Chapter 53
Maksim
Exile is almost quiet in the mornings.
No bass shaking the walls. No drunks bleeding money across the floor. Just low voices, untouched glasses of water, coffee gone bitter in paper cups, and the men who matter already gathered around the table before the city is fully awake.
Sunlight cuts through the high windows in weak gray bars, catching smoke that never really leaves this place no matter how many times the vents run.
I take my seat at the head of the table we pull out for meetings.
Vaska is on my right, one elbow braced on the armrest, expression carved from stone.
Pietro has a laptop open already, screen throwing pale light across his face.
Dimitri stands near the end of the table instead of sitting, arms folded, impatient energy coming off him in waves.
Six of my other men are spread along the wall, listening more than speaking.
Demyan glances toward the empty chair near mine.
“Where’s Ayla?”
I don’t look up from the file Pietro slid in front of me. “Out with the wives.”
A beat.
Then Dimitri snorts. “She should be here.”
That gets a quiet hum of agreement from one of the others.
I finally lift my eyes.
Dimitri shrugs, unbothered. “What? She’d rather be here than doing whatever the fuck they’re doing.”
“She’d probably find Kaya quicker than half of you,” Vaska mutters.
A few mouths twitch.
I ignore that and look at Pietro. “Talk.”
Pietro taps a key, turning the laptop slightly so I can see the map on the screen.
“We’ve narrowed Gabriel’s movements to three possible locations.
None are confirmed. One warehouse on the outskirts, one abandoned shipping lot, and one townhouse just outside his usual territory, held under an LLC that traces back to one of his shell companies. “
“Patterns?” I ask.
“Rotating vehicles. Burners. Minimal foot traffic. Nothing solid enough yet to call it a guaranteed hit.”
Ivan speaks. “Enough for a sweep.”
“Not enough for me,” I say.
Silence settles again.
I flip the page in front of me. “Arsen?”
That answer comes from Vaska.
“Nothing current.” His voice is flat. “Last credible sighting was months ago. After that, smoke.”
My jaw tightens.
Pietro nods once toward the laptop. “The Amatos are still working that side. Ports, customs ghosts, shell movement, old safehouses. Nothing solid yet “
“Useless,” Demyan mutters.
“Not useless,” Vaska says without looking at him. “Slow.”
Dimitri spreads his hands. “Fine. Slow. Meanwhile Gabriel breathes.”
One of the men near the wall finally speaks. “If we hit one of the three and he’s there, what’s the call? Quiet raid, or do we go in hard?”
That lands the room back where it belongs. Business. Blood. Decision.
I lean back in my chair. “If Kaya’s there, I want him alive.”
Dimitri looks disappointed.
“Mostly,” I add.
That gets a low chuckle from somebody down the table.
Pietro scrolls through another page of information. “We can stage it two ways. Surprise and extraction, small team. Or full-force entry and lock down every exit.”
“Small team risks him slipping,” Dimitri says.
“Full-force risks noise,” Vaska counters.
Dimitri looks at me. “So what’s it going to be? Bring him to you, or kill him where he stands?”
I’m about to answer when my phone buzzes against the table.
I glance down.
Katya. I ignore it.
“Bring him to me,” I say.
The phone buzzes again. Then again.
This time Vasilisa’s name flashes across the screen.
Something cold moves down my spine.
Across from me, Vaska’s phone lights up.
He glances down.
Then up at me.
“Pakhan.”
I check the texts.
Kisa
Adriana and I got here, but Ayla isn’t home. Is she with you?
Then Katya’s
Katya
Ayla left in one of your cars without a guard and she had a bag. Is everything good?
Before I can fully register either one, Angelo’s name flashes across my screen.
I answer. “Yeah.”
“Where’s your woman?” he asks without preamble. “Adriana is worried, and I don’t like when she’s worried.”
My throat turns to glass. “She’s not with me.”
Angelo goes quiet for half a beat.
Then he curses under his breath. “I’ll call Santo. Send me everything you have.”
The line goes dead.
I dial Ayla. Straight to voicemail.
My eyes lift. Vaska meets my gaze.
“What are we doing, Pakhan?”
I push to my feet so fast the chair legs scrape hard against the floor.
Every voice in the room cuts off.
“Ayla left the house alone,” I say. “With a bag.”
Something ugly settles over the table.
Dimitri straightens. “What?”
I look at Pietro. “Call Katya. Find out which car.”
He’s already moving, phone at his ear before I finish.
“Vaska.”
He’s on his feet immediately.
