Chapter Forty-One
Forty-One
Axe
Checking my phone doesn’t change the truth.
No new messages. So here I am, gloved up and ready to rumble at Strike’s place, Ashburn, throwing punches and getting warm in the centerpiece of his massive new state-of-the-art gym—a professional-grade boxing ring tricked out with all the high-tech gear you could imagine.
The walls are lined with mirrors and photos of legendary American fights—Ali versus Frazier, Tyson versus Berbick.
The entire space feels like a shrine to people who know how to give and take a beating.
A perfect place to blow off steam.
Usually, I’m all in for my one-on-ones with Strike, but today I’m too fucking distracted, wrapped up in thoughts of Josie.
My phone sits on a bench nearby, and I find myself glancing at it over and over, hoping for something.
Anything. Earlier, I had my assistant send a test text just to confirm the damn thing’s not broken. It’s not.
Nah, the phone’s not the problem.
The problem is me.
I’m a mug for misreading everything. Josie’s participation was purely professional, end of story.
I keep telling myself this revelation is for the best—there was never any potential for more.
And certainly it’s far better that I’m the one who’s hurt, not Josie.
The idea of causing that lass more pain is almost unbearable.
“Look at that phone again, and I’m chucking it out the window,” Strike warns, his words cutting through my thoughts. He throws a hook that I dodge, the motion pulling me back to the moment.
“I was checking the time,” I growl.
“Don’t you have a watch for that?” Strike dances back, readying another punch.
“Fuck off,” I grunt, meeting his jab with one of my own.
I wonder if I’ve ever had a conversation with Strike in which I haven’t told him at least once to fuck off.
He’s having a laugh at my expense. He doesn’t know about my weekend with Josie at Shimmy Beach for She’s the One and how I came back changed, raw.
But the depth of my connection with her—the fire of what’s happening inside me—is none of his business.
Since I handed over the project details to my team, I’ve been this close to yanking them back.
Every time I immerse myself in the spreadsheets and replay the audio from that night, I want to punch the wall.
How did I let the best night of my life get reduced to data points and file transfers for a bunch of coders?
Even if Josie herself has been nothing but professional about it, I just can’t sort it out right in my head.
Should I text her again? Nah, I need things to settle, especially with the app’s upcoming beta launch.
“So, I’ve been thinking we let von Graf go all in financially first, making his estate contractually obligated,” I propose, trying to keep my mind on our plans.
“Nice.” Strike nods, pausing as we both catch our breath. “And I’ll take point after Honor’s art show. She’ll be nervous, and I want to be fully there for her, no distractions.”
“Right, then,” I agree, though a part of me wants to scoff at his pussy-whipped status. But what’s wrong with prioritizing someone you care about? My own inability to do the same is eating me alive.
We touch gloves, dive back into the rhythm. As we weave and bob, the ring becomes our whole world.
“What else about von Graf? Found anything new?” Strike asks as we dance around each other, each move calculated. “Anything else on his childhood? His background? My best guys can’t dig up shit.”
“Aye, he’s a ghost. He was born in Kansas and, at some point, totally reinvented himself. Covered his tracks well, especially with the money,” I say, throwing a punch that Strike counters with ease. Men like von Graf tend to cut all ties, assume new identities, especially if they’ve got priors.
But von Graf’s done an especially fine job of burying his past and hiding his dirty cash. Gotta hand it to him, the bastard’s clever. Shame he didn’t use that brain for curing cancer instead.
Strike lowers his voice, his expression turning serious. “We’re also getting rumblings that Petrov’s old lady is on the warpath. She’s not going to let go of what we did quietly.”
The news hits like a solid cross punch to the gut, and it fills me with adrenaline and dread. “Yeah, suppose we’ll need to watch that closely,” I mutter.
We exchange a dark look. Strike knows full well how dangerous Veronica Petrov can be.
We both figured that after we took out her man, the missus would lie low, let us focus on von Graf.
Clearly we misjudged her. If her late husband was loud and brutal, Veronica’s the opposite.
Calm, clever, all charity galas and glossy magazines—but beneath it, she’s a dagger in a velvet sheath.
We’ve got a rule: no more than one active target at a time.
But it turns out you can’t underestimate the wife of a sociopath. Broken always finds broken, and odds are fair that she’s cut from exactly the same cloth.