I was watching Olivia, who was curled up in her seat and staring out the window, when Viktor said, “Another group has been hit.”
I sharpened my gaze. “Who?”
“The Korean Mulgogis,” he said between bites of barbecue. “They had a shipment coming in last night, and their barge was taken out.”
Olivia sighed as she tucked up her feet beneath her legs. “What happened?”
“Bunko’s crew approached the ship, boarded it, started it on fire. The coast guard interrupted the whole mess, saving the lives of the crew. Bunko’s team took off—and the Mulgogis got rescued. Then they got arrested when the coast guard found what was left of their five-million-dollar coke shipment.”
I rubbed my forehead, thinking. Losing a five-million-dollar shipment would bankrupt the young, new gang. “Can the Mulgogis even recover from that?”
“Doubtful, and my source at the courthouse said that none of them made bail.”
It had been smart to cease all illegal business activities. Bunko was hitting shipments to make groups vulnerable. With no illegal shipments to protect, we were harder to hit.
“I’ve told Vlad to stop all shipments,” I said to Viktor.
“He told us. He wasn’t happy.”
“Bunko is hitting groups where they are most vulnerable. Make sure Vlad follows my orders.” I glanced at Olivia, who was staring out the window.
I want to see you dance.
Was I really the asshole who had suggested she dance for me? She had to dance for enough men in her life. And I didn’t need to add myself to the list of men who’d let her down. I wanted to be the man who didn’t ask for anything in return. I didn’t want this thing between us to be a transaction or exchange. The whole point of protecting her was to show her there were honorable men in the world.
Except I wasn’t an honorable man.
Out of all the women out there, why did she have to be the one I suddenly wanted? How was it possible that she piqued my interest?
The irony was that if I truly wanted to save her, I needed to keep her away from me.
Three days passed, and I worked around the clock to keep myself occupied and away from Olivia. I was punishing myself for even tempting myself with her.
Mica called to let me know that they were home from the road and could take Sasha off my hands. “You want to come by for dinner?”
“This is not a good time to be seen with me, friend.”
Mica paused. “Come for one drink.”
So now Olivia, Sasha, Viktor and myself, along with five armed men, were driving to Mica and Charlie’s place to drop off Sasha.
In the back seat, Olivia’s sadness was palpable as she snuggled next to Sasha. As if he could pick up on Olivia’s mood, Sasha let out a long whimper.
Behind me, Olivia whispered to him, “It’s okay. Don’t be upset.”
I glanced back at her, my tone harsher than I meant. “He’s not our dog.”
“I know.”
“Mica and Charlie are great people. They are also great dog owners. Sasha has a good home with them.”
She sighed heavily. “I know he needs to go back home.”
We pulled up to Mica and Charlie’s place, and Viktor killed the engine. I put my guns in the glove compartment and looked back at Olivia. “Let’s go.”
“You want me to come inside with you?” She sounded shocked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“You want me to meet your friends?” She looked slightly terrified.
I realized I had never once introduced a woman to Mica and Charlie. I didn’t want to examine too closely why I’d brought Olivia. “Think of them as Sasha’s parents.”
She got out of the SUV and, taking Sasha’s leash, stood close behind me as we rang the doorbell.
Charlie swung the door open with Nadia in her arms. “Andrusha!”
Nadia squealed when she saw me, kicking her baby legs and throwing her arms towards me. Charlie reached up to hug me before she handed Nadia over. I cradled Nadia in my arms, looking down at her adorable baby face with a tender smile. I loved babies; they were the most precious things in this world. “There’s my sweet girl,” I said to her in Russian. “How are you, my darling?”
Nadia cooed and put one wet hand on my chin.
“Oh, hi,” Charlie said behind me, surprise in her voice. “Who’s this?”
Olivia stood in the doorway, clinging to Sasha’s leash.
Charlie threw a huge smile at me and said to Olivia, “Come in.”
Olivia stepped in, but Sasha remained outside.
Charlie gave him a perplexed look. “Sasha. Hey, boy! Come on.” The dog looked so sad. I swear he knew what was happening.
“It’s okay, Sasha,” Olivia coaxed in a soft voice. Only then did Sasha come inside.
Charlie bent down to pet him. He accepted her touch but pressed himself tighter to Olivia’s side. “Sasha really loves you,” she said to Olivia with a smile.
“He’s a great dog.”
“Mica’s fixing the gate out back,” Charlie said to me. “I’ll call him in.”
“No, that’s okay.” I handed the baby back to Charlie. I needed a bit of time to talk to Mica alone. “I’ll head out there.”
