Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Five hours earlier
AXEL
I approached Grisha’s large family house. Despite the fact that it was three thirty in the morning, it was lit up like a Christmas tree. Several of his men stood outside in small groups, smoking and talking in low voices.
I approached another fixer who worked the east side of Moscow. “I got an emergency text to return to the house. What’s going on?”
“We all got the same text.” He took a drag before blowing smoke above my head. “The niece, Mila, went missing. Grisha’s losing his mind.”
I looked around the front driveway. There were at least thirty men standing around. I was distinctly aware that I was the driver who’d brought her home alone and possibly the last person to see her. “When’s the last time anyone saw her?”
“Grisha saw her asleep in her bed shortly after midnight.”
I felt the tension in my shoulders ease slightly, knowing that this cleared me from any suspicion. “Have we started looking for her?”
“We’re standing by for Grisha’s orders.”
At that moment, Grisha stepped out the front door, looking extremely pissed. Everyone immediately gathered around in silence.
“Mila has gone missing from her bed.” Grisha cleared his throat.
“We don’t know at this point if she’s been taken or if she left on her own accord.
In the meantime, I want you all to start looking for her.
Shake up your counterparts. Head to the airport.
I don’t want anyone coming back here until she’s been found. ”
Immediately, everyone broke up and started moving back to their vehicles.
I waited until I was back in my car before calling Yuri, my handler, on a burner cell phone.
Yuri was my only connection to my outside life.
I fed him all my undercover intel, and he worked to keep track of me and support me.
Together, we were doing our best to take down one of the biggest mafia families in Russia.
“It’s Axel.”
“We’ve heard about Mila. What do you need?”
“Can you tell me where she’s gone?”
“Hang tight,” he told me. I could hear typing in the background. A long pause hung between us before Yuri finally spoke. “She got on the Sapsan about thirty minutes ago.”
That surprised me. “Do you think she’s going to St. Petersburg?”
“Our intel suggests she’s heading to Helsinki. She’ll be arriving at the train station in about four hours.”
I started my car. “Got it.”
“That’s easily an eight hour drive. You’ll never catch her in your vehicle.”
“If I can bring her back to Grisha, I will be that much closer to gaining his trust.”
More typing. “I agree. Head toward the south side of the city. I’ll find a small private charter.”
“That works.” I turned onto the highway and hit the accelerator.
“It’s still going to be tight,” he warned. “Even if I can find a pilot who’s willing and available.”
“Do your best.”
I missed Mila’s arrival at the Moskovsky train station by ten minutes, and, by the time I reached the arrival platform, most of the passengers had already disembarked.
I stood at one end of the massive station and debated my options.
The place was huge, with multiple entrances and exits, not to mention access to the underground station.
My best option was to head to the Finlyandsky station and hope that Yuri’s intel was correct.
I was walking toward the front of the building when I heard shouting and a woman’s scream.
People began running indoors from the outside courtyard with varying expressions of fear and panic on their faces.
Habit more than anything made me walk toward the current.
Just outside the front entrance, I found the aftermath of a knife fight gone bad.
I gave a cursory look around and nearly passed over someone sitting on a bench and wearing a hoodie.
But there was something about the stillness of that person that made me swing my gaze back.
Is that her? I moved closer, positioning myself at an angle so I could get a better look at their profile.
It was Mila. She was sitting on the bench, still as a statue, staring blindly at the chaos unfolding in front of her. Her entire body was shaking like a leaf, but her gaze remained focused and intent.
She looked different than she had the previous night in the car, when she had been both fashionably dressed and spitting mad.
This morning, her face was free of makeup, making her look younger than her years.
Her dark curly hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, and she was drowning in her oversized cargo pants and hoodie.
I studied her face. I would recognize those pouty lips anywhere.
They overtook her small nose and wide brown eyes, which gave her an air of innocence, with a touch of feminine allure.
Her face wasn’t conventionally beautiful, but it was so unique that it mesmerized.
When she stood up, I moved toward her. With her back to me, she watched, transfixed, as emergency workers ran toward the scene.
