40. Boden
CHAPTER FORTY
BODEN
On the second floor of an abandoned old brewery on the block neighboring the backside of the Royal Bastards clubhouse, I stand in the shadows of a broken window, scanning the MC’s territory through my binoculars.
The location isn’t the safest. Several unhoused people take shelter inside the vacant building, as well as a lone dealer hustling drugs to anyone who approaches him.
It doesn’t matter if the spot is risky. It’s the closest location we can get without being spotted by the bikers standing guard around the perimeter of the block, meaning it’s our best shot at finding Vanessa.
Mostly, the occupants of the building leave us alone.
The few who attempt to approach us are instantly deterred when I lift the front of my sweatshirt to reveal a gun in the waistband of my jeans, the one thing I demanded Kirill give us before sending us into enemy territory.
Word spreads quickly that we’re armed, and the other unhoused give us a wide berth.
The only one who doesn’t look at us as a threat is the narcs dealer.
He eyes us with interest, only looking away when he’s making a deal.
The city lights of downtown Loveland offer enough ambient lighting for my traditional optical binoculars to be effective in the night, but I’d kill for a pair with specialized night vision, especially when I’m certain Vanessa’s on the third floor of the building directly across from us.
There are multiple people in what looks like a private apartment, and every so often, I glimpse a woman with honey-hued messy waves pass a window, walking out of sight before I can identify her.
It has to be Vanessa.
My blood boils thinking of my girlfriend playing house with another man. No, not some man—a gutter rat. I close my eyes, trying to control my anger, but all I see behind my eyelids is the memory of the night I looked up at her apartment window to find her riding the disgusting biker.
My eyes spring open, shaking my head to chase the ugly images away from my brain.
When I see movement in the apartment again, I quickly refocus my attention, not wanting to miss anything.
The woman in question has her back to the window, talking to two other women—one who is petite with jet-black straight hair and the other a statuesque woman with auburn locks.
“Turn around,” I mutter under my breath, desperate to know if I’ve finally found her.
As if she can hear me, the honey-haired woman turns toward the window. She glances out into the night, as if she’s waiting for someone to arrive and checking to see if they’re coming down the street. She pauses long enough for me to see who she is.
It’s Vanessa. I’ve found her.
My shoulders slump with relief for a moment before I shake with rage.
How dare she move in with him? The man is pure filth, soiling her with every touch. She’s supposed to be mine, only wanting my touch.
It’s temporary, I remind myself. She won’t be with the biker for long.
Once Kirill has done a number on her, she’ll be begging me to take her back. It’ll be my arms she runs to, my love she’ll take comfort in. She’ll want nothing to do with the biker or any other dangerous man, knowing full well what wicked men are capable of.
Vanessa turns away from the window, disappearing deeper into the apartment and taking my mangled heart with her.
With a faint smile, I softly say, “Wait for me, Vanessa. I’m coming for you.”
The sound of excessive chewing rudely interrupted my peaceful moment.
Riley sits on the ground beside me, chomping obnoxiously loud on her gum and grumbling complaints about our accommodations.
She’s been as helpful as a wet tissue since we arrived in Loveland, doing the bare minimum in helping me track down Vanessa.
Riley spends most of the time either watching me like a lovesick puppy or doing things intentionally to set me off when I continue to ignore her, like smacking her gum like a cow chewing cud.
She’s bored, but my threshold for tolerance is peaking with her.
“Do you mind?” I say, recoiling from her in disgust. Annoyed, I motion at the clubhouse with an edge of agitation. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
She sighs as if she’s tired of my antics, rising from the floor and practically wrapping herself around me until she’s close enough that I can feel her hot breath on my neck.
Riley either doesn’t care that I hate being near her, or she’s clueless to how much I resent her for getting me involved with the Black Market Railroad and for being the reason I strayed from Vanessa.
Regardless of which one it is, she doesn’t seem to care as long as she gets what she wants.