I walked out the length of the backyard towards Mica. “Hey.”
He turned and grinned at me. “Are you the reason two guys with guns and night vision just traipsed through my yard?”
“Possibly.”
He shook his head. “Everything okay?”
“It will be.” I switched the focus to him. “You’re looking good this season.”
We talked hockey for a bit while he fixed the gate. When he was done, we picked up his tools and headed across the lawn towards the house. Partway across the lawn, Mica stopped and clutched his heart. “Is that a woman I see sitting in my living room?”
I glanced up. Olivia was sitting on the couch, talking to Charlie. Well, Charlie seemed to be doing most of the talking. Sasha was on the couch too, glued to Olivia’s side.
“She’s a bit of a story.”
He turned to me, curiosity in his gaze. “I bet she is.”
I elaborated with a shrug.
His expression turned pensive. “I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Amelia’s husband died.”
A curious sensation washed over me. “How?”
He shrugged. “Old age, I guess.”
“Okay.” I didn’t even know how to process that.
“She’s been badgering my mom. Trying to find out where you are and if you’re married.”
I worked to keep my breath even. How many years had I waited for this moment? Now I felt nothing but a chill. “Is that all?”
Mica studied me. “My mom didn’t want to deal with it, so she gave Amelia my number.”
I schooled my expression. “Sorry for the bother.”
“She’s called a few times, but I’ve never picked up. I wanted to talk to you first.”
My voice sounded cold even to my own ears. “You shouldn’t have to deal with her.”
“I don’t mind. I just don’t know how you want me to steer this.”
Neither did I, but the last thing I wanted was for Mica to be involved. “Just block her number.”
He nodded. “You sure?”
I started up the steps of the deck. “Yup.”
We stepped inside. Olivia looked at me with big eyes, but she was listening to Charlie.
Charlie smiled at me. “I was just telling Olivia how amazing you’ve been and how you saved my life.”
“Not true.”
Charlie looked at Olivia. “Don’t listen to him. He’s so modest. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know where I’d be.”
When Nadia’s thin wail sounded from the other room, Charlie got up.
Mica looked at me. “Want a beer?”
I looked at my watch. “Yeah, we can stay for one.”
“Would you like a drink?” Mica asked Olivia.
She sounded prim. “Your wife gave me some coffee.”
He gave her a huge smile. “Do you want a real drink?”
She glanced at me.
“We’ve got time,” I said.
She stood and followed him into the kitchen.
He opened the fridge. “We have vodka, beer, coolers. Do you like coolers?”
She nodded.
He opened another cupboard. “I can make you a margarita.”
“That’s okay.”
He gave her a mock-crestfallen look. “Come on. Let me use the blender. Charlie only wants to drink wine.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to.”
He winked at me. “But I want to.”
I loved Mica. The guy was doing his best to make Olivia feel at home. He was so good at putting people at ease. Whereas my gift was putting people on edge.
The shrill ring of his phone sounded from the counter.
Mica’s hands were full, so he said to Olivia, “I’m expecting a call from my coach. Can you look at the screen and tell me who it is?”
She leaned forward and looked at the screen. “It says it’s Amelia.”
Mica froze and looked over his shoulder at me.
Fuck. This was one conversation I wasn’t prepared for. I gave him a shrug, so he motioned his head towards the phone.
I picked it up and swiped it to answer, but I didn’t speak.
“Mica?” Amelia’s voice spoke in my ear. “God, I’ve been calling you for a week. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m absolutely desperate to get a hold of Andrusha.”
Olivia watched me with curious brown eyes.
“What do you want?” I asked in Russian.
There was a long pause. And then she gave a choked cry. “Andrusha. Is that you?”
“You need to stop bugging Mica,” I told her. “This is none of his business.”
She was breathing hard. “I know, but darling, I need to talk to you.”
The sound of her voice sent me back eight years. Strange feelings washed over me so fast that I couldn’t even decipher them. “This isn’t a good time.”
“Please, Andrusha,” she begged. “Please give me your number. I must talk to you. It’s so very important.”
I watched as Mica poured a blended red drink into a cocktail glass. I knew he was listening. He handed the drink to Olivia with a flourish. “Tell me what you think.”
She took an obedient sip. “It’s delicious.”
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked Amelia, feeling like I was living in two different realities at the same time.
“I can explain later. Please, just give me your number. Please, Andrusha.” Her voice was soft. “You owe me that.”
“I owe you nothing.”
