Page 62 of Tangled Souls

BAKER

Fuck this. Having to wait for the recon report from Hendrix is making my skin crawl. We should be busting down the door and taking Mikhail right now. We should be putting an end to this whole fucking circus.

It’s so damn close that I can almost taste it. But we haven’t finished it yet.

The last few hours have been a blur of activity which started when Huck burst into Kirill’s office like his ass was on fire. Words started tumbling out of his mouth so damn fast that none of us could understand him.

Kirill had to grab him by the shoulders and give a little shake while shouting, “Slow the fuck down, Huck. What are you talking about?”

The wildness in Huck’s eyes cleared a little, but the feeling of a close victory lingered. He took a few deep breaths, but then the words still tumbled from him.

“I found Mikhail. He’s in a house, isolated on the edge of the city.” Before any of us could ask how he got this information he pushed on. “I flagged some old Morozov accounts, even a few I couldn’t explicitly tie to Anatoly’s old operation. It wasn’t like Iexpected to get a hit because Mikhail needed the shadows, but I still flagged them. There was activity on one of the accounts about an hour ago and I tracked it to a quick as fuck sale on a property that’s been abandoned for about six months.”

I wasn’t surprised about the quick transaction. Money talks and it’s just that simple.

My heart started to pound in my chest with the possibility of no longer being on the defense. Everything in me was pushing to take the fight to him and make sure everything burned to the ground around him.

But it wasn’t that easy. We couldn’t run off without a plan.

It didn’t take long for Hendrix, Dominic and my brother, Wolfe, to arrive. Once they did, it was about digging deeper and finding out everything we could about the property before we started to put together a plan.

Dominic headed out to do some recon, but we weren’t far behind him. If he was able to confirm Mikhail was there, we weren’t going to lose the chance to take him down.

Right before we left the office, ready to bring all of Mikhails sins to bear, Maxim voiced the one thing that was on all of our minds.

“This could be a trap.”

We shared glances and nodded. He sure as fuck wasn’t wrong. Even now, after Mikhail being spotted when he opened his front door for a whore he hired, we know it could be a trap.

It doesn’t matter if it is. We can spring a trap and not get caught.

The fact that he only has four guards around the house leads me to believe he’s just gotten sloppy. As his lofty plans have started to unravel, he’s finding he doesn’t have the reach or the leverage to gain the power he set out to steal. He was never a man of vision, only a foot soldier being used with a name which tricked him into believing he was more.

Dominic has set himself up somewhere and we haven’t seen him since we arrived. Now, we’re expecting Hendrix back any moment after doing one more check around the house.

It sure as fuck is isolated out here. There’s no way the closest neighbors will hear a damn thing, but we’re still going in as stealthily as possible.

My blood is pumping and I’m practically dancing on the balls of my feet. I need this. And I’m not the only one.

Kirill’s jaw is clenched so tight that I’m on the verge of being concerned for the man. His eyes hold the same feral gleam of anticipation I know I have in my own.

Maxim claps me on the shoulder while smiling in a way only another predator can appreciate. “You good?”

“Yeah,” I grunt, “I just want to get this over with. You know Oaklynn is probably pacing the floor and pissed that she’s not here with us right now.”

“Fuck that,” Maxim bites out. “There’s no fucking way she could be here with us.” He shakes his head. “We’ve given her the room she needs to soar—which was hot as fuck—but this? This is when we step up and protect what is ours.”

“I know.” I grumble, “I only hope she sees it that way.”

Maxim grimaces before shrugging his shoulders. Maybe she won’t understand because we’ve allowed her to be so involved,but there was no fucking way we were going to allow her to be close to Mikhail again. Fuck no.

“This has been brewing long before she became ours,” Kirill’s voice is serious.

“She’ll understand,” Huck chimes in.

Before anything else can be said, Hendrix is in front of us. “He’s in the house,” he confirms. “Plan is a go.”

We pair off without another word because we don’t need to. Kirill and I move to approach the house on the backside along with Hendrix. There’s no way I wasn’t going to be with Kirill; it’s my job to protect him even if he doesn’t need it. Oaklynn would never forgive me if something were to happen to him. I can’t forget that he is the focus of Mikhail’s need for vengeance.

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