“How much longer are we going to sit here spying on the bikers? We’ve been at it for hours.”
“Until we find an opportunity to grab Vanessa.”
She rolls her eyes. “We don’t even know if she’s with the MC.”
“We do now.” I point at the building across the street from us. “I saw her at the window on the third floor.”
A flash of annoyance crosses Riley’s features. She rips the binoculars out of my hands, bringing them to her eyes like she needs to see it to believe it.
“Fuck,” she mutters. Sighing, she hands back my binoculars. “How the hell are we going to get her out of there?”
“Not sure yet, but I’m brainstorming.”
Her gaze is hot on the side of my face. I don’t need to look at her to know she’s pissed at me. “Be honest with me. Why are you bothering with her?”
“You know why,” I mutter, ignoring her as best I can as I look through my binoculars, watching bikers come and go down the alley of their city block.
“Unbelievable,” she says with a harrumph. “You’re pining for a woman who left you while I’m the one still by your side, waiting for you to make me yours.”
Not this again.
More than once I’ve told Riley I’m not interested in pursuing anything with her.
I had sex with her in a moment of weakness, and I’ve regretted my choice since.
I’ve tried letting Riley down gently before turning downright nasty with my rebuffs.
Yet, here we are having the same exhausting conversation again.
Riley is deluding herself into believing my answer will change in her favor.
Perhaps I need to point out the obvious barrier stopping Riley from obtaining what she wants. It may be the only thing I can say to break through to her.
Setting my binoculars down, I face her with a deep sigh, knowing what I’m about to say will hurt her. “Riley, it’s never going to happen. Even if I wanted you—which I don’t—it would never work between us.”
She flinches, my cutting words slicing at her heart. “Don’t say that. We could be happy together.”
Needing her to understand her predicament, I take her hand in mine, squeezing it gently. She looks at me with expectant, tear-filled eyes.
“You could never be mine, Riley. You belong to Kirill.”
“No,” she says, yanking her hand free from mine. A few tears spill over her bottom eyelids, trailing down her cheeks. “He might have control over me and what I do, but I will never belong to him, not where it matters.”
“Very poetic, but your feelings mean shit. Kirill doesn’t care about your emotions, only what’s between your legs. As long as you serve a purpose for him, Kirill will always keep you enslaved.”
“Oh? And you think he doesn’t own you?” She releases a humorless laugh as more tears track down her face.
“Boden, baby. You’re as much Kirill’s slave as I am.
Worst yet, you showed your cards and now he knows your weakness is your ex.
He’ll use Vanessa as a pawn to get you to comply with his demands.
As long as he’s alive, we’re both at his mercy. ”
“I’m well aware. Yet, you refuse to take ownership of entrapping me with the Russians,” I counter bitterly, dropping her hand and lifting my binoculars back to my eyes to show her I’m done with this conversation. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll drop it.
As soon as I refocus on the alley again, I see two white cargo vans entering the narrow passage, very similar to what Kirill and Mikhail ride around when making grabs. In fact, the rear van has a dent nearly identical to our boss’s vehicle.
An uneasy sensation slithers through me. What if…no, I refuse to entertain the idea. There’s no way the Royal Bastards got to Kirill and Mikhail. That would mean the MC knew they were hiding out at my place; hence, they know I’m associated with the Russians.
Fuck, fuck, FUCK!
Five large men exit the vans, one of them being Cupid.
He strides to the rear of the last van, the one I fear may belong to Kirill.
His men follow him and open the back doors.
The bikers work together, pulling out a hogtied Mikhail and dropping him like a bag of flour on the asphalt.
The Russian enforcer doesn’t move, out cold.
They reach back into the van, yanking out a very naked and restrained Kirill.
He’s alert, thrashing madly against them.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, panic rising in my throat.
“What is it?” Riley asks with alarm. She strips the binoculars out of my hands, gasping when she sees them. “Oh, my God! They’ve got Kirill and Mikhail.”