“Okay, maybe I owe you. I don’t know. Just… let me call you.”
“I’ll text you my number,” I said without emotion before hanging up. I stared down at her number. I hesitated before texting her mine. Then I deleted her calls and my text from Mica’s phone.
“Mica, did you find another victim for your margaritas?” Charlie laughed behind us. She spoke to Olivia as she moved to Mica’s side. “Mica’s obsessed with his blended cocktails. He doesn’t even drink them. He just wants me to drink them.”
Why is Amelia calling me?
“You have to drink one too,” Mica told Charlie.
Love shone on her face as she looked up at her husband. “If you insist.”
He dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. “You know you love them.”
Olivia watched my friends with a wistful expression, but when her eyes met mine, she flushed and looked away.
The call with Amelia had put me on edge. I set my beer down on the counter. “We should go.”
“You just got here,” Charlie looked crestfallen.
I felt restless and edgy. My tone was clipped. “I know but we need to go.”
They walked us to the door to say goodbye. Sasha got up and walked to the door. I watched as Olivia went down on her knees to whisper something in Sasha’s ear before she gave him a careful hug.
Mica and Charlie exchanged a look. Then Mica spoke to me in Russian. “You want to keep Sasha for a while longer?”
“She’s already getting too attached,” I answered back.
Mica gave me a sympathetic look. When we opened the door, Mica had to hold Sasha back by the collar. Sasha let go with long, pitiful howls when he realized he was being left behind. We could even hear his yelps as we walked out to the vehicle.
We got into the car. “Anything?” I asked Viktor.
“Nothing. It was quiet.”
I looked back at Olivia, who was staring blankly out the window. The less she showed, the more she was feeling.
I tried to think of something to say to her, but I was interrupted by my phone.
“Yes.”
“We need to talk,” Detective Klaassen breathed in my ear.
“Give me an hour, and I will come meet you.”
I sat in the back corner of the diner and ordered a coffee. I looked like a man who had come to a fight alone, but outside, eight of my men created an invisible line of defense.
Detective Klaassen slid into the booth across from me. She was in detective mode, and she looked tired and drawn beneath the restaurant’s fluorescent lights.
“Detective. How are things?”
Without looking at the menu, she ordered a sandwich and a coffee to go. “Things are shit, but I think you already know that.”
“I know far less than you probably think I do,” I lied smoothly.
She leaned forward. “Any word on the street about the girl?”
I shook my head. “I’ve talked to everyone about your witness. No one has confessed to helping her.”
She eyed me speculatively. “Do you have any suspicions?”
“I wish I did.”
She looked defeated. “It’s like she vanished.”
“My turn to ask questions.”
She scowled. “You didn’t have any answers.”
“You don’t want Bunko to get more of a foothold in this town. No one does. Give us something concrete we can work with to take him on. Right now, he knows everything about us, and we know nothing about him.”
I waited, knowing that whatever she told me would indicate where her loyalties lay. If she gave me solid intel on Bunko, it meant she actually cared about taking him down. If she fed me bullshit, there was a strong likelihood that she had become ensnared in Bunko’s web of control and manipulation.
The waitress put her food down in front of her. I watched as the detective took off the lid of her coffee and dumped in cream and sugar. “I think we found our leak.”
I paused. “In your office?”
“We suspect two cops of working for Bunko.”
“Which cops?” I asked bluntly.
She put the plastic lid back on her coffee. “The two cops who were assigned to protect our witness. The ones who lost her. We’ve been running surveillance on them, and we are almost one-hundred-percent sure they are connected, based on their activity in the last couple days.”
She was a good liar. But I had put my own surveillance on those two corrupt cops, and both of them had left town the day they got released from the hospital. I knew they were assholes, but they had zero connection to Bunko.
I smiled at her as I tossed money on the table, paying for her dinner. The fact that she was lying didn’t prove that she was working with Bunko, but it did prove that she couldn’t be trusted.
I nodded slowly. “That’s important to know. What do you know about those cops?”
She relaxed when she thought I bought her story. “They are two pieces of work.”
Trust seemed to be in short supply with everyone these days. I told her my own lie. “I’ll call you if I hear anything. We had a meeting, and we all decided that no matter what, we will work closely with the cops. Whatever we know, we will share with you.”
She avoided my gaze. “It’s the only way we’re going to beat this bastard.”
I stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”
I walked across the street to the vehicle. As Viktor pulled away from the curb, I hit a number on my phone.
“Carl. Want to call an emergency meeting? If we don’t all get on the same page, they will sink us.”
