“You don’t think so?” She looked at me with so much softness I felt something hard inside of me crack. Inwardly I promised that I would do whatever it took to find out Bandit’s fate.
I didn’t understand this weird connection she had with a dog she had met once, but I wasn’t going to argue how she felt. People dealt with trauma and grief in their own ways, and even if it didn’t make sense, it still mattered. “Not at all.”
Later that night,Maksim and I sat outside a large, rundown warehouse that was a hub of activity for a place so off the beaten path this late at night. Most of the clientele were younger men, a lot of whom I recognized as being gang affiliated.
Maksim finally spoke. “I recognize both of the doormen. They’re definitely Volkov.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Where did you say you got this intel for the dog?” He looked over at me.
I couldn’t tell him about a brother that didn’t exist in this world. “A trusted source.”
There was no way we could safely visit this fight if it was being run by the Volkov family. “Let’s find the van and put a tracker on it.”
I wokeup with a jolt and fumbled for my phone.
“Hello?” I squinted at my alarm clock. It was 3:27 a.m.
“Sorry to call so late, boss. We have an update on that van.”
“No apology. What can you tell me?”
“We followed the van after it left the fights. One male dragged a large dog into the backyard and chained him up. Then he went into the house.”
I sat up in bed, wide awake. “The dog’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Can you confirm it’s Bandit?”
“Not fully. It’s dark and we didn’t get a good look.”
“Understood.”
I needed to get that dog back for Mila.
“What do you want us to do?”
I was so tempted to tell them to kick down that door and beat the guy within an inch of his life, but that could jeopardize Mila’s future with Bandit. “Put eyes on the house and see if you can identify the dog when the owner leaves.”
I gotanother call at nine.
“What’s going on?”
“The guy has left and no one is home. The dog is still chained in the backyard. He’s an identical match to the photos you gave us.”
I had zero qualms about stealing a dog from a dogfighter. “Retrieve him.”
“We’ve attempted that, but we’re having some issues getting near the dog.”
“Why?”
“He’s pissed.” I could hear snarling and barking in the background. “Do you think you could ask the dog trainers to drop off a muzzle and a couple of those dog handler poles?”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll send you the dog handlers.”
Two hours later,Maksim called me to the bay.
