Two days later, I sat working at my desk when Olivia and Sasha appeared at the door.
“To what do I owe this honor?”
Olivia strolled in, uncaring that I was working or that she could be interrupting. I watched as she picked up a glass at the bar and carefully set it down. She amused me. Unlike everyone else in my life, who tried—or pretended—to be what I wanted them to be, she was decidedly herself, all the time.
“What do you need?”
She looked hesitant. “I was wondering if I could call my mom.”
I opened a drawer in my desk, pulling out an unused, prepaid burner phone. I held it out to her.
She looked shocked. “Really?”
A gentleman would have given him her office so she had privacy to talk. I wasn’t that kind of guy. I was more than curious about how she interacted with her mom.
I went back to work, pretending not to listen, but she wandered out of the office and out of earshot as she talked for a couple of minutes.
When she returned, her cheeks were bright red and her eyes looked watery.
“Everything okay?”
She avoided my gaze. “Yes.”
I put my pen down and narrowed my eyes at her. “Tell me.”
She let out a long breath. “Would it be okay if I took a cab to go see my mom?”
No, that would not be okay. “What’s going on?”
I could tell she wasn’t happy with something, but it didn’t seem to cross her mind to ask me for help. “All my boxes are at my mom’s place. I was hoping I could grab a few things.”
I shut my laptop. “Let’s go.”
She looked at me with alarm. “You don’t need to come with me.”
I worked to hide my smile. “It hurts that you don’t want your mom to meet me.”
She shook her head in vehement protest. “More like I don’t want you to meet her.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story. My mom’s a long story.”
I wanted to lean back and pull that story out of her. I wanted to know exactly what had happened to her in her childhood. I wanted to figure out why she had moved out to live with two strippers instead of staying with her mom. Those were the kinds of stories I wanted to know about Olivia. Everyone else, I didn’t give a fuck, but with her, I wanted to know.
“Let’s go visit your mom.”
It was late in the afternoon, but I still brought three extra guys in a second vehicle and Viktor. Olivia remained silent the entire ride to her mom’s home. Although calling it a home was a stretch. Evergreen Mobile Park was the place you went when all the joy in life evaporated and you had given up hope.
We pulled up, and Olivia looked at the shabby trailer with sad eyes, but she forced a lightness to her tone. “I can just quickly run in.”
I knew she needed her privacy, but I wasn’t about to let her out of my sight. “You know the rules.” I motioned to Viktor to have his team clear the perimeter.
We watched as they moved around the small trailer.
“Whatever happens, don’t hold this against me,” she said under her breath, not taking her eyes off the door.
“What does that mean?” I looked up at the shabby trailer. This place was another piece of the Olivia puzzle.
Viktor motioned for us to move.
She answered with a sigh. “You’ll see.”
A big man with body odor and a beer gut greeted us at the door. His eyes were shifting in anxiety but he puffed his chest and tried to sound tough.
“What do you want?”
Olivia stepped back so hard that she bumped against my chest. She was scared of him, which made me take a second look at the guy standing before us.
“Is my mom here?”
Ignoring me, the guy eye-fucked Olivia for a long moment before calling over his shoulder, “Shirley. Your brat is here.”
I wanted to plow my fist into his face.
“Easy,” I growled at him.
His eyes darted towards me in fear before he held the door open before disappearing down the hallway.
Olivia stepped inside the trailer, and I followed. It smelled like smoke, cat piss, and years of fried food. Olivia didn’t make herself at home. Instead, we stood in the hallway and waited for her mom.
A tall, thin, bleached older woman tripped to the door in high heels and satin hot pants. Without emotion, she looked between me and her daughter.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Mom,” Olivia said.
Mama Cougar eyed me like I was her next meal. “You shacked up already?”
Olivia went bright pink. “I just came by to get a few things.”
The woman turned and walked down the hallway, talking over her shoulder. “Don’t blame me if Danny wants to have your bedroom as a second TV room. I packed up your shit, but you never came back to get it.”
We followed her to a small windowless bedroom. There was a single child’s bed, decorated in pink sheets. Posters of ballerinas lined the walls. In the middle of the room was a stack of boxes.
