Chapter 73

I tug against the chains for the hundredth time. “Is this really necessary?”

The officer who’s been staring at me blankly for a solid hour doesn’t respond.

Typical.

I’ve been here for what feels like forever, though time has little meaning here. There are no windows in this room. The only way I know how long it’s been is the Rolex on my wrist.

On the one hand, it’s only been three hours since they arrested me.

On the other hand, it’s been three fucking hours since they dragged me in here and chained me to the table.

Finally—finally—the door opens and someone who looks like he’s in charge comes swaggering in.

“Mr. Chekhov.” The man pulls out a chair and sits across the table from me. “I’m Special Agent Aaron Smithson. Apologies for the wait.” He frowns at the cuffs chafing my wrists. Then gestures at them with a glance to the officer still standing in the corner. “Seriously?”

The officer sighs, then lumbers over to uncuff me.

“I’m assuming, Mr. Chekhov, that you’re not going to lunge across the table and gauge my eyes out or anything like that.”

I feign indifference. “This suit’s too expensive to get blood on it.”

Smithson barks a laugh. “Too expensive! Funny. Very funny. Now, Mr. Chekhov, let’s get down to business. You’ve been informed of why you’re here, yes?”

“You’re going to have to remind me. Between the blinding lights, the loud sirens, and the army of high school dropouts invading my workplace, it’s all kind of fuzzy.”

“That does sound like a bit much, doesn’t it?” Smithson scrunches his nose as he flips through the dossier he brought to the table. “Still, I think a man of your experience can understand the precaution, considering the accusations against you.” He looks me in the eyes, dead serious. “Gunrunning is nothing to take lightly, don’t you agree?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Really.” He flips through the pages, glancing up at me a few times. “So you have no idea why anyone would accuse you of… let’s see… illegally smuggling, dealing, and bartering weapons and ammunition?”

“I have plenty of ideas as to why anyone would accuse me of pretty much anything. It’s called ‘competition,’ Agent Smithson⁠—”

“Special Agent.”

Go fuck yourself in the ass. “Special Agent Smithson. I have many competitors. I have many corporate enemies. What I don’t know is why you’re wasting your time and valuable resources believing them.”

Smithson scoffs. “So you’re going to sit here and tell me that the mountain of evidence I’m sitting on doesn’t exist?”

“Show me the evidence. I’d love to see it.”

We both know he doesn’t have shit.

He does try one tactic—tossing the plastic evidence bag holding my phone onto the table. “Here’s an interesting one: thing’s completely dead. Even our tech team couldn’t resurrect it.”

I bite back the proud smirk—Mak or Sofi did exactly what I needed them to do, right on time. “I’m due for an upgrade. It’s been giving me issues lately.”

“A man like you wouldn’t be walking around town without a fully functioning phone.”

“A man like me has a thousand other things on his mind. Plus, I had to fire my assistant recently, and she usually handled these things.”

His brow hits his hairline and he shuffles through the papers. “Oh? Care to share what went wrong, there?”

“She just wasn’t aligned with the company culture.”

The sudden silence between us is maddening. Either charge me or get me the hell out of here, asshole.

He straightens out the paperwork—and as he does, I see a snippet of a name. A sender’s email address. One I recognize.

“Let me guess.” I crack a tiny, patronizing smile. “You received a call from Stewart Hamish, the former president of Chekhov International, who promised you the inside scoop on everything that I have going on behind closed doors.”

“You know I can’t divulge my sources with you.” He smirks back at me. “At least, not until you’re charged and processed.”

“Which you can’t do without actual evidence or verifiable cause. I bet you can’t even get a warrant to hold me here.” I chuckle with pity. Just when I think I’ve heard and seen it all, some dumbass like him comes waltzing in to give me more. “All you have is a disgruntled former employee who hates the fact that his greed didn’t ruin me or my family like it did his. Serious charges need a stronger foundation than spite, Special Agent Smithson.”

Any vestige of a smirk is gone from his face now. “We have a warrant to search your entire estate, Chekhov. Our ATF team is out there as we speak.”

“Go for it. Knock yourselves out. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for my lawyer to arrive.”

“You understand⁠—”

“Lawyer.”

Smithson narrows his eyes at me. “We’ve been surveilling you for months. Don’t think you can run and hide from this one.”

I widen my smile and whisper one more time, “Lawyer.”

I’ll repeat it until I’m blue in the face and he’s red in his. I’m done playing his fucking games.

He leans back in his chair with a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. Have it your way. You don’t have to talk, but you do have to listen. The game is over. You lost. As I said, we’ve been surveilling you for months and let me tell you, it’s been an interesting ride…”

I hardly bother listening. Men who think they have a lot to prove tend to not have anything at all. It’s all smoke and mirrors meant to make me crack, to give me enough rope to hang myself with.

In reality, it’s Stewart Hamish who’s tying his own noose.