I didn’t move when she took a few faltering steps backward and bumped into me.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly, before glancing up at me through her eyelashes.
Her eyes widened with recognition, then shock, then fear.
“Hello, Mila.” I tried to soften the blow with a smile.
“No,” she whispered, as she backed away from me.
“Why don’t we sit back down?” I offered.
“I’ll scream. If you touch me, I’ll scream my head off.”
I moved my jacket aside to discreetly show her my side piece.
I would never harm her. I was acting more on instinct than anything else.
In my world, showing weapons was the equivalent of two animals baring their teeth at each other.
Men I dealt with on a daily basis rarely batted an eye when weapons were revealed. It’s almost how we greeted each other.
But Mila froze and whispered, “Is that a gun?”
I softened my voice. “Please sit down so we can chat.”
Her entire body was trembling, but the fire that flashed in her eyes was real. To her credit, she obeyed and sat quietly on the bench.
I sat down beside her.
For a moment, we watched the progressively more chaotic scene unfold in front of us. Now the police were sectioning off the crime scene with tape. Other officers were starting to gather witnesses, and the paramedics left without a patient.
“How did you find me?”
“I got lucky,” I lied. “Your uncle currently has all his men out looking for you. The police are involved, and everyone is focused on bringing you home.”
“Bringing me home?” Her eyes widened with incredulity. “Is that your idea of a joke?”
“I don’t joke around.”
“They’re trying to marry me off so they can use my passport.” Her eyes filled with tears, but her voice was cold. “Have you met Sergei?”
Sergei was a ruthless psychopath with violent tendencies. These traits made him excel in this line of work, but I would never be stupid enough to turn my back on him. “I know Sergei.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to marry him. You might as well shoot me here because that’ll be more merciful than forcing me to be legally bound to that man.”
I didn’t look at her or allow my face to show any emotion. Instead I watched the police work. I estimated I had about four minutes before they moved toward us and tried to question Mila about what she had witnessed. I would lose all control of this situation if she started talking to the police.
“Your marital choices don’t involve me.” I spoke with cold precision. “I’m here to do a job and get you home safe and sound.”
“They’re not my choices,” she sputtered. “That’s the point.”
I refused to allow myself to feel any level of sympathy for her plight.
I had a singular objective. I needed to gather enough intel on her uncle to put him behind bars for the rest of his life and shut down his entire Bratva organization.
Getting his guns and drugs off the street would save countless lives. Nothing mattered more than that.
“Sounds like a conversation you should be having with your uncle, not me.” I watched as the police took their time talking to witnesses. I needed to motivate her to willingly move out of their line of sight.
“Just shoot me.” Her tone was listless. “I don’t think any fate is worse than this.”
“Didn’t take you for a quitter. Seems to me you have endless opportunities to manage that situation, and none of them involve asking to be shot.”
She looked at me sharply. “You’re another level of delusional, you know that?”
“Stop thinking with your emotions,” I added gruffly. “Now let’s go.” I stood up and motioned with my hand for her to stand up.
To my surprise, she stood and, without a second glance at the twenty cops standing in the courtyard, followed me back inside.
As we stood silently in line for a taxi, I reflected on how small and compliant she had become next to me.
She wasn’t falling in line because she trusted me.
She had become a product of her environment.
For a young woman with no autonomy in this world, compliance meant safety.
She had been conditioned to obey, and because of it she’d probably become another dark statistic, especially once Sergei got his hands on her.
She had the instincts to fight against her fate, but the only skill she had learned was submission.
She was not my problem. I ushered her into a taxi and then sat down beside her. I gave the driver instructions to head back to the airport, where my rented pilot was on standby.
She didn’t speak for the entire ride, nor did she look or talk to me while we boarded the plane. We were halfway through our flight back to Moscow before she turned to me and asked, “What do you mean, I should stop thinking with my emotions?”
She stared defiantly back at me. I knew she was asking me for answers to problems that weren’t mine. My only objective was to get her back safely, not to counsel her toward her personal freedom.