CHAPTER TWENTY
AXEL
I was driving backto work after a meeting when Maksim called me.
“Where are you?”
“On my way back.”
“Can you swing by your house for a moment? The guards want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Suspicious footage.”
“Tell them I’m on my way.”
When I walkedin the front door, Bandit was lying in a dog bed in the foyer, unmoving and staring at the front door.
“What’s going on with Bandit?” I asked Jordan as I walked into the kitchen.
“He doesn’t leave his bed by the door when Mila’s at school. He waits there all day until she comes home.” Bandit waswrapped around Mila’s finger. He tolerated or ignored every other human, but he was obsessed with her.
Just like everyone else.
Just like me.
I walked by the ottoman and could feel my dick respond. The memory of her in that little skirt played on repeat in my mind and left my self-control hanging by a thread. That was the reason why I forced myself to keep my distance. She was getting bolder and sweeter with each attempt. The fact that she was deliberately teasing was what wrecked me so bad.
It was an unhealthy obsession but I didn’t want to stop. I spent way too much time thinking about all the things I wanted to do to her, and I was scared at how fast I was losing the ability to hold myself back, especially now that she was the one escalating things.
I walked out to the guard’s house at the back of the garden.
“What is it?”
The guard pulled up footage from the night before.
“We do rounds, twice an hour, around the entire house. We caught this on our camera last night.”
The footage showed the long shadow of someone going over the fence. They stayed out of the camera’s direct view, but it was definitely someone.
“Is there any way that could be you coming in the side gate?”
“The exact same timestamp on another camera that is synced shows me and the dog at the other side of the house.” He played both cameras at the same time and the person who went over the fence had definitely been waiting for their moment.
“Then the dog reacts.” The guard forwarded to footage of the dog reacting to the scent and running around the yard, focusing particularly on the doors and windows at the back of the house.
“Had I gotten home yet?”
“Not yet.” He rolled the footage forward. “You arrived exactly seven minutes later.”
So that meant Mila had been asleep in the house. Alone.
“I want two dogs on at night. When you do rounds with one dog, leave the other dog off leash in the backyard.”
“Yes, boss.”
“And watch your six.”
