had never seen Teddy angry about anything, so it was definitely something serious.

Leo knelt down in front of Teddy and asked, "Teds, can you take a few deep breaths? Once you've calmed down, you can tell us what's wrong."

Doing what Leo had suggested, Teddy composed himself, and Alessandro released his arms from around him. Our oldest brother led Teddy to the chair behind his desk and sat Teddy on his lap. "What happened, buddy? And why aren't you in bed?" Alessandro asked.