Chapter 28 Ayla
Ayla
Leaving the townhouse was suicide.
I know he has a car watching me, but I don’t give a fuck.
I have to go.
I need to make sure my friends are okay. I need to give Gabriel something—anything at this point, before he decides to kill my friends and make me watch.
The black card in my pocket feels heavier than my keys.
By the time I cut through the side streets and cross under the overpass, the warehouse lights are already on. They spill out through the grimy windows in strips, yellow and harsh, painting the asphalt in rectangles.
Same place. Same stink of oil and dust and old smoke.
I pull my leather jacket tighter around me, like that’s going to make any fucking difference if he finds me here, and head for the side door.
Kay spots me first.
The door jerks open before I can knock, and then I’ve got an armful of red hair and cheap perfume.
“Ayla!” she squeals, throwing herself at me. “Oh my God, thank God you’re okay.”
I almost topple back with the force of her hug. My chin hits her shoulder, and for a second, some muscle in my chest loosens.
“‘Course I’m fine,” I mumble into her hair, hugging her back. “What, you thought I’d finally managed to die without you?”
She pulls away just far enough to swat my arm. Her eyes shine in the warehouse light.
“You disappeared,” she says, lower now, like the walls might be listening. “Then Maksim came around. We thought—” She cuts herself off, glancing past me toward the street, then back. “Whatever, we’ll talk inside. Come on.”
Inside, it’s the same and not the same.
The folding tables, the crates, the scale in the corner. The battered couch with its rip along the seam. A fan that sounds like it’s about to explode.
But there are more boxes stacked along the back wall than there should be.
New shipment. New product.
New risk.
“Would you look at that,” a voice drawls from my left. “Princess finally remembers where she came from.”
Ricky.
He saunters out from behind a stack of crates, shoulders loose, that familiar lazy smirk on his face. He gives me a slow once-over, from the boots Maksim bought me to the cropped top under the leather jacket.
“Oh, look at you,” he says, eyebrows lifting. “All of a sudden coming to slum it with us?”
Heat prickles across the back of my neck.
I glance down at myself—black leather, fitted jeans. Maksim’s world stitched into every line.
“Shut the fuck up, Ricky,” I say, rolling my eyes.
But I’m smiling.
He looks good. Healthier, even. There’s a new tattoo creeping up his throat I don’t recognize. His knuckles are raw. He’s still here, still standing, still doing the job I told myself I should be doing too.
Kay hooks her arm through mine and drags me further in.
“Jace!” she calls out. “Look who finally decided to grace us with her royal presence.”
Jace is at the back, half-hidden behind a stack of boxes, checking labels on plastic-wrapped bricks. He looks over his shoulder.
“Ayla,” he says with a short nod. “You’re alive. That’s unexpected.”
“Nice to see you too,” I shoot back.
I walk closer, Kay still attached to my arm. The markings on the boxes are familiar—same supplier, same codes, but there are too many.
“You take this from Gabriel?” I ask, brows pulling together. “I didn’t think he had another shipment.”
Jace’s jaw ticks.
“We’ve been monitoring the port,” he replies. “He had another one come in. We grabbed what we could before the Russians showed up to intercept again.”
My stomach drops.
Of course they did.
Maksim’s men, carving pieces off Gabriel’s operations, dismantling his routes.
I shouldn’t care. Gabriel’s been terrorizing my life since I was old enough to run errands. But Kay, Ricky, Jace—they’re stuck in the middle, always.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I mutter.
“Yeah, well you fell off the face of the earth,” Ricky counters from behind me.
The words land harder than they should.
Because he’s right.
I was supposed to be here, shoulder to shoulder, working these runs, stealing what I could. Not sleeping in a townhouse with marble countertops and security cameras. Not swiping a black card that doesn’t bounce, wearing clothes that actually fit.
Survival, I tell myself.
This is survival.
Except every time Maksim presses me into a wall and growls mine into my throat, it doesn’t feel like survival. It feels like something else. Something I’m not supposed to want while my friends are over here still working their asses off for crumbs.
The guilt sits heavy, a stone in my gut.
“Thought Korsakov did something to you,” Ricky says.
I open my mouth to answer, but the back door swings open with a metallic groan.
Cold air knifes in, sharp enough to raise goosebumps under my jacket.
Emir steps through.
He’s in his usual dark clothes, jaw freshly shaved. Always neat, always controlled, eyes that never stop measuring.
“I knew I’d find you here eventually,” he says.
The warehouse seems to shrink.
Kay’s grip tightens on my arm. Ricky straightens up. Jace pretends to keep checking inventory, but I see the way his shoulders stiffen.
