Page 15 of Shadow

“Outside, Shadow.Now,” he growled.

12

Rurik

Fuck.

The moment I saw him look up into that camera, I knew he was going to go off script. Knew I’d lost control of him. He already didn’t trust me much, and whatever trust he had in me, I’d officially broken at that moment.

All I’d been trying to do was make sure he was safe. I didn’t trust Kaleen, and I trusted the club he was part of even less. I wanted to make sure if somethingdidgo down, I could get to Malik and get him help. But instead, he’d blown up the fucking SUV I’d sent him and rode off with Kaleen to fuck knew where.

Goddammit.

My phone rang from beside me, and I looked over at it, hoping it was Malik calling me back, though I knew that was a very slim possibility. The last few times I’d tried calling him, his phone had gone straight to voicemail. Either he’d turned it off, or he’d trashed the phone.

I could probably place a thousand dollars on the bet that he’d tossed his phone. Because Malik was nothing if not fucking dramatic when he was pissed off.

And fuck knew he was pissed off with me.

Gritting my teeth at the sight of Anatoly’s name, I grabbed my phone and answered his call, raising the phone to my ear. Hitching my shoulder up, I held the phone between my ear and shoulder, then set back to work on trying to track down Malik. I was hacking security systems and traffic cameras to find him.

And when I did find him, I was going to remind him of his fucking place.

That was if Anatoly didn’t decide to put a bullet through his fucking skull first. What Malik had pulled was a dangerous as hell stunt.

“Anatoly,” I greeted, my teeth gritted. This conversation wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. Anatoly only called me if he needed me to do something or if he was pissed about something. I highly doubted he needed something from me right then.

“I was just informed one of my vehicles that you are using just went offline,” Anatoly said, his voice eerily calm.

I hacked into another business’s security cameras, focusing on the ones that gave me some kind of view of the street in front of their store. I replayed the footage for the past fifteen minutes on fast-forward, gritting my teeth when I got nothing.

“I’m handling it,” I told him.

“Are you?” Anatoly asked. My teeth audibly ground together. “This has Shadow written all over it, Rurik. You were meant tobring him to heel. To prevent him from causing more trouble. Mind telling me what happened to my vehicle?”

I blew out a harsh breath, hacking into another traffic camera when that store gave me jack shit. “He blew it up, but it’s my fault he acted out,” I told him, already trying to take the blame off Malik. Because that was what I did. I’d take anything Anatoly dished out if it kept Malik out of his crosshairs. Malik wasmine. Mine to protect. Mine to take care of.

He was just being a stubborn ass about it all.

“And how is it your fault, exactly?” Anatoly asked.

“I sent him to meet with Kaleen Jacobs, who might be able to get us some kind of meeting with the Savage Dreams. I wanted him to wear a wire, but he wouldn’t hear of it, so I sent him to a factory with cameras I set up. He figured it out.”

Anatoly was silent for a moment. I continued flicking through cameras, trying to find any sign of Malik. It was fucking time-consuming to do shit this way, but it was the only way I knew to track his ass down.

“If this were any other man who had blown up my SUV and continued to defy the orders of my second-in-command, he would already have a bullet in his skull and a shallow, unmarked grave to rot in,” Anatoly reminded me. My teeth audibly ground together again. I did know that. But Anatoly also knew that I’d take Malik and go underground if he tried to harm him.

It wasn’t a joke when I said Malik was more protected than the president of the fucking United States. I’d made him practically untouchable.

“I know,” I told him just as I caught an image of Kaleen and Malik walking into a bar. A smirk tilted my lips, and I zoomed in on the bar name.

Found you,baby.

“Get him under control, Rurik,” Anatoly told me. “There is only so much fucking patience I have.”

“Understood.”

I ended the call and stood from the chair, closing my laptop. I called Denis, who was residing in the room next door with the guards Anatoly insisted I needed with me at all times. He answered on the first ring. “Sir?”

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