I knew it had to be someone from the inside. Chekhov International’s public-facing front is too clean for anyone to have enough to blow the whistle.

But Hamish? He ran with my father back in the day. He had the inside track on both realms of business, the corporation as well as the Bratva. The coward couldn’t handle a gun to save his life, but he knew how to keep the realms separate from each other just in case.

I could almost laugh at the irony. Just in case this exact thing were to happen.

Is Daphne in on this? The moment the question enters my mind, it crumbles.

She wouldn’t.

She loves me.

Fuck. Daphne. She couldn’t have known I was trying to come home tonight. Trying to make things right. My heart aches at the thought of her alone, in our bed, probably crying herself to sleep for yet another lonely night.

I’ll wake her up with a kiss. Just enough for her to feel me crawl into bed beside her. I’ll wrap my arms around her and whisper every apology I can think of until I fall asleep, a shield between her and the world.

“We’re expecting.”

Smithson pauses mid-rant. “Excuse me?”

“My wife and I. We’re expecting our first child. She’s actually due any day, now.” I swallow hard. It’s no effort at all to fake the emotion clogging my throat—because I’m not faking. “I need to get back to her. She needs me.”

For a moment, it almost seems like it works. It almost looks like he’s actually considering it.

But then he chuckles under his breath and shakes his head. “Nice try, Chekhov. You’re not married. Sure, we’ve seen you around with that pregnant woman, but who is she? How are we to know she’s not your recently fired assistant?”

Two things run through my mind at the same time:

I fold my arms. That’s all he’s going to get from me. If he wants another word, he’ll start playing by my rules.

Otherwise, Special Agent Smithson can go fuck himself.

Mak’s grinning face is not exactly what I want to see. Solemn, yes. Pissed off, definitely.

But grinning to the point of almost laughing? He can fuck right the hell off.

“Sorry,” he says when he sees me glaring at him. He clears his throat and attempts to be more somber. “I just never thought I’d see you in a drunk tank.”

Sofi side-eyes him but focuses on the updates she’s brought me. “The lawyers are currently lobbying a slew of complaints and filings at the district court,” she says as they both approach the bars of what is, unfortunately, the station’s “drunk tank.”

I’m sure there are more private holdings somewhere in this building, but Smithson seems to have a personal bone to pick with me. I make a mental note to have someone look into that later on, after I’m released.

Smithson made an enemy today.

“And?” I press. “Am I getting out?”

“Within twenty-four hours, yes. The team is working on shortening that up as much as possible.”

“How the fuck—” I take a deep breath to center myself. “Explain.”

Mak glances around before leaning in. “Unfortunately, their little informant was feeling very talkative. But they’re digging up old dirt.”

That makes sense. Any info Hamish might have would be a generation out of date. He’s probably got ATF sniffing down old warehouses that we haven’t used in years.

I’m no fool. The day I took over, we moved everything. Every storage facility. Every box, every pallet. I changed every last fucking door code myself.

“Just take it easy.” Sofi offers me a reassuring smile. “Play nice with the other kids. Don’t throw sand.”

I snort. “These assholes are driving me up the wall.”

One guy in here has been wailing over a goddamn hangnail. Another has been loudly snoring while he drools a thick trail of saliva down his chest. The remaining inmates make attempts at conversation, but I am in no mood.

I just want to go home. I need to go home and be with Daphne.

Shit.

“How’s Daphne? Is she okay?”

Sofi winces while Mak steps away to make a phone call. “She’s the same as she was this morning. Despondent, barely eating, and waiting for you to remove your head from your ass.”

I don’t like the look on Mak’s face. It goes from solemn, to stern, to almost pissed.

And then uncertain, when he turns around and slowly walks back to me.

“Actually,” he chimes in, “she’s not.”

Sofi tries to find the punchline that isn’t there. “What do you mean? She was just⁠—”

“Mama’s over there right now. She’s been trying to get a hold of us.” He fists his phone, then forces himself to look at me. “I’m sorry, Pash. But she’s gone. She left for her sister’s and doesn’t know when she’ll be back.”

If I thought I’d already shit out my stomach, I was wrong. It’s happening right now. “Why?”

He opens a text and reads it aloud to me. From the angle he gives me to see the image, it’s a picture of the note Daphne left behind. “‘Pasha, I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in your own home. I’m heading out to Mel’s for a while so you can have your space. I don’t know when or if I’ll be back.’” He pauses. “‘I love you, and I miss you.’”

My heart is in my throat, and it tastes like acid. I have to think. Fast. I’m not going to lose my woman or my child over some miserable asshole’s pathetic attempt to keep me from his daughter.

“Go to her.”

Mak and Sofi look at me like I’m insane.

I double down, righting myself and sorting my thoughts. “Go to Daphne. Make sure she’s okay, and make sure she knows what’s going on. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”