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“Marcela, I am here for her, no matter what. I am in love with her. I’m here for her no matter who else she may want to be with. I know it seems odd, but as long as she is happy and still has room in her life for me, I’m all good with it.” I can feel my eyes water a bit and start to glisten.
“Good, that’s all I needed to know then. But do me a favor and let her or Katia come to you and tell you in their own time, let them process all this. It all happened rather fast.” She reaches out and pats me on the shoulder before walking out of the room.
Feeling alone in the open dining room, I decide I need to head back upstairs to my bedroom to continue working at my desk. Katia is supposed to come find me when she is ready to talk to me about any additional details she has remembered, anyway.
There’s a light knocking on my door, and it slowly opens. I look up to see Katia’s head peeking around the door to see if I was there before entering.
“Hey, Katia, come on in. You can have a seat right over here next to my desk,” I say to her in a gentle tone.
She walks across the room toward me and takes a seat, but before we get started, there’s another knock, and both of us turn towards the door to see Stryker standing there in the doorway, knocking on the doorframe. “Hey, we were just about to go over some more details on Ivan and Andrei,” I say to him.
“Do you mind if I join you guys?” he says, directing his question to Katia.
“No, not at all, come on in. And please don’t be afraid to ask hard questions. I want Andrei and Ivan taken down. I assure you I’ll be fine.” She smiles at us, and we both relax a bit.
We get to work, and I ask her some questions. “Katia, do you remember anything you may have seen or overheard about the BraTVa dealings here in Chicago? Or do you remember anything Ivan and Andrei had planned for anything?”
She contemplates my questions for a minute before answering me. “I know that Ivan was sent here to Chicago to keep an eye on Nat.” She sighs before continuing, “When I was in Vegas, Ivan would randomly be gone for long periods of time, and I can only assume that would be when he was here in the city. I remember those stretches were nice because I wouldn’t face as much abuse during those times.”
“Very good, that is the kinda stuff we need to know. Anything else comes to mind?” I push.
“I remember overhearing a conversation with some of Andrei’s men that he had purchased a building here in the city close to the docks that he and Ivan would stay at while in town. It would allow him to monitor all shipments going in and out and to keep track of Natalia’s movements.”
“Perfect!” I respond and start typing away, logging all this new info and looking into probable locations of this ‘hideout’. I almost forget that Katia or Stryker are here with me. Sometimes when I get so deep in my work, I tune the world out, and it’s hard to tug me back out of it for a bit.
Katia calls my name, but I keep typing, not even looking up, even though I say, “yeah?”
She clears her throat and begins. “Well, I wanted to talk to you guys about something else too. Do you know about what happened last night; why Natalia and I had to talk earlier?”
I respond quickly. “Yep, Marcela filled me in, and I’m sure Nat will talk to us about it at some point. For me, being with Nat is all that matters, and if that means she wants to be with you as well, then I’m still all in.”
“Yep, it’s all good here, whatever makes our girl happy is good with me…well, with all of us, actually.” Stryker shrugs it off.
“Why is this so easy for you guys?” she asks.
“I’m sure that just because she has room for you now in the giant, crazy relationship we have going doesn’t mean she won’t still have room for all of us too,” I explain.
Katia nods her head in agreement, saying, “Okay, that makes sense, you guys are amazing. I am so happy she found you all, even if it played out in a crazy fucked up way.” I smile in response to her statement as she gets up to leave the room.
I call her name, causing her to turn back to look at me. “I don’t know how this will all work out since this is new for me and everyone else too, but we are good with whatever Nat wants. We all know you have things to work through from the last year. We are here for you too, however, you need us.” Katia just gives us a small half-smile, nods once, and then leaves.
It’s been about an hour and a half since our conversation in my room. I came down to the kitchen to get something to drink and found Stryker in here with paperwork and shit sprawled all over the counter working. “What are you up to, boss?” I inquire.
“Paperwork, lots of stupid fucking paperwork for the board from Vegas. Why the fuck did I take this promotion again?” Stryker asks with a laugh.
“Well, because you are the best man for the job.” I pat him on the back, reassuring him he can do it. “On a positive note, I looked into the info from Katia, and I think I got a lead on Ivan and Andrei’s place on the docks.”
“Nice, what did you find?” he asks, placing his chin down on his fists, ready to listen.
“Well, after doing some digging around, it looks like an office space was purchased about a year ago by Starling Trucking, and it’s about a block from the docks. The first floor consists of different office spaces, but the second floor is a two-bedroom apartment. Ironically, the apartment is on a housing site looking for someone to rent it out starting next month,” I ramble, hardly taking a breath between sentences.
Stryker raises his eyebrows at me and claps loudly, rubbing his hands together with a smug look on his face. “Well, shit. That couldn’t have come at a better time for us, we’ll need to check it out. I will take King and Alexie with me tonight to stake out the joint. Conrad, can you stay here and hold down the home front for us and be ready with your laptop in case we need to hack into anything?”
“You got it, man. You know I will never say no to more time with Nat.” I wink at him. “Plus, I can set up a live feed from the car, so it’s like we are there with you guys. You can finish this and see me later. I’ll go find the boys, brief them, and send them your way in about an hour or so.” I turn to leave.
Walking down the hall, I hear a noise coming from outside, and it sounds like arguing. So I can only assume it is the two men I’m looking for.
Walking out onto the deck, I see Alexie and King flinging knives across the yard at a spray-painted target on a tree. They are having, yet again, another pointless competition.It’s like a constant dick-measuring contest between these two.
