Chapter Twenty-Four
AXEL
Maksim and I stood shoulder to shoulder, taking in the scene in silence.
Flames still shot up from the flat roof of our outer warehouse.
Around us, firemen shouted orders to each other as they dragged their hoses and positioned the ladders on their trucks.
There was the sound of creaking metal and then a loud bang as something collapsed from within.
The acrid smoke caught in the back of my throat, tasting metallic and bitter.
Even where we stood, I could feel the heat of the fire amid the rain that pelted my face.
“Do we know how this started?”
“Guards got a smoke alarm shortly after seeing a vehicle drive quickly down the back road.”
I nodded. “Can we identify that vehicle?”
“Already did.” He paused. “We traced it back to the Volkov family.”
I wasn’t even surprised anymore. I had already sent a text to Giselle, asking her to meet me in an hour.
Things were escalating quickly. We needed to start planning where we could make arrests and start to shut this all down.
I could see this situation between these two families was a ticking time bomb.
“What did we have stored in this warehouse?”
“This is one of our front warehouses. Mostly just empty boxes and pallets.”
“Is there any ammunition or explosives I need to warn the fire department about?”
He shook his head. “The crap that is burning we can easily replace and, besides the smoke, there is nothing harmful in there.”
“We’re going to need video of this for insurance purposes. Can you help me film the fire?”
“I’ll grab some footage from the other side, including the emergency response vehicles.”
“Got it.”
Using my phone, I started filming as much of the destruction and fire as I could, but my efforts were disrupted by a call from Anton, who never called unless it was an emergency.
I didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “What’s happening?”
“I recommend you come home.”
“Why?”
He sounded pained. “First, check the video I sent you.”
“Hang on,” I told him.
I played the clip he had messaged me. It was ten seconds of Mila yelling through tears at Giselle, who stood there looking completely flummoxed.
“Get Giselle out of my house. I’m on my way.”
“Already done.”
“Where’s Mila now?”
“Locked upstairs in your bathroom.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Giselle: So sorry for upsetting your wife. Call me.
I stepped into the foyer, and Anton was waiting in the hallway.
“What happened?” I shrugged off my wet coat.
Anton looked pained. “Giselle came to the front door and, against my suggestion, Mila came to talk to her. Giselle thought you told her to meet you at the house.”
I thought about how I had blown off Mila to take care of the fire. The idea of Giselle showing up and saying she was supposed to meet me looked really bad. “I didn’t ask her to do that.”
“Mila did not believe her. Next thing I know, Mila was yelling at Giselle. By the time I managed to get Giselle out the door, Mila had already locked herself upstairs.”
“Thanks for your help tonight. I’ve got it from here.”
He gave me a regretful look. “Okay, boss.”
My bedroom was dark, and I could see the glow under the closed bathroom door.
I knocked softly.
“Go away, Anton.” Mila sounded stuffed up. “I’m not coming out.”
“It’s Axel.”
A long pause, and then the rattle of the lock, a fumbling handle and the door swung open.
Mila looked small and sad. The tip of her nose was red, and so were her eyes. She had obviously been crying.
It took everything in me to resist pulling her into my arms.
“My emergency was a fire in the yard.” I pulled up the footage I had filmed for insurance. “Look at the timestamp.”
She looked down at the phone and watched the flashing lights of the fire trucks, the flickering flames and the crackle of mass destruction. “This happened tonight?”
“I didn’t have plans with Giselle.” I took the phone and switched to my messages, showing her my texts to Giselle.
Me: Emergency at docks, can you meet me there to discuss
Giselle: On my way
Mila was bent over my phone, hiding her face as she studied the texts in agonizing silence.
Then, without meeting my gaze, she handed my phone back to me.
I tried again. “I’m sorry Giselle showed up here. It was a complete misunderstanding.”
Mila stood there looking at me, and then without warning, she shut the door in my face and locked it. “I’m done talking.”
This wasn’t how I wanted to leave things. “Can you come out and talk to me?”
“No.”
I looked at my watch. I needed to get back to the docks. “I have to go back to work. Can you please come out for a moment?”
Her voice sounded stubborn. “I’m done talking about you and Giselle.”
I didn’t know what that meant. Was this situation resolved? I hated that the night had ended with her in tears.
“Mila.” I said her name softly.
I could hear her voice, choked heavily with tears. “Please leave.”
And then I heard nothing. So, feeling worse than I had in a long time, I left to go clean up the mess that the Volkovs had created in my work life.
The next afternoon, between insurance claims and police reports, I managed to slip out to meet with Giselle.
We met in the back room of the restaurant at one o’clock for an online meeting with Richard, her handler, and Yuri.
