Chapter 16 – Maxim
Eleanor’s fingers traced lazy patterns across my chest, her touch light as butterfly wings but burning like brands against my skin.
The afternoon had dissolved into early evening while we’d lost ourselves in each other, and now we lay in the aftermath of promises made flesh, of walls torn down and rebuilt into something stronger.
“How did you know?” she asked, her voice still husky from sleep and everything that had come before it.
“Know what?”
“How to find me. How you arrived at exactly the right moment to save my life.”
I felt my jaw tighten at the memory of that phone call, the moment when my carefully constructed world had tilted on its axis and nearly sent everything I cared about spiraling into darkness.
“Rafael called me,” I said, running my hand through her hair. “He’d been tracking your movements through the city, noticed when your car deviated from its expected route back to the house.”
“Rafael was tracking me?”
“Everyone gets tracked, Eleanor. Every car, every phone, every person who matters to this organization. It’s not personal; it’s survival.”
She propped herself up on her elbow, studying my face with those hazel eyes that saw too fucking much. “But you didn’t know I’d left to meet Arlette.”
The admission tasted like acid in my mouth. “No. I didn’t.”
“How is that possible? You said you track everything.”
“I track everything that goes through official channels. But you went through Anya, and she….” I trailed off, not wanting to throw my sister under the bus for a decision that had nearly cost Eleanor her life.
“She covered for me.”
“She did what she thought was right. Giving you the freedom you needed while keeping you protected.” I met her eyes, letting her see the guilt that had been eating at me since I’d seen her bloodied and shaking in that destroyed car. “It nearly got you killed.”
“But it didn’t. You saved me.”
“Barely. If Rafael hadn’t been monitoring traffic patterns, if Dmitry hadn’t noticed your car’s GPS signature moving through the wrong part of the city….” I didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t finish it. The alternative was too fucking terrifying to voice.
Eleanor was quiet for a moment, processing this information. “Who’s Dmitry?”
“Dmitry Chertov. One of Rafael’s most trusted associates. He handles coordination between our various operations, keeps track of logistics and personnel movements.”
“And he was watching my car?”
“He was watching all our cars. It’s his job to know where every asset is at any given time.” I pulled her closer, needing the reassurance of her warmth against my skin. “If he hadn’t flagged the anomaly, if he hadn’t brought it to Rafael’s attention….”
I didn’t need to finish. We both knew how close I’d come to losing her today, how many small coincidences and routine protocols had combined to keep her breathing.
“I need to go,” I said, though every fiber of my being rebelled against the idea of leaving her alone. “Rafael’s waiting for my report.”
“How long?”
“An hour, maybe two.”
She nodded, understanding in a way that most wives never would. This was the world we lived in now, where debriefings and damage assessments took precedence over everything else, where the machinery of war never stopped grinding long enough for the luxury of extended pillow talk.
“Be careful,” she said, pressing a kiss to my chest.
“Always am.”
“No, you’re not. You’re reckless when it comes to protecting the people you care about. I’ve seen it.”
The accuracy of her assessment hit me like a physical blow. She was right, of course. When it came to Eleanor’s safety, I’d throw caution to the wind and charge into hell with nothing but bullets and determination.
“Promise me,” she continued, her voice soft but insistent. “Whatever this meeting is about, whatever you’re planning, promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Define stupid.”
“Anything that might get you killed before you make it back to this bed.”
I captured her mouth in a kiss that was meant to be brief but quickly deepened into something that made leaving even harder. When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
“I promise,” I said, meaning it even as I wondered if it were a promise I’d be able to keep.
Twenty minutes later, I was walking into my office to find Rafael already seated behind my desk, his expensive suit wrinkled and his usually perfect hair showing signs of stress. Cassandra sat across from him, her tablet open and her expression grim.
“You look like shit,” Rafael observed without preamble.
“Fuck you too.”
“How’s Eleanor?”
“Alive. Shaken but whole.” I moved to the bar cart in the corner, pouring three fingers of whiskey into a crystal tumbler. “What’s the damage assessment?”
“Two dead shooters, both professionals. No identification, no traceable weapons, no obvious connection to any of our known enemies.” Cassandra’s fingers flew across her tablet screen. “But the execution was clean, organized. This wasn’t some street gang taking a shot at us.”
“Bratva?”