Olivia’s expression was pinched, but her tone towards her mom was respectful. “Mom, thanks for hanging onto this for me as long as you did. I’ll just grab a few things, okay?”
The mom shrugged. “Don’t hurt me none. Whatever you don’t want to take with you, we’ll toss.”
Olivia looked overwhelmed as she opened one box. I caught a glimpse of trophies and ribbons.
She gave me a self-conscious smile. “This is just kid’s junk.”
I texted Viktor.
Her mom eyed my ass. “I told you to throw that crap away years ago. I have no idea why you keep dragging that around.”
Olivia ignored her as she moved another box to open it, obviously concentrating on the task of figuring out what to take with her.
Viktor appeared at the door. “Load up all her boxes,” I instructed him. “Tell one of the other guys to help.”
Olivia looked at me with bewildered shock. “Andrusha.”
“We don’t have time for you to look through everything. This will be faster,” I lied. The truth was, I couldn’t stand the thought of her throwing away any part of herself. And this was one more blow that I could easily prevent.
I picked up two boxes and followed Viktor outside. Two of the guys started packing the boxes into the back of the SUVs. “We need to work fast. Wheels up in four minutes,” I told everyone as I headed back inside.
I could hear Olivia talking to her mom down the hall.
“Mom, please listen to me. He’s helping me.”
“The guy is a criminal. Anyone can see that.”
“I don’t know why he’s helping me, but he stepped up when no one else would.”
“A man will do anything if you fuck him good enough.”
“Mom!” Olivia sounded scandalized.
“You think you’re different? You think that he’s some kind of prince who can save you? I thought the same thing about your dad, but there is nothing less sexy than prison.”
I moved into the small bedroom and lifted up the last two boxes. Olivia followed behind me.
“Is there anything else here you want us to bring? We’ve still got room.”
She couldn’t meet my eyes. “How much of that did you hear?”
Viktor came in, and I handed off the boxes to him. I waited until he walked out before I spoke. “Most of it.”
She picked up a half-burned candle and sniffed it before putting it down. “Well, that’s mortifying.”
I looked around the room. “Anything else you want to take?”
“My mom’s not that bad, you know?”
I looked at Olivia. There was nothing her mom had said to her that wasn’t true. I was bad news. And I was definitely a fucking criminal. “You should listen to your mom.”
She looked sad. “She’s still really bitter about my dad.”
Olivia didn’t deserve her mom any more than she deserved me. She deserved a fucking chance. Or whatever it took to get her out of this cycle we were in.
“Come on, let’s go.”
She was quiet in the back seat on the way back to the warehouse. When we got back, I ordered the men to carry all her belongings up to my loft. It was the one place where her boxes would remain private.
When we walked in and she took in the massive stack of boxes in the middle of the living area, she looked slightly panicked. “You’re keeping those in here?”
“Is there a better place to store them?”
“You shouldn’t have to trip over my boxes.” She looked genuinely anxious about it.
“When this is over, and you get your life back, you will have your stuff too.”
She looked at the boxes and then around the apartment. Her trembling bottom lip told me she was working to not cry.
I had no idea why. “Tell me why you’re upset.”
She swallowed hard, avoiding my eyes. “You keep saving me.”
The mystery of how her mind worked intrigued me. “Isn’t that the point?”
“It catches me off guard when you’re so nice to me.” She looked up at me through her wet lashes. “And you don’t have to be.”
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay. I envisioned her wearing nothing but some of those medals around her neck and my cock twitched hard. “I’m going out. Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m going to be okay.”
It took effort to walk away from her. “Have a good night.”
I watched as Detective Klaassen moved across the bar towards me. She was wearing what I would call a fuck-me dress. It was black and slinky and did its best to show off her body. I was used to women who threw themselves at me, but it caught me off guard that she was one of them.
She slid into the round booth beside me and smiled. “Hi.”
“Detective, you look beautiful.” It wasn’t a lie. The detective cleaned up nice.
She pressed her lips together. “Call me Jolena.”
I motioned the waiter over and waited until she ordered a glass of wine before ordering myself another vodka.
She looked around the room. “Nice bar.”
