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Before I can respond, his phone rings, and he answers it. It’s a fast call with rapid Russian being thrown back and forth. No wonder he answered it through the car’s Bluetooth; I don’t understand a word of it. The tone suggests he’s getting irritated, but the man on the other end is pretty pissed too.
While he’s distracted, I swipe my phone to life to text Jack.
“Don’t touch that.” Maxim cuts away from his conversation to snag my phone from my hands then goes back to firing off more heated words with the man on the phone.
I don’t need to translate it to know he cursed.
“Who was that?”
“A friend,” he grumbles. “I did him a favor, took his girlfriend home when he needed to leave town. But he’s caused his own troubles with her now and tries to blame me.” He looks over at me. “He’ll solve his own problem. We have ours to deal with.”
He hands me back my phone. “Like I said, I have information we should talk about before we decide if you’re going to talk to Jack again.”
I look over at him. The tension he had after his phone call is back in his jaw. “What is it?” My stomach rolls. “Is it bad? Did something happen to Gunner?”
“I got a hold of Nikolai Romanov; he handled Gunner a while ago.”
“Did he hurt my brother?” My hands fist in my lap. He makes a turn. Keeping his eyes on the road, he shakes his head.
“He sent your brother to a rehab facility to get cleaned up.”
“What? Why would he do that?”
“Your brother was caught selling Romanov product without permission, but he was so high he couldn’t give Nikolai any answers to his questions. He sent him to get cleaned up so he was able to question him better.”
“And then?” I prompt when he stops talking. “What?”
“Nikolai left him at the facility, but your brother left. He signed himself out two weeks later, well before the end of the program Nikolai paid for.”
“Hold on.” I lean forward, taking a deep breath while trying to get all the information to line up in my head. “Nikolai Romanov paid for my brother to go to rehab even though he caught Gunner selling his… whatever he sells… without permission?”
He nods. “If Gunner gets caught doing it again, he won’t be treated so well.”
I sink back in my seat. We’re almost back at his apartment. “So… no one knows where Gunner went after that?”
“I had the facility director call me. Gunner signed himself out, but he did agree to move into a halfway house here in the city.” His heavy sigh doesn’t bring much hope that anything will be resolved. “But he’s not there.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath searching for the silver lining here. “This is okay, we have a trail. We can just go to the halfway house and talk to them, see if they know where he went.”
“I don’t want you to go there.” He pulls the car into his garage.
“You said.” I point a finger at him. “You said I could go with you.”
“I’m not going either. I have to see to a few things tomorrow. I will ask Levi, a man I trust, to go and ask about it. Or you can wait until tomorrow night and we’ll both go.” He parks the car.
I take a deep breath. “I don’t want to wait.”
“Then I’ll send Levi.” He grabs his phone from the middle console.
“No. He doesn’t know Gunner; he won’t know what to ask. I’ll go. Where is the halfway house?”
“Not alone, you won’t.” The warning is clear. If I go without him, I’ll regret it.
“Fine. Tomorrow night.” I blow out a breath. My stomach aches.
He eyes me cautiously. “Tomorrow night.” He cuts the engine. “Now, let’s get upstairs so I can help take your mind off this. I think distraction is the best way to keep you from doing something naughty.”
Maxim
