“No.”
I looked at my watch. I needed to get back to the docks. “I have to go back to work. Can you please come out for a moment?”
Her voice sounded stubborn. “I’m done talking about you and Giselle.”
I didn’t know what that meant. Was this situation resolved? I hated that the night had ended with her in tears.
“Mila.” I said her name softly.
I could hear her voice, choked heavily with tears. “Please leave.”
And then I heard nothing. So, feeling worse than I had in a long time, I left to go clean up the mess that the Volkovs had created in my work life.
The next afternoon,between insurance claims and police reports, I managed to slip out to meet with Giselle.
We met in the back room of the restaurant at one o’clock for an online meeting with Richard, her handler, and Yuri.
While we waited for our superiors to log in, Giselle quietly addressed the elephant in the room. “I’m sorry about last night. It was an honest mistake.”
“What happened?”
“I was on my way to meet my date when I got your text, so I was messaging him to reschedule while texting with you. When he texted for me to meet him at his place, I genuinely read that as a text from you.”
I believed her. Giselle respected my hard boundaries about not sharing too much personally, even though we were both undercover. She had never tried to cross a line or acted inappropriately.
Before I had a chance to respond, Richard and Yuri logged in and greeted us.
“Can you tell me what this meeting is about, Richard?” Giselle asked.
“We need to discuss how we’re going to run raids on two major families at the same time without letting anyone slip through the cracks.”
Yuri spoke. “We have compiled a list of everything we need from both of you, including schematics of all buildings, types of weapons, number of men on duty, as many details as possible.”
Giselle opened her book. “Let’s get to work. You should know that some of this stuff might take me weeks to get.”
“That’s why we’re meeting,” said Richard. “We need to weigh the risk of waiting against the risk of not having the full picture.”
It took extreme effort,but I managed to walk in the door of my home just before dinner. Bandit lifted his head from his bed in the front entrance, but besides wagging his tail once, he didn’t seem to care.
“Where’s your mom?” I bent down and scratched the top of his head.
He responded by sighing despondently.
I called Oleg, who took his sweet time answering. “Hey, boss.”
I worked to keep my voice casual. “Just checking in. How are things going on your end?”
“Good.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Mila’s just hanging out with her friends from school.”
“Oh, yeah?” I squinted at the ceiling. “Where are you at?”
“Down at Pacific Centre Mall.”
“Good,” I told him. “That’s great. I’m glad she’s out having fun.”
“You want to talk to her?”
I looked around the dark, lonely kitchen. There was no life here without her. “Nope. She doesn’t even need to know I called.”
