Chapter 12
ALEXEI
I bring the car to a screeching halt outside the warehouse.
Plumes of smoke are still reaching up into the sky, and about a dozen or so of my men are crowded outside, staring at the chaos unfolding before them.
I scan them all briefly. At a glance, it looks as though everyone is unhurt, though I won’t be able to tell until I’m in.
“What happened?” I bark, as I step out of the car, striding towards the assembled crowd.
I get a better look at the building as I approach, and the sight of it sets my teeth on edge.
It looks as though the facade out front has been left untouched, but I can tell everything else within is gone, wiped away.
“How much of our stuff was inside?” I ask, turning to Franklin, who stands beside me.
“Not much,” he replies. “Since this was the building that got scoped last week, we decided to move as much as we could out of here, in case there was an attack. I thought it would make a good decoy, for the Vinski lot to feel like they had really made a statement, but...”
He casts his eye across the scene before him.
“I didn’t think they would actually go through with it.”
I pause for a moment, pushing a hand through my hair.
So, at the very least, we haven’t lost any major part of our inventory.
But still, this is bad news. They’ve moved up from just trying to get a feel for my business to now making a move directly against it, and I can’t be sure that they won’t try it again…
Or go bigger next time, and take out even more than they did before. The very thought of it is enough to bring my blood to boiling point, and I move towards the door.
“I don’t know if it’s safe to go in yet…
” Franklin calls after me, in an attempt to warn me, but I don’t pay any attention to him.
I push open the door, which is swollen from the heat, and kick it a few times to move it out of its frame.
Finally, it flies off the hinges, and I survey the damage in its entirety.
It looks to me as though the fire is mostly contained, but the smell of the smoke is still thick and acrid in the air.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It almost feels surreal, as though it must be happening to someone else.
Because nobody in their right fucking might would ever dare do something like this, ever dare try to take me down in this way.
And yet, here I stand, in the midst of my half-destroyed warehouse.
If we hadn’t caught the attempt at surveillance before, I don’t even want to think how much we could have lost.
And even if we haven’t lost much, we have taken a hit in the eyes of this city.
Because shit like this, it doesn’t just go away.
People will see now that we are vulnerable, that people are able to get into our warehouses and cause trouble.
Who knows if something else has slipped under the radar?
What if there have been other spies working for me that I know nothing about?
Outside, the dozen or so men standing as they wait for my command, there could be a traitor amongst them, and I wouldn’t know a thing about it...
The thought sends a hot wave of fury through my body. All I’ve worked for, all my father has worked for, and it comes crumbling down because some fuckers don’t want to play by the rules and remember who really runs this place.
I make my way slowly through the rest of the warehouse, keeping my face as steady as I can.
It’s been torn to pieces. There’s no way this was some random attack.
No, they used whatever information they had been able to glean when that bastard let them come sneak around in here, and they could be doing the same anywhere else in the city even as I stood here.
Even in my own home.
That thought hits me hard, and it suddenly clicks why this sight is enough to bring me into such a state of shock.
Because it comes alongside the revelation that I now have more people to take care of than I ever could have imagined.
Max was enough, but now I have Cara and Nina, too.
Cara, who’s no doubt waiting back at the house, as terrified as she looked just before I left, wondering what the hell has called me away so urgently and if I intend to come back to her at all.
I can’t let anything happen to them. To any of them. My business is one thing—my family is another.
And any person who dares raise a fist to either is going to pay with their fucking life.
I know what happens when you leave the people you love at risk.
My father adored my mother, but it wasn’t enough to protect her when the attack came.
Shit, if he hadn’t loved her quite as much as he had, maybe she would have survived it, maybe she wouldn’t have found herself targeted quite as brutally as she was.
I’ll never know the truth, but it’s not a possibility I want to leave the door open to.
I turn to head back outside, where my assembled men straighten up as soon as they see me.
“All of you,” I call out, as I come to a stop before them. “I want you back at the mansion. Rest tonight, and I’m going to set a new security schedule tomorrow. I want twenty-four-seven surveillance of my home. Nobody in or out that I don’t know about. You understand.”
