by Lana Sky
“How?” I ask.
“As we speak, Anatoli’s remaining pawns are being dealt with, piece by piece. He’ll have no choice but to leave the States. And in the process, he’ll be leaving the city to me.”
“It’s done, sir,” Tomas pitches in from the front seat. “Mr. Hood claims that everything is in place. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Good,” Maxim says, inclining his head. “Now, we wait.”
But it’s not that simple. After being around him for this long, I’m able to suspect the truth in what he doesn’t say. He may succeed in driving his grandfather from the country now, but in the process, he completely forsakes any ties to his family.
Does he regret that?
No, his expression warns. Not