I snatch the binoculars back, scolding her. “Keep your voice down, will you? We don’t want anyone here freaking out on us. They would blow our cover for sure.”
Riley nods, shaking on the spot. She wrings her hands together, looking as uncomfortable as I do.
“We need to come up with a plan, some way to get them out,” I say, racking my brain for a solution.
“Get them out?” Riley scoffs. “Are you insane? There’s no way we can extract them and Vanessa. There are two of us and an entire city block full of them. ”
“What choice do we have?” I ask with a heated hiss.
Riley looks at me like I’m missing something obvious. “What choice? Are you being dense on purpose? The choice is that we don’t save Kirill and Mikhail. They deserve every bit of harm that is coming to them.”
“We need them,” I stress.
“No, we don’t.”
My opportunity to reclaim Vanessa is slipping through my fingers. “Without them, who is going to make Vanessa see reason?”
Riley straightens her shoulders, looking me dead in the eye as she says, “Boden, she’s gone.”
My jaw tightens, unwilling to believe her. “No.”
“She’s living with another man in his fortress,” Riley says, waving at the MC’s property. “Even though we know where she is right now, the property is huge. We have no clue how to access her once we get inside the compound. It would be suicidal to go in after her.”
“Then we make her come to us,” I say, my anxiety climbing.
“How? We can’t even get a hold of her. She has blocked you and me everywhere.”
I turn away from Riley, focusing on the third floor where my heart is located. This can’t be the end of the road.
“Artem is most likely dead, and Kirill and Mikhail will be dead men by morning,” Riley continues, taking my arm and turning me back toward her.
She looks at me with soft eyes and hope on her face.
“Don’t you see what this means? We’re free, Boden.
Kirill can no longer hurt us. We can leave this place, find somewhere safe to live, and be happy together. ”
I remove her hand from my arm, speaking firmly like one does to a disobedient child. “I’m. Not. Leaving. Vanessa.”
Refusing defeat, I return my attention to the bikers in the alley. Through the binoculars, I watch as they carry our boss and his henchman inside the building.
As much as it pains me to admit it, Riley is right. Kirill and Mikhail are as good as dead. There is no way we can extract them.
For months, I’ve wanted out of the Black Market Railroad. There was nothing I wanted more than to bury this part of my life and go back to my simple existence with Vanessa by my side. I like to blame Riley for getting me involved in this mess, but deep down I know I’m at fault.
When Riley wanted me to ask her boss for a job, I could have said no. I could have turned away from the situation when I saw Kirill’s van on that dark road that first night. And when Riley came on to me in Vanessa’s apartment, I could have pushed her away and told her to get lost.
There were so many things I could have done differently to avoid where I am now. But I didn’t, and that’s on me.
Anger over losing Vanessa to Cupid made me concoct this asinine idea to get Kirill involved in teaching her a lesson. It was a spontaneous and reckless decision, and all for nothing.
Perhaps I’ve been overthinking things from the start. I don’t need Vanessa punished for leaving me and choosing Cupid. I just need her back.
The question is how?
I’m no longer under the boot heels of the Russians, free to live my life as I choose—one obstacle out of my way. The only other thing standing in my way is Cupid.
Through the windows, I watch Vanessa hug the women, waving goodbye as the women retreat. Vanessa moves out of the frame of the windows, and the lights go out in the apartment.
It’s nearly one in the morning. She must be going to bed. After all, her classes start early in the morning, and she needs to travel into Fort Collins.
A handful of minutes pass before I see the petite woman with black hair exit the restaurant at ground level. She makes her way up the main road alone.
An idea sparks in my head, seeing an opportunity to lure Vanessa out of the MC’s territory.
Time is of the essence. I need to act quickly or risk losing this chance.
My feet are moving without a second thought. I grab my bag, hustling to the stairwell.
Riley jogs after me. “Wait. Where are we going?”
“Keep up,” I say over my shoulder. “We have a woman to snatch.”