Chapter 6

**Hunter**

Hana looked even more nervous and I felt uncertain if I should push or let her be. But if Aksakov was involved, Hana had no chance of dealing with it on her own.

“After the detectives left, someone else knocked on the door. There were two other men in suits and when I opened the door they tried to force themselves inside,” she finally told me. My body ran both ice cold and searing hot. Ice cold out of fear of what could have happened and searing hot with rage. “Luckily I had the safety chain on and I managed to keep them from smashing the door in. When my neighbour called she was calling the cops, they left.”

“Did they tell you what they wanted?” I asked, taking deep breaths to try and calm the two storms inside. She nodded, but didn’t tell me. I frowned and tried to figure out why she stopped now. Simon. It had to be something about him, something she thought I would be upset about. I was surprised to find she was trying to protect me. “Sweetness, don’t hold back because you think it will be difficult to hear. I can handle it.”

“They wanted me to give them their money. When I said I didn’t know what he was talking about he told me Simon had told them he had given their money to me. That was all he really said. When they went away, I locked the door and tried to collect myself. Then you knocked on the door,” she said. I felt like a bastard. I remembered how I had yelled at her, demanded her to open the door, to be let in. Fuck, if I could have punched myself in the face, I would have.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so demanding,” I said. She gave me a faint smile again and I longed to see a genuine one on her face.

“It’s okay, of all my visitors tonight, you have been the highlight,” she told me. I smiled back at her. She was sweet as sugar and I really needed to stop fantasising about getting her naked underneath me. Even if she was my age and wasn’t my son's wife, ex-wife, she was too good for someone like me. For a moment I hated my own son. I hated that he had found Hana and married her, I hated that he had divorced her and left her alone to handle this mess and most of all I hated the fact that he had sent the men straight to her.

“Did they say they worked for Aksakov?” I asked. She shook her head.

“The one that tried to force himself inside, he had a tattoo on his hand. A skull with a flowering vine. The skull was in black and white but the flowers were blood red,” she told me.

“Fuck! Sorry,” I said.

“That bad?”

“Not good,” I agreed. It was Aksakov, the tattoo was a known mark for his men that had killed a flower for each life they had taken. She didn’t need to know that. “Do you know what money he is talking about?” I asked. She looked down at her hands and nodded. When she looked up again she had tears in her eyes. Fuck, it was breaking my heart. I used my free hand to brush her raven hair from her face and caressed her cheek. “Tell me.”

“It’s stupid, I shouldn’t cry. Before Simon and I got married, his mother demanded we sign a prenup. It simply said that all private property recurred before and during the marriage, would stay private and not be seen as a marital asset. When Simon started his business, he asked if we could put it in my name. I agreed,” she told me.

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“Tax reasons, mostly. At least that was what I figured at the time. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe he wanted a scapegoat.” She sounded tired and I wanted to take all of her troubles from her. It was clear that Simon was the root of all her issues, and I would make sure she didn’t need to sort through them on her own. Then I would find my son and I would make sure he knew how you should treat women. How he should have treated Hana, how lucky he had been that someone like her had even looked at him. “When we divorced Simon had forgotten about the prenup, as had his mother. Or I think they forgot it went both ways. Because I ended up with his business. Simon didn’t like that. I didn’t want it, but I did need money to start my new life. I had a plan. I happily sold the company back to Simon. The transfer was completed last week. When we ran into each other earlier today I had just found the perfect place to buy to get my plans for my new life going. But now…” her voice trailed off and she looked out into the empty space. “But now I guess that money belongs to the mafia and I need to find a way to give it back to them. Because I guess my life is more important than the perfect property. I just don’t know how to do this. Does the mafia have some type of tip line you can call? Will they be happy once I give back the money?” I saw the tears that ran down her face. It broke my heart to see her like this. It was like the last fight had been sucked out of her. It scared me that she was on the brink of giving up.

“Let me help you. I’ll find out how much money Simon owes the mafia and if they will agree to leave you alone if you give the money Simon gave you back to them. I’ll arrange the hand over,”I offered. I had stopped pretending I could walk away from this. I would clean up my son’s mess. Not because of my son, but because Hana didn’t deserve to do it on her own. She looked at me with wonder in her eyes.

“I can’t let you do that. I can't let more people get involved in this,” she said.

“This is what I do, what my company does. Please, I insist you let me help you.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. Then she nodded.

“I’m relieved to not have to do everything on my own,” she told me.

“From now on, you're not on your own,” I promised her. She gave me another weak smile and I felt like a fucking hero.

“I guess I should start looking for work as I’m not going to open my bakery,” she told me. Her eyes were filled with determination and sadness, it fucking broke my heart all over again. She started picking up the glass shards of the table.

“Why don’t you hold off on that until you know if we can make some kind of deal,” I suggested, feeling like shit as I knew it would be unlikely Aksakov and his men would be satisfied with anything less than the total amount. Most likely they would want more.

“We both know they won’t give me a discount,” Hana told me. “I don’t have any other savings and despite me picking the cheapest place to live to give me as much space in my budget for my new business, I still need to pay rent. It’s okay, I will find another way. I always do.” She tried to hide the tiredness in her voice, but it was clear to me. I knew she was right, but still, I hated the idea of her giving up on her dream. She stood up with a hand full of broken glass. I followed her into the kitchen.

“Until this situation is over, do you have someplace else you can stay? It’s not safe for you here,” I asked.

“I could go to my friend. But I won't do that. It would put him in danger and this is my mess, not his. I can’t justify putting him in harm's way,” she said as she disposed of the glass.

“They know where you live, they don’t know where your friend lives. It would be safer,” I pointed out.

“I’m thinking it wouldn’t take them long to find Wictor’s place,” she said. There was something she left out, for my benefit.

“Simon knows where your friend lives,” I said, letting her off the hook. She just nodded. “Okay, then I’m guessing you are coming home with me.” I made the decision the same time as I opened my mouth.

“Excuse me?” she said, taking half a step back from me. I raised my hands. I was making a fucking mess of things.

“I only mean that it would be a safe place for you to stay, as a guest, until this blows over.”

“But I don’t know you. I appreciate you trying to help. But you are still a stranger.” She wasn’t wrong. I didn’t need to be a psychologist to see she had trauma in her past and that she wasn’t comfortable around men. I hoped for my son’s sake he hadn’t caused her trauma, or made it worse. Her refusal to take me up on my offer at least showed she had a strong survival instinct. I sighed.

“Fine. I need to get some things for you in my car. When I leave you will lock the door and I want you to promise to let me back in when I return in five minutes. Ok?” I told her. She looked confused. “If I’m to let you stay here, I need to give you something to keep you at least more secure. But I need you to promise to let me back inside.” She nodded. “I need you to tell me in that sweet voice of yours, sweetness.”

“I promise to let you back in,” she told me.

“Good. Come on,” I said and she followed me into the hallway. I left the apartment and stayed outside the door until I heard all the locks being used. There were upsides to living for your work, I thought as I walked back to my car and got my tool box and some other things. As I walked up the stairs again, I hoped she would keep to her word and let me back inside and not call the cops on me.