“Go back to the estate. Take Demyan. I want every camera, every guard, every inch of that fucking place checked. I want to know when she left, what she took, who saw her, and why no one stopped her.”
Vaska nods once. Demyan is already reaching for his keys.
I look at Ivan. “Townhouse. Then my apartment. Check both.”
Ivan pushes off the wall. “You think she ran?”
The word hits the room wrong. Sharp. Immediate.
My gaze cuts to him.
“No.”
Nobody says anything to that. Good. Because it can’t be true.
Across the table, Pietro turns slightly, still on the phone. “Yeah. Which one?” A beat. “Got it.”
He lowers the phone. “Black sedan. She took the black sedan.”
“Track it,” I say.
His fingers move over the keyboard. A second later the map blooms across the laptop screen.
“Got it. Parking garage downtown.”
I grab my keys off the table.
Dimitri steps forward. “You want me with you?”
“No.” I look at Pietro. “You take one of them and go to the garage. Check the car. Check the cameras. Check everything.”
Pietro nods.
I look back at Dimitri. “Pinpoint Gabriel, now.”
The room hollows. Everyone clocking where my head just went and deciding not to say a fucking word about it.
Smart men.
“I want eyes on every hole he uses,” I continue. “Any warehouse, any shell property, any bastard he’s paying to breathe near him. I want him found today.”
Dimitri’s expression hardens. “Alive?”
“For now.”
That gets the room moving.
Chairs shove back. Phones come out. Orders start flying low and fast.
I head for the door.
Behind me, Pietro is already assigning one of the men to go with him. Vaska and Demyan are gone before I hit the hallway.
If she left—
No.
I shove the thought down hard enough to feel it in my teeth.
Her apartment.
That’s where she went before. That’s where I found her. That’s where she runs when she thinks she has nowhere else to stand.
So that’s where I go.
The whole drive there, my mind muddles. I hit her building too fast, park half on the curb. I hit her door hard enough that it bangs open before I register it was never locked.
The apartment is empty.
I stand there for one second, breathing hard, listening to nothing.
No movement. No shower. No television. No soft scrape of her boots from the other room. Just stale air and silence.
I move.
Kitchen. Nothing.
Bathroom. Empty.
Bedroom. Empty.
I turn back toward the living room and that’s when I see it.
Her old backpack.
I cross the room and snatch it up. It’s lighter than it should be. The zipper is already half-open. I shove my hand inside and find clothes. A knife sheath. Some useless shit.
Not the money.
Seventeen thousand gone.
For one savage second, all I see is red.
She took it. She planned this. She left my house, lied to my face, took my car, took her money, and ran.
My hand tightens around the backpack so hard the seams strain. I want to tear the whole fucking place apart. Put my fist through the wall. Rip the door off its hinges. Smash every breakable thing in sight until the room looks like what just happened in my chest.
I told her.
Never alone again.
And she still fucking ran.
“Fuck.”
The word comes out low and lethal.
I throw the backpack across the room. It hits the counter and falls in a heap.
My phone rings.
Pietro.
I answer so fast I nearly crack the screen. “What.”
“We found the car.”
The rage in me holds, hot and violent. “And?”
“Parking garage downtown. Third level.” A pause. “Her phone though...”
Something in his tone cuts through enough to make me go still.
“What about it?”
“It’s crushed.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “Crushed how?”
“Like somebody stomped it.”
The room tilts slightly. Not enough to lose balance. Enough to make me recalibrate.
My eyes drag over the apartment again. No struggle here.
No blood.
Bag left behind but money taken. My pulse doesn’t slow. It just changes shape.
Maybe she ran.
Maybe she made it to the garage and somebody took her.
Maybe this was never just one thing.
The thought hits like a crowbar to the ribs.
“Where are you now?” I ask.
“Still on-site. We’re pulling garage footage, but it’s taking—”
“Don’t leave.”
“I’m not.”
I hang up and stand there in the middle of her room, breathing like I’ve been in a fight.
Could be either. That’s the problem.
If she ran, I drag her back myself. Lock her away. She’ll never leave again.
If she was taken—
My vision goes white for half a second.
The phone rings again.
Santo.
I answer on the first ring. “Yeah?”
Santo doesn’t waste time. “We got a hit on one of her cards.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “Where?”
“A plane ticket. Booked this morning. One-way to Chicago.”
For a second, I don’t say anything.
Chicago.
It doesn’t make sense. Not in any way that matters.
“She doesn’t know anybody in Chicago,” I say.
Santo is quiet for half a beat. “That you know of.”
