Page 145 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

Like a zipper being ripped, explosive after explosive ignites around the base of the home, taking the stone and wood building from peaceful and unassuming to a conflagration in seconds.

Another chain planted in the second-story rooms goes off, making the fire pulse bright and grow.

“Woo, damn!” Axel says. “That’s something for their asses!”

“Axel,” I press, looking at him with lowered brows. He gives me a chagrined smile and an eyeroll. Right when he turns back to the screen, the drone footage catches the house folding inon itself, collapsing as the structural integrity breaks from the flames.

“No one’s getting out alive with that one,” a voice says, one of Misha’s people.

“Sho’ ain’t, Mad Max,” Axel says, still smiling. “All right. Well, let me know when you’ve ID’d the body.”

And with that parting statement, Axel removes his headset and spins to face me and Riale.

“So…that’s it? It’s done?” Riale throws the question at Axel, and I take up pacing again.

That’s it. Lakeland’s dead. There’s no way he’d survive not only the fire but the building collapse. So that means….

“Yep. We’re all free from that particular monster. Now it’s up to Misha and his crew to take care of the rest of it.”

The rest of it being the criminal empire. Apparently, they’d been on the mission to destroy some fuck-shit that’s way,waydeeper than just Lakeland. I’m glad to hand over that particular weight, even though Axel and Riale plan on supporting Misha from afar now.

It was too easy.

I try not to grunt at the plan Axel, Riale, and Misha, AKA The Ukrainian, came up with. I wasn’t wrong when I said the three of us are incapable of taking down an entire network of criminals attached to Lakeland, no matter how much Riale and Axel want to.

That’s not to say I want to see trafficking continue or weapons of war to get in the hands of terrorists, but again…I have me and mine to look after.

So, this was the compromise. We work with The Ukrainian, who apparently has a goddamn army behind him, take out Lakeland, and then I sit back while Axel, Riale, and Misha go playThe Avengers.

“Why are you so pissed off?” Riale asks, tilting his head as he assesses me. “You’d think you would be happier that all of this is coming to an end. This Lakeland shit is done, and the rest of it is now in the hands of people who can do what we haven’t been able to. All you have to focus on now is your family.”

That part has my heart rate kicking up.

“Right,” I say, my voice flat. Riale doesn’t push.

After looking between the two of us, Axel whistlesWhy Can’t We Be Friends? as he plops into his computer chair, spinning side to side.

“Y’all seem better,” Axel says. “But now you’re acting like you got stung in the ass by a red wasp. What’s going on with you?” Axel directs all this toward me.

I shrug.

“He’s just scared,” Riale says, and I shoot the middle finger in his direction. Axel nods sagely.

“Fear is a healthy emotion, my friend,” Axel says, drawing out his words to sound like an old professor. “But you need not fear Lakeland’s goons. We have bigger ones on our side.”

“You sure you trust those niggas, Axel?” I ask, thinking about the unsettling feeling I got when I met the dead-eyed Ukrainian. For a brief moment during that initial call, his wife, a mixed woman who’s maybe half a foot taller than Tempest, came on. They were like icebergs as they described their more than a hundred soldiers and intelligence agents in what Misha calls The Resistance.

Not gonna lie, I stopped listening, too focused on what was right in front of me.

And now, what’s right in front of me is my singular purpose and mission: being a father. A family man.

Now to figure out how the fuck to do that.

“It’s not fear,” I say. “It’s anticipation.” Anticipation of the unknown, which is what’s killing me right now.

“Ah, I see,” Axel says, giving me a squirrely look. “Well, from what I can tell, it’s been a minute since you last did it, but one tip I have is if it feels like you’re gonna bust after a minute, just say the alphabet backward?—”

“Man, get outta here!” I say, barking a laugh. Axel smiles, and I realize the purpose of his statement was to get me to calm the fuck down. It worked. Sorta.