While we waited for our superiors to log in, Giselle quietly addressed the elephant in the room. “I’m sorry about last night. It was an honest mistake.”
“What happened?”
“I was on my way to meet my date when I got your text, so I was messaging him to reschedule while texting with you. When he texted for me to meet him at his place, I genuinely read that as a text from you.”
I believed her. Giselle respected my hard boundaries about not sharing too much personally, even though we were both undercover. She had never tried to cross a line or acted inappropriately.
Before I had a chance to respond, Richard and Yuri logged in and greeted us.
“Can you tell me what this meeting is about, Richard?” Giselle asked.
“We need to discuss how we’re going to run raids on two major families at the same time without letting anyone slip through the cracks.”
Yuri spoke. “We have compiled a list of everything we need from both of you, including schematics of all buildings, types of weapons, number of men on duty, as many details as possible.”
Giselle opened her book. “Let’s get to work. You should know that some of this stuff might take me weeks to get.”
“That’s why we’re meeting,” said Richard. “We need to weigh the risk of waiting against the risk of not having the full picture.”
It took extreme effort, but I managed to walk in the door of my home just before dinner. Bandit lifted his head from his bed in the front entrance, but besides wagging his tail once, he didn’t seem to care.
“Where’s your mom?” I bent down and scratched the top of his head.
He responded by sighing despondently.
I called Oleg, who took his sweet time answering. “Hey, boss.”
I worked to keep my voice casual. “Just checking in. How are things going on your end?”
“Good.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Mila’s just hanging out with her friends from school.”
“Oh, yeah?” I squinted at the ceiling. “Where are you at?”
“Down at Pacific Centre Mall.”
“Good,” I told him. “That’s great. I’m glad she’s out having fun.”
“You want to talk to her?”
I looked around the dark, lonely kitchen. There was no life here without her. “Nope. She doesn’t even need to know I called.”
“Okay, have a great night.”
I hated how alone I felt after he hung up. I dug through the fridge and found a container labeled ‘Dinner for Axel’ in bold handwriting.
I stuck it in the microwave, hating that I was wasting my one free night without her.
I could get a workout in. Maybe a run.
My phone dinged with a text.
It wasn’t her. It was from an unknown number.
A photo.
Of Oleg and Mila.
Oleg was looking down at her with a goofy grin on his face.
She was laughing, her head tilted back, looking up at him.
They looked like a couple in love.
I studied the photo for a long time, looking for any sign that she was hanging out with her friends. But I couldn’t see anyone else around them. They didn’t seem to be interacting with anyone else.
I carefully set the phone down.
The microwave dinged.
I nearly burned my fingers on the steam when I took out the bowl, and I ended up tossing it in the sink, food and all.
Goddamn it.
I couldn’t seem to quell the unease raging through my body. It was mixed with adrenaline.
And something akin to pain. Someone was probably just messing with me. Someone like Sergei.
I picked up my phone and looked at the photo again.
What the hell?
What if she was getting back at me for thinking I was cheating on her with Giselle?
Without looking back, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.
If my wife was cheating on me, I needed to know.
I was annoyed at my lack of discipline and willpower, but I couldn’t seem to control myself. Especially when it came to Mila. I needed to go to the mall and see for myself if Mila and Oleg were up to something. I knew this was deranged thinking, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
My phone rang. I half expected it to be Oleg, but it was Maksim.
His voice was filled with regret. “Sorry to interrupt your evening, boss.”
Honestly, I was grateful for the interruption. “Not an issue. What’s up?”
“Sergei started a huge brawl tonight.”
That made me stop walking, mostly because I had thought for sure Sergei had sent me the photo. “At which bar?”
“Shotgun Alley.”
I frowned. “Doesn’t the Volkov family run that?”
“It’s one of their main bars.”
I opened the door of my vehicle. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but when the fight was over, more than ten people were sent to the hospital.”
“Was Sergei one of them?”
“Unfortunately not, but he was responsible for putting most of them there.”
I wondered when I had stopped caring about all this shit. “Do they have him?”
“No, apparently he got away and I heard that several witnesses cited Sergei, so I’m expecting the cops to show up here.
” I could hear Maksim light a cigarette on his end of the line.
He had quit smoking years ago, but I noticed that he lit up when he was under extreme stress.
And lately he’d been smoking like a chimney. “What do you want to do?”
I let out a long sigh. “I’m going to come back in tonight and help you deal with this shit show.”
“Thanks, boss.” He sounded relieved. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
I hung up and paused before starting my vehicle. If Sergei hadn’t sent me that photo of Oleg and Mila, then who had?