I had chosen this random local for the privacy it offered us.
I had never been here before, but I lied. “It’s one of my favorite places.”
Elbow braced on the table, she rested her face on her palm while she took in her fill of me. Her eyes traveled over my face before she spoke. “I was surprised you called me for a drink.”
“I wanted to talk.”
She studied me. “Is that all you want to do?”
“I need to talk to you off the record.”
She gave a little smile, her voice husky. “I’ve heard things about you.”
I worked to deflect. “I’m sure what you’ve heard isn’t remotely close to being true.”
She leaned closer. “It might be.”
I worked to put this train back on the tracks. “I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I actually need to talk to you about something.”
The waiter, thank fuck, interrupted us and set down our drinks.
She hummed as she sipped her wine before giving me a smirk. “This wine tastes delicious.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Do you like delicious things?”
Then she crossed the line we could never uncross. Her hand slid up my leg and her fingers cupped my junk. Despite my best efforts, I felt myself harden beneath her touch.
She practically purred. “You know, it’s hard to find someone with similar tastes. In my line of work, it’s twice as hard. So, whatever you need to do, off the record, is fine with me.”
In another lifetime, I might have taken her up on her blatant offer. Tonight, her overtures felt fake. It was time for this conversation to get real. I grabbed her hand and pushed it away. “Tell me about your witness.”
That stopped her cold. “Excuse me?”
“Everyone in the industry is freaking out, and that makes for a lot of twitchy trigger fingers. A little information could go a long way in keeping the streets calm.”
She gave me a long stare. “We lost our witness. She went underground, but she is communicating with the prosecution. No one knows where she is or who has her, but she’s alive and apparently willing to testify.”
I pretended to think. “Where is she?”
She repeated herself. “We don’t know. That’s the issue. Have you heard anything?”
I frowned. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Trust is gone. No one is talking anymore. It’s like a broken marriage out there.”
My phone buzzed.
I answered in Russian. “Yes.”
Viktor spoke rapidly. “The detective’s place has been searched. One potential connection to Bunko has been found on a laptop we mirrored. Erratic bank deposits over the last two years.”
“Anything significant?”
“Nothing that would warrant her risking her career.”
“Good work.”
The detective looked at me coyly. What would she say if she knew I called her to have drinks only so Viktor and my team could do a full search of her place? There was something off with her. The overt way she was hitting on me, the way Olivia reacted to her name, the fact that she had knowingly handed Olivia off to two corrupt cops. Detective Klaassen was a bad apple. I just hadn’t proved it yet.
The fall from grace—from ethical cop to dirty cop—was so huge, it usually only happened for love or money. You needed true motivation to decimate your own career like she was.
I looked at her. “I should go.”
She took a seductive sip of her drink. There was a fifty-fifty chance she was playacting, and I couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe I just didn’t care.
She fluttered her eyelashes. “You don’t want to stay and drink with me?”
There was nothing I wanted less. “I can’t. Work is a beast right now.”
She leaned over and aggressively planted her lips on my neck. “I want you, Andrusha Sokolov.”
I sipped my drink and hesitated long enough that she would believe she was tempting me. “I really need to go.”
She leaned her head back to stare at me, and she parted her lush, red lips. They were the kind of painted lips I normally pushed on my cock.
Her voice was husky. “Is this part of your game? Is this how you make me hot for you? I heard you ruin women. They become a slave to something you can give them. They say you’re like a drug.”
I stood up and tossed more than enough money on the table. She pouted. So I threw her a heat-filled look that I knew would make her flutter.
Her lips parted and her breathing increased. “Tell me what you want.”
I want all the intel you can give me on Bunko. I wondered how far I could push her, how much I could get her to reveal, before she figured out I would never fuck her.
If she was actually into me, I figured I could push her pretty far. If this was an act, she’d slip up soon.
She looked genuinely upset I was leaving. “Please don’t go. What can I do?”
“If you want any of us to have a fighting chance out there, you need to tell me everything you know about Bunko. We can’t fight what we don’t know.”
She licked her lips and held my gaze. “Give me a couple of days.”
I turned and walked out. The type of information she fed me would tell me exactly which team she was playing for.