Ilya’s brows dig together, and I can tell he is not exactly entirely in agreement with my plan of action here. But, as the men disperse to the cars, he has the good sense to come and talk to me about it directly, no doubt confused as to what has got me so protective of my home all of a sudden.
“You think it might be better for some of them to go look over the other warehouses?” he points out, voice cautious, all too aware of my mood right now. I’m not one to be disagreed with at the best of times, but in a tense situation like this one, he has some nerve to confront me.
“I know where I want my men,” I reply. “Come on. We’re going back to the mansion.”
I pause for a moment as I lean on the car, looking up at the smoking warehouse in front of me.
I’ll have to have someone spin a story if any press coming sniffing around, tell them that it was some random electrical fire.
Shit, if I can get that story spread far enough, maybe I can even convince my enemies that there’s no reason for them to come snooping around anymore than I already have.
Who the fuck am I kidding? There are so many people in this city, more than I even know about, who are praying on my downfall. I climb into the car next to Ilya, taking the wheel, and he stares out at the road ahead as we pull out.
“I want all the CCTV footage from tonight on my computer by the time I wake up,” I tell him. “And tomorrow, we send a few men back here to get a better look at it. See if there’s anything they left behind, anything that might give away who did this.”
“You don’t think it was Vinski?”
I flex my hands on the wheel. I don’t want to give them the fucking credit for something like this, but it’s hard to believe that it could have been anyone else.
“We’ll find out, one way or another,” I reply, keeping my voice as even as I can as we make our way back to the mansion.
He falls silent for the rest of the trip, probably wondering if I’m getting too emotional about something that should have been a more straightforward matter.
Back at the house, Ilya heads to his room to pull the footage for me and rest, and I go straight to my study to pour myself a drink. I know I should be getting some rest, but I can’t imagine laying my head down on the pillow right now and actually being able to let myself rest.
Maybe I could if I was next to her. I lift the glass to my lips and take a quick sip, grimacing as the sharp taste of vodka hits the back of my throat.
I’m not even sure if I like this stuff, but it was my father’s drink, and I grew so accustomed to seeing him sipping on a glass while he was in here, it had almost seemed second nature to do it myself by the time that I was the one in charge.
I would have stayed the night with her, had it not been from the call with Ilya to drag me back to reality.
I knew that much. There’s something about her presence that’s addictive to me, my mind spinning with the possibilities of every damn thing I want to do to that woman.
Her body, her mind, her voice, the way she touches me—how all that defiance seems to drain from her the moment I take her into my arms—it’s the kind of thing I could get caught up on, if I was that way inclined.
“Alexei?”
I look up, to see her standing there in the doorway to my study. She is wearing that long tee again, her slim legs stretching out against the doorframe.
“What are you doing here?” I murmur. “I thought I told you to stay in your room.”
“You did,” she reasons. “But I... I heard the car coming up the driveway, and I just wanted to check if everything is okay.”
I take a long sip of my drink before I reply. “Everything’s fine.”
She chews her lip, clearly not entirely believing me. “When you left, it seemed pretty urgent-”
“It was. But it’s dealt with now.”
“You’re sure?”
I look into her eyes and consider for a moment telling her the truth.
Telling her that I don’t know whether I can truly promise her and the children safety, because it feels like everything might fall apart at any moment.
That my enemies have never felt closer than before, and now I’ve even more to lose, a daughter and a woman who I don’t even understand the depths of my feeling for yet.
“Yes.”
She rubs her foot against the back of her calf, and I find my gaze drawn down to her body once more.
“You should go to bed,” I tell her firmly.
As tempting as it is to keep her here and work out some of the tensions of the day, I know I’m better off focusing on the matter at hand here, dealing with whatever repercussions might come from this attack on the warehouse.
If she sticks around any longer, I’m going to down the rest of that drink and lock that door to make sure we won’t be disturbed.
But I need to focus on what matters here more than anything.
She parts her lips, as if to protest, but then she thinks better of it. She nods, and pads off down the hallway, and I find my gaze tracking her as she goes. In the silence that follows her, I wonder if I would have been better off never hiring her here at all...
Or if the people who seem to want my head would have found out about her and Nina, one way or another. They’re better under my roof than anywhere else.
Even if I know Cara is going to offer one hell of a distraction in the face of everything I need to focus on right now.