“Had to be. The style, the precision, the knowledge of Eleanor’s route.” Rafael leaned back in my chair, his dark eyes studying me with uncomfortable intensity. “Which brings us to the elephant in the room.”
I took a long pull of whiskey, feeling it burn down my throat. “Say it.”
“How the fuck didn’t you know Eleanor’s exact location when she wasn’t at the house?”
The question hung in the air like smoke, heavy with implication and disappointment. Rafael had every right to be pissed. In our world, situational awareness was the difference between life and death, and I’d failed at the most basic level.
“She told Anya she was going out for errands. Anya covered for her, thought she was giving Eleanor some breathing room while keeping her protected.”
“And you didn’t think to verify this personally?”
“No.” The admission tasted like failure. “I was distracted, dealing with internal security concerns, trying to balance keeping Eleanor safe with giving her the freedom she needed. I let my personal feelings cloud my judgment.”
Rafael’s expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight tightening around his eyes that meant he was considering whether to dress me down or cut me loose entirely.
“Your personal feelings nearly got your wife killed,” he said finally.
“I know.”
“If Dmitry hadn’t flagged the anomaly….”
“I know.”
Cassandra looked up from her tablet, her expression thoughtful. “Speaking of Dmitry, who else knew about Eleanor’s location besides the three of us?”
“No one,” Rafael said immediately. “The tracking data goes directly to my office, gets filtered through Dmitry, then comes to me.”
I felt something cold settle in my stomach at the mention of Dmitry—something I hadn’t picked up on earlier because I’d been too consumed in thoughts about Eleanor’s safety. “Wait. Dmitry brought the anomaly to your attention, right?”
Rafael nodded. “Called me the moment Eleanor’s car stopped moving in the wrong sector. Said it looked like an ambush scenario.”
I set down my whiskey glass with deliberate care, my mind racing through implications I didn’t want to face. “Who is Dmitry Chertov, exactly?”
“What do you mean, who is he? You’ve worked with him for three years.”
“Humor me.”
Rafael’s eyes narrowed, picking up on the shift in my tone.
“Dmitry Chertov, thirty-nine years old, Russian national. He’s been with the organization for over a decade, worked his way up from courier to logistics coordinator.
Moved to Chicago seven years ago to help establish our North American operations. ”
“What did he do before Chicago?”
“Intelligence work, mostly. Liaison between Bratva operations and certain government agencies back home. Clean record, steady performance, never given us a reason for concern.”
“Government agencies.”
“Yes. Why?”
I felt pieces of a puzzle clicking together in my mind, forming a picture I really didn’t want to see. “He works between us and the US government, too?”
“Of course. How do you think we maintain our operational freedom? Dmitry handles the delicate negotiations, makes sure the right palms get greased and the right blind eyes get turned.”
“So he has contacts in both worlds. Russian intelligence and American law enforcement.”
“Maxim, what the fuck are you getting at?”
I stood up, pacing to the window that overlooked the city. Chicago sprawled below us, millions of lights beginning to twinkle as evening settled over the metropolis. Somewhere out there, enemies were planning their next move, calculating how to exploit the weakness they’d discovered today.
“Think about it,” I said, not turning around. “Dmitry knew Eleanor’s location. He knew her route, her timing, her security detail. He was in the perfect position to coordinate an ambush.”
“You’re suggesting one of our most trusted associates tried to have your wife killed?” Rafael’s voice carried a note of warning that I ignored. “Why would he alert me, then?”
That was an unanswered question—one I didn’t want to focus on at the moment. “I’m suggesting that someone with intimate knowledge of our operations fed information to those shooters. Someone who knew exactly when and where Eleanor would be vulnerable.”
Cassandra was typing rapidly on her tablet, her expression focused. “I can pull communication logs, cross-reference Dmitry’s activities with the timing of the attack….”
“Do it,” I said. “But quietly. If I’m wrong, I don’t want to destroy a good man’s reputation. If I’m right….”
“If you’re right, we have a traitor in our inner circle,” Rafael finished grimly.
“One who’s been feeding information to our enemies for God knows how long.”
The silence that followed was heavy with implication. If Dmitry was compromised, how many operations had been leaked? How many of our people had been put at risk? How long had we been dancing to the tune of someone else’s agenda?
“There’s another possibility,” Cassandra said quietly.
“What’s that?”