Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 34381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
A few minutes later, my phone vibrated, Niran’s name on my screen. I quickly swiped my thumb across the screen to answer, then lifted the device to my ear. “What?” he grunted.
“Was there a backpack on the driveway?” I’d looked at all the cameras but hadn’t seen one. If Maksim truly brought it with him, Niran had to have grabbed it.
“Yeah. Just had some clothes in it. You need it?”
“It’s Maksim’s,” I told him. “There’s a phone in it I need.”
“Didn’t see a phone,” Niran told me, “but I’ll bring it up. Give me a few to get it from my office.”
He hung up. I put my phone back on the charger, then sat on the edge of my bed, staring at Maksim’s face. In sleep, he looked so peaceful. Like he didn’t have anything to worry about. When he was sleeping, it was easy for me to see all the worry and expectations he carried with him when he was awake.
I planned to change that. With me, I’d make sure he had nothing to fret about or concern himself with. I was about to spoil him as much as, if not more than, Rico spoiled his husband, Anurak. Maksim wasn’t meant for field work. He just didn’t have the mentality for it. He was soft, and even after everything I’d put him through, he was still just… soft for me. Sweet and submissive and perfect.
If he wanted to work, I’d get with Rico and put him behind a desk. Maybe he could take over my administrative bullshit tasks. But I didn’t want him in the field unless he was with me, so I could take care of him and know he was safe.
Maksim wasn’t a work-alone kind of guy, that much was obvious. And now that he’d been shot and had come to me, into the enemy’s territory, for help because he felt he had nowhere else to go, felt he couldn’t turn to his family… I was left with even more questions than I had when this damn game started between the two of us.
A light knock sounded on my door. Standing, I opened it, letting Niran and Bento inside. Niran passed me the plain black bag. I set it on the bed and unzipped it, then began to tug all his clothes out of it. I growled when I came up empty-handed of the one thing I was looking for.
“Told you there wasn’t a phone,” Niran drawled, sounding bored.
“He wouldn’t lie to me.” Maksim had never done that, and I knew he never would, consequences be damned. I felt around the inside, finally finding a tiny, hidden, padded compartment. I quickly opened it, tugging out the phone. I held it up triumphantly, a smirk tilting my lips. “Maybe you just suck at your job,” I told him.
Bento coughed to cover his laugh, and he rolled his lips into his mouth when Niran shot him a look full of promises for punishment. I flipped the simple flip phone opened and found one number in the phone, unsaved. Betting that was Rurik’s number, I hit dial and held the phone up to my ear.
“The fuck are you doing?” Niran snarled at me. He pressed a hand to Bento’s chest, as if he could somehow protect his husband from whoever was on the other side of the phone.
“I told you not to fucking call me,” Rurik said, his voice void of emotion. He sounded… dead. I could work with that.
“Merry Christmas,” I teased since the holiday was just around the corner anyway. “I think we need to talk.”
He was quiet for a moment, then hummed. “Alfonzo fucking Aguado as I live and breathe. Yeah… I think we need to talk, too. But not until I have confirmation of Maksim alive.”
Well, at least that was confirmation enough that he didn’t want my man dead. I held the phone near Maksim’s mouth, letting Rurik hear his snores. Putting the phone back to my ear, I said, “He’s sleeping like the fucking dead. He was shot. Came to me for help. I won’t give more than that over the phone. I want a meeting, Tarasov,” I said, calling him by his last name.
“Give me five minutes to coordinate something with FAME, and I’ll call you back.”
He hung up the phone. FAME, also known as Shaw in his daily life, was the president of the Ghost Born MC. He was a chill guy with a pretty dark military background. But when push came to shove, he was reliable, deadly, and he would slaughter anyone who touched his family.
Bringing Shaw into our meeting meant Rurik wasn’t looking for a fight. He was looking for assistance. And if it meant I got my hands on whoever did this to Maksim, I’d be cooperative as fuck. The most cooperative mother fucker to ever cooperate.