“Give us a minute,” Emir says without looking at them.
Kay shoots me a worried look. I squeeze her hand once before letting go and follow Emir toward the far corner, behind a stack of pallets. The hum of the fan muffles our voices.
He turns to face me, hands sliding into his pockets.
“You’ve been gone a long time, Ayla,” he says quietly. His voice soft, almost kind. “Gabriel has been waiting for information. Waiting on you.”
“I know,” I sigh, leaning back against the cold metal of the wall. “It’s…harder than we thought.”
His gaze sharpens. “Harder how?”
“It’s not like he sets me up in meetings,” I snap, heat rising. “It’s not like he just invites me to sit in while he plans how to dismantle Gabriel’s network. I’m not in the rooms you want me in, Emir. Half the time I don’t know where he’s going until he’s already gone.”
It comes out too fast, too defensive.
A lie.
Emir doesn’t flinch. He just watches me with that steady, unblinking stare that makes most people confess their sins.
“That’s not going to cut it,” he says, disappointment lacing his tone. “Gabriel needs more than excuses. You know he’ll kill you, Ayla. He’s losing too much.”
“How’s he gonna do that?” I ask, a bitter laugh scraping my throat. “Show up at Maksim’s door and ask for his little spy back? I doubt that.”
“Careful,” Emir says softly. “You’re getting too confident, Ayla. You need to remember who Gabriel is.”
I push off the wall, his words sparking something sharp in my chest.
“You don’t think I know who the hell he is?” I bite out. “He’s been torturing me for half my life. Every rib once marked with his bruises. Every choice his decision. I just want the hell out, Emir.”
For a second, something like pity flashes across his face.
Then it’s gone.
“That’s not what we’ve heard.”
My fingers curl into fists.
“What does that mean?”
“Word from our informants is that you belong to Maksim now.” The word belongs lands too heavy. “If that’s the case, Gabriel expects a lot more than ‘I can’t’ from you.”
Heat crawls up my neck, shame and anger knotted together.
Belong to Maksim.
Maksim’s hand on the back of my neck when he sleeps. His voice in my ear telling me stay. Be mine. His body caging mine against the Ducati until I felt like I couldn’t breathe without him inside me.
Belong.
I swallow hard.
“Just give me until the end of the week,” I breathe. My voice doesn’t shake, and I’m proud of that. “I’ll get you something. I’ll figure it out.”
Emir studies me for a long moment, eyes moving over my face like he’s cataloging every lie I might be telling.
Finally, he nods once.
“End of the week,” he repeats. “No more delays. Gabriel’s patience has limits.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
I’m so tired of men reminding me of cages I’m locked in.
I hear the front door creak open before Kay’s voice cuts through the warehouse, pitched a little too high.
“Ayla.”
The sound of my name isn’t what makes my stomach drop.
It’s the way she says it.
Like a warning.
“It’s Maksim” Kay answers, already panicking.
My heart slams against my ribs.
If he sees Emir here, if Maksim walks in and finds me tucked in the corner with Gabriel’s right hand—
“We’re done,” I hiss under my breath, moving closer. “You need to go. Now.”
“Ayla—”
“If he sees you, the cover’s blown and we’re all dead,” I whisper fiercely. “You know that.”
We stare at each other, the space between us buzzing with everything we’re not saying.
Then Emir nods once. No argument.
“End of the week,” he reminds me as he turns, slipping toward the back door. He moves fast but not hurried, steps silent on concrete. In another heartbeat, he’s gone—out into the alley, swallowed by the dark.
I exhale slowly, press my fingers to my temples for half a second, then move.
Ricky is already moving toward me when I emerge from behind the pallets.
He looks from my face to the back door and then to the front, where the main entrance has opened wide enough to let in the sound of an engine cooling outside.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He steps a little closer anyway, like he’s used to catching me when I’m not.
“He’s coming,” Kay whispers from near the door, eyes big as she looks from me to the entrance.
He hunted me down. Son of a bitch.
The air in the warehouse changes before he even appears. It tightens, sharpens, like the room knows a predator just stepped onto the property.
Then he’s filling the doorway.
Maksim.
Black shirt, black jacket, dark jeans, like he swallowed the night and brought it in with him. His eyes sweep the room in one ruthless pass—door, crates, Kay, Jace, Ricky—
Me.
They lock on me like a gunshot.
My lungs forget how to work.
He steps inside, slow, controlled, each movement coiled. He doesn’t have to raise his voice when he speaks.
“Did I tell you,” he says, gaze never leaving mine, “that you could leave the house?”
Ricky bristles beside me, shoulders squaring.