Chapter 35 #3
Frustrating woman. I shook my head and followed her as she climbed over three fences and stopped in an abandoned property. She looked at me and gave me a challenging look as she swiftly started to climb up the pipe of the house.
I let her reach up to the roof in case the pipe broke from my weight.
Thankfully, it didn’t. Once I reached the roof right on her tail, she pointed at the house diagonally across from us.
“That’s the hideout. I installed about six audio recording devices near the windows.
Don’t know if we’ll get the proper range, but might as well give it a shot. ”
“That was incredibly risky.”
She waved her hand with a cute little scoff. “I’ve done way riskier things.”
Before I could ask her more about it, she pointed at the house far across from us, falling diagonally to the hideout location from the opposite side.
“That’s where Sami and Naomi are. They’ve got high-definition cameras.
The other two teams are stationed two blocks down in opposite directions.
That way, we don’t lose them no matter what. ”
We took a seat behind the roof parapet, so only our heads stayed above the ledge.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a message from Greg.
Greg: ETA of boss is five minutes.
“Five minutes,” I told Tara, and she quickly conveyed the message to the rest of the teams after putting on her Bluetooth headset.
Soon, Tara received an update from one of her teams that they had spotted three sedans heading in our direction. We hid ourselves further, a sliver of our head peeking out.
The light behind the door of the hideout came on, and the moment the cars parked outside the house, the door to the hideout opened, and out walked one of the goons. It wasn’t Greg, so I had no idea who it was.
A man from the passenger side of the middle car jumped out and ran to the door on the back seat of the car.
Quickly, he opened it, and out walked, who I assumed to be, Maxim Orlov.
I could see half of his face, but the man stood over all of his goons.
He was wide like a linebacker, about six and a half feet tall, and his hair was in a ponytail.
His face was covered in a beard, and he had tattoos.
When he shook the hand of his goon, rings covered every one of his fingers.
Tara quickly gave me an earphone, and I put it on.
“Boss, ride here okay?” the goon asked.
Maxim nodded.
The goon walked ahead of the boss, looking back at him. “We’ve also readied your room like you instructed.”
Tara stiffened beside me. Maxim nodded at the goon. “Good. And the girls?”
The goon opened the door and invited him inside. “All prepped and ready for your inspection, boss. You’re going to love the collection this time.”
An evil laugh escaped him as he patted the goon’s shoulder. “We’ll see. I’m staying till we settle up the sales and deliver all the girls.”
The men from two other cars pulled out several suitcases and followed Maxim.
There could be anything in the bags. Drugs to control the girls, weapons, clothes, gold, cash.
It was a minefield of evidence. With a single phone call, I could have the entire police force here in thirty minutes.
Every single one of them could be behind bars in an hour.
But then, another would take their place. We needed to attack every hideout at once. We needed to attack the three leaders at once.
We already had Vadim Orlov's face. Now, we knew Maxim Orlov. One silver lining of his staying here was that he could be constantly under our observation. Wherever he goes, we can follow.
The audio device only sent us some muffled voices that hurt our ears rather than helped us. So we sat there, waiting for the remaining goons to walk out.
Tara was dead silent beside me, her jaw clenched and eyes hyperfixated on the hideout.
I put my hand on the back of her neck and squeezed. Softly, I whispered in her ear, “Sloane will be fine. If she’s your friend, I’m sure she can handle herself.”
She sighed and nodded.
It didn’t take long before the goons that had arrived with Maxim walked out of the house and got in their cars. Tara quickly informed the girls waiting at the corner to be ready to follow the cars. With that, we climbed down the roof and quickly made our way to our car.
While I took the wheel, Tara stayed in touch with the three teams. The two cars had separated in different directions. This way, two of our cars were following one of theirs, just in case. We caught up with the Wildcats team ahead of us, who were carefully tagging the Russian car.
Soon, even the guys in the car ahead of us separated in different directions. Now, each of us had one car to follow. For the next few hours, we followed the cars wherever they stopped. Tara marked out each of our locations, as well as the locations the other teams relayed to her, on her tablet.
By the end of the night, we had seven new hideout locations.
When we reached home, we were so damn exhausted, Tara didn’t even put up a fight when I pulled her into my arms and went to sleep in her bed.