Chapter Twenty-Eight
AXEL
I stood in the doorway of the cramped apartment, and I could hear Mila’s laughter, but I couldn’t see her.
Tanya stared up at me with big eyes.
“Hi, Tanya. Is Mila here?”
She left me at the door and disappeared around the corner. Silence fell in the next room, and then Mila appeared in front of me, her face flushed and her hair falling out of her ponytail.
She looked at me in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
How could I tell her that from the moment I’d heard she didn’t have security on her, I couldn’t rest until I saw her safe with my own eyes? The tension in my chest only unclenched when I saw her standing there, surprised, completely alive and a bit annoyed with me.
“Something has come up,” I lied.
“Right now?” she protested with a whisper. “I’m finally winning.”
I must have had a look on my face, because her eyes widened. “Just let me go say goodbye.”
It took her a full twenty minutes of laughing, talking, hugs and stories before I finally got her and Bandit bundled away in my truck.
“Why did you go to school without security?” I asked the second her door shut.
She paused pulling her seat belt on to look at me. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“You left without anyone protecting you.”
“I had a math exam,” she protested, “and my aunt was deliberately trying to mess with that. She wanted to make me wait for her.”
“I’m not mad.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can tell that you’re mad.”
I pulled into traffic. “Okay, I’m mad, but not at you. I’m pissed that your safety was compromised and you were put at risk.”
She looked out the window but didn’t speak.
“What?” I asked her in a tone I knew was confrontational.
“So would it be a bad time to show you this?” She held up a message from her phone.
Unknown number: You really shouldn’t be walking around without security
My molars hurt from how hard I was grinding my jaw. “Whose number is that?”
“I don’t know. I got the text at lunchtime.”
“Were you at the mall?”
“School cafeteria.”
I wanted to hit something. “Okay, I’m mad now.”
“That part doesn’t matter. What matters is I almost missed my math exam today.”
I looked over at her. “Let me handle it.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “I thought we weren’t dying on hills.”
I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. “This hill I’ll die on.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t speak.
I went for a walk with her and Bandit, and then I tucked them both up in my room with a movie and a snack. Only then did I go downstairs.
I found Grisha and Lena sitting on the couch, drinking my vodka and watching the television.
I casually poured myself a glass of vodka before tossing it back. “So what happened to Mila’s security this morning?”
Lena gave me a sickly sweet smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It was simply a miscommunication. She’s going to need to work around my needs for security and a driver.”
“Can I have assurances that either Anton or Oleg can be with her at least ten hours of the day?” I took another casual sip of the vodka, ignoring the sharp burn in the back of my throat.
She waved her hand. “I can’t guarantee that.”
“No problem.” I pulled up the calendar on my phone and spoke to Grisha. “We have a meeting with the accountant at seven and a breakfast meeting at eight with the South Asia third party shippers that are helping move stuff overseas. I’ll give Sergei directions so you can make those meetings.”
Grisha grunted and pulled his attention away from the news. “What, now?”
I scrolled through my phone. “You’ll have to cover my earlier meetings, but I should be able to make the 10 a.m. Someone is going to have to sign off on weekly inventory before it moves out at ten, which is when I will just be getting back. Perhaps Sergei can cover for me?”
“Why aren’t you going to be at these meetings?” Grisha sputtered.
I focused on my phone. “Anton and Oleg are the only ones I trust with Mila. If they can’t cover her, I’ll have to take over driving her to school.”
His voice rose two levels. “What’s wrong with Anton and Oleg?”
I shut my phone and drained my glass. I paused, giving Lena a confused frown. “Didn’t you just tell me that they’re not available because you need them?”
Grisha looked between me and Lena.
Lena tried to recover. “I have a lot to do.”
His eyes widened with annoyance. “And you think your time shopping for trinkets is more important than Axel’s time?”
“I didn’t say that,” she said quickly.
“Give him Oleg and Anton back. We’ll get you someone else.”
“Sergei would be perfect,” I said smoothly. I didn’t want Sergei around here, but I did want to give the old bat a taste of her own medicine.
Grisha nodded vigorously. “Good. Let him drive you.”
“I don’t want Sergei to drive me.” Her voice sounded pained.
“If he was good enough to marry Mila, then he’s good enough to take care of you.” I stared at her with dead eyes.
She gave me a slightly strangled look. “Do you have anyone else?”
“I can’t promise anything,” I told her. And, without looking back, I walked back upstairs.
After Mila fell asleep, I left to have an online meeting with Richard and Yuri. I pulled into a deserted parking lot. The rain drummed noisily on the roof of my truck. I set up my laptop and dialed in.
Richard and Yuri peered at me from two separate screens.
Richard started the meeting. “How are things going with Grisha in town?”
“Not good. He’s ready to go to war.”
“We have to be ready to move,” Yuri said. “Do we have enough to take this family down?”
Richard cleared his throat. “We’d like to hang on as long as possible. Giselle is working her magic from her angle.”
Yuri looked peeved. “I’ll be booking the next available flight to Vancouver.”
Richard nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. We should start getting ready for the inevitable. The second these two families start to kill each other, we need to proceed with our raid. We can’t have that kind of fight spilling onto the street.”
That night, after I showered, I crawled into bed beside Mila. Like every other night, she was dead to the world. She murmured in her sleep and curled her back against my chest.
It was the best feeling in the world. These stolen moments with her were the only thing that kept me going.
I bent down and kissed her ear. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I was sorry I couldn’t give her the life she deserved. I was sorry that, every hour, we were closer to the implosion of her entire world.
She mumbled in her sleep but didn’t wake.
I held her, fighting sleep as long as I could. Every time I held her in my arms, it felt like I was living on borrowed time.
I just needed to protect her.
At the end of the day, the only thing that mattered was her safety.