The words hit wrong. Cold. Sharp. Designed to cut.
My eyes drag back to the backpack in the corner. The half-open zipper. The empty place where the money should be.
Seventeen grand gone.
One-way ticket.
My car.
Her phone crushed.
Every piece fits.
And none of it does.
“What time?” I ask.
“Left twenty minutes ago. We flagged it too late.”
I press my free hand against my mouth for a second, hard enough to hurt.
Why the fuck would she go to Chicago?
Last night she was in my bed.
Last night she was warm and soft and looking at me like she wanted to stay there.
She wanted to come with me.
She wanted—
No.
No.
This is wrong.
It has to be wrong.
“Romeo’s there,” Santo says. “I already called him. He’ll keep eyes on the airport, bus stations, train if he has to.”
That yanks me back into the room.
“Good.”
I lower my hand and force my voice flat. Controlled. “I’m sending him her picture.”
“Do it now.”
The line stays open while I pull up my phone.
Most of the photos are garbage. Blurred. Half-lit. Taken without thinking.
Then I find one.
Ayla at the bar in Exile. Elbow on the counter. Purple streak catching the low light. Mouth tipped like she’s trying not to smile. Looking like she belongs there more than half the people I’ve ever let through those doors.
My heart pounds. Hard.
Hard enough to piss me off.
I send the photo to Romeo with one line.
Watch for her. Call me the second you see her.
Three dots appear almost instantly.
Romero
Understood.
Santo’s still there when I lift the phone back to my ear.
“Romeo confirmed?”
“Yeah,” I mutter.
A beat.
Then Santo says, quieter, “Maksim.”
I already know I’m not going to like whatever comes next.
“What.”
“The card hit tells us she meant to leave.”
The words land like a fist to the throat. I stare at the wall hard enough to crack it.
“She packed,” I say.
“Yes.”
“She took cash.”
“Yes.”
“She left my house.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Every answer makes something uglier open under my ribs.
But the phone. The crushed phone. I shut my eyes for one second.
Then open them again.
“She still could’ve been taken after,” I say.
Santo doesn’t argue. That’s enough to keep me breathing.
“I’ll send you garage footage as soon as we get it,” he says. “And I’m having my people pull station cams in case she switched routes after she ditched the car.”
That makes my head snap up.
“You think she went to the train?”
“I think she didn’t want to be found.”
That one almost does it. Almost.
My hand curls so hard around the phone it hurts.
“Get me the footage,” I say.
“You’ll have it.”
The call ends.
I stand there in the middle of her apartment with the silence pressing in from every side.
Chicago.
One-way.
Planned.
My gaze drags over the room again like the walls are going to tell me something they didn’t before.
They don’t.
All they do is sit there and hold the shape of her absence.
I look at the backpack in the corner and something in me twists.
Chicago.
Romeo Romero.
Capo now, after his father and brothers were butchered there.
If Ayla makes it anywhere near that city, he’s the closest thing I’ve got to a hand around her throat before she can disappear.
I pull up the photo again and just look at her.
“Who are you running from, Beda?”
The question dies in the empty room.
My phone buzzes again. Pietro.
I answer. “Tell me what you have.”
“We got the footage.”
I don’t speak.
He sighs. “Sending it now.”
The video loads before he hangs up.
Grainy garage feed. Bad angle. My car. Ayla stepping out with the bag on her shoulder, moving fast, head down.
I go still.
She doesn’t look lost.
Doesn’t look confused.
She looks like she knows exactly what she’s doing.
Then she drops her phone on the concrete. My jaw locks harder.
Her boot comes down on it.
Once.
Twice.
The second hit makes something violent rip through my chest.
She kicks the pieces aside then just keeps walking.
Like she planned it.
Like she meant every second.
For one brutal second, all I can do is stare at the screen.
At her.
At the woman who was in my bed last night crushing the only thing that would have let me talk to her.
Rage hits so hot it burns clean through thought. I shove out of the apartment so hard the door slams off the wall behind me.
By the time I hit the sidewalk, I see red.
Compound. Now. All of you.
I send it to every one of my men.
No explanation.
No delay.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m about to do. I just know something is wrong.
Wrong enough that I can feel it in my teeth. Wrong enough that none of this fits no matter how hard I try to force it to.
She packed. She took the money. She bought the ticket. She crushed the phone.
And still—
Something is wrong.
I get back in the car and tear away from the curb.
Home.
I need my men in one place.
I need every feed.
Every report.
Every fucking thing.
Because whatever this is, it isn’t done.