God help me. I wanted to fuck my wife.
An hour later,I sat in my office, nursing a vodka and debating my options. Sleeping with Mila was completely out of the question. She was a complication I couldn’t afford. It was bad enough that I had married her against her will. I refused to compromise her further, especially knowing that this marriage of shared lies was built on even bigger lies that she didn’t know about.
My phone rang. It was Maksim. Phone calls late at night were generally not a good thing in my line of business.
“Axel here.”
“Boss, we have a problem. Our crew was intercepted on their way to our regular Friday delivery.”
“What happened?”
“They were held at gunpoint while the men offloaded our entire truck. They beat up the driver pretty bad, but no one was killed.”
“How much was that shipment worth?”
“Just over fifty thousand. That’s our loss to absorb.”
Which meant we’d barely be out of the red this month. “Do we know who they were?”
“It was a Volkov crew.”
“Let’s talk in the morning about setting up heavier security for our deliveries.”
“Already on it.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.”
I tossed back the rest of my drink and held my phone in my hand. Now I had to call Grisha and I wasn’t looking forward to it. When I had arrived in Vancouver, his operation here was bleeding money. I had worked around the clock to turn that around, but every week that we didn’t turn a profit enraged him.
“Grisha here.”
“It’s Axel. I have some news.”
“It had better be good news.”
“We came under attack from a Volkov crew. They intercepted our delivery last night.”
“I sent you there to do a job. Why does everyone fail at everything I ask?”
“Numbers are up, shipments are up and issues are down, but the turf war has only just begun. We’re doing what we can to protect ourselves, but it’s going to get worse.”
“We need to strike back.”
I had to tread carefully. This was exactly what I was here to prevent. “Fighting costs us more in the long run. I’ve got it handled.”
“I’m starting to regret sending you instead of Sergei.”
“Demetrius left us in a bad position. You knew it would take time to turn this around.”
“Don’t make excuses. You’ve had plenty of time.”
“I’ll call if there are any other updates.”
I tossed the phone on the desk and rubbed my face. Jesus, when did my life become such a shit show?
I spentthe next few weeks avoiding Mila, but I stopped sleeping at the office. I didn’t want to give her any reason to accuse me of having an affair. I wasn’t sleeping around on her, so I showed up every night in my bed, even if it was only for a few hours.
I also made sure never to run into her. She was usually fast asleep by the time I got home and was never awake when I left. But I left deliberate signs that I had been home.
