Page 78 of Their Domme

A beeping sounded near me, and I answered my phone without looking at the caller ID.

“What?” I could hear just how exhausted I felt in that one word, and there was a long pause before Maksim’s voice filled the line.

“Going that well, huh?”

I laughed before sighing, some tension draining out of me. With everything going on right now, just the sound of his dry voice comforted me. Part of me swore I could smell a hint of smoke from his preferred brand of cigarettes. God, I was fucking hopeless. “It’s been a long few days, and now that it’s the weekend, it’s only going to get crazier.”

Gravel crunched on the other side of the phone, telling me he was walking around, then came the deep inhale that meant he was smoking.No surprise there.“The Lords are settling things for now, but there’s still a lot more to figure out. Rhodes is wrapping some shit up with Razor’s help, then I can come help with the businesses after that.”

“Did he find a new place for operations?”

“No.” He blew out a long breath. “Shit has gotten complicated. Ansel reached out and said he found Nic’s father. Looks like we all need to get back to his place soon, though from what Ansel was hinting at, the questioning wouldn’t be happening until tomorrow.”

“Confronting Nic?” I laughed, imagining how that was going to go down. “Good luck to him.”

“Not her?” Maksim sounded slightly amused, and in the background, I heard a door open then clatter shut.

“Remember our conversation with her about us?” Nic had orchestrated me breaking down and spilling my guts to Maksim, making us confront my insecurities. The fight sparked by her shit talking had riled me up so much that I’d smacked her. The puppeteer, the mastermind… She’d do well as Maeve’s replacement that’s for sure, and that certainly meant she could handle one man.

“Yes,” Maksim replied dryly. “I remember. But this isAnselwe are talking about. Either way, that means we have time.”

“Time? What are you talking about?” I asked when my door suddenly opened. Maksim stood in the doorway, a cigarette between his lips as he stared me down. “What the fuck?! Maksim?”

He ended the call and slammed the office door shut with his boot. With a deep inhale of his cigarette, he sauntered up to the chair across from me and flopped down. “Rhodes didn’t want to waste time, so he decided to go back to Ansel’s house after he and Razor finished up. He didn’t want to miss anything, and I think he needs some time with our girl. I got sent here to talk with the police since one of them said something about following up.”

“Want me to come with you?” I guessed, knowing that peopling wasnothis thing.

He nodded, putting out the cigarette on the ashtray I kept on my desk for him. “Anything on her stalker?”

I shook my head, frustrated. “Nothing. Sacha and the others haven’t found anything. At least that’s what he said the last time I talked to him.”

Right then, my phone beeped with a message from the man himself.

Sacha: Oliver has gone underground for his own search into the trafficking ring. No idea when he’ll be back.

Sacha: Which means Maksim is our go-to for anything computer related until he resurfaces.

Alexei: What about Blake’s guy? Atlas?

Sacha: He went with him.

Sacha: So tell your brother he has to be a team player until Oli gets back.

Well then.

I looked to find Maksim staring at his phone too.

“Sacha?” I asked, wondering if he had messaged him the same thing.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Hopefully nothing comes up because I don’t feel like being people’s fucking errand boy.”

I barely suppressed a smirk, but given the glare Maksim threw my way, he’d caught my amusement. But I couldn’t find it in me to care. It was crazy how much more relaxed I felt with him nearby. “Did you all have any luck reaching out about the kids after the fire? Were they actually taken by the CPS, or the trafficking ring?” Rhodes had been turning over that thought ever since the F?rstners had brought it up. After what had happened to Alicia, Razor’s girl who’d been pregnant when she was murdered, he was always on the lookout to keep our girls’ kids safe.

Maksim scratched his beard as he nodded. “Yeah. Razor tracked them all down and told the CPS rep that he’d be keeping tabs on everyone to make sure no one disappeared. Everything was legit from what he saw and what I found on my end.”

“So strange they didn’t try to take them.”

Maksim shrugged. “Maybe it was all about Nic? Otherwise, theywouldhave taken them. There weren’t a lot of kids, but it’s not like the trade is fucking cheap, so that’s just profit running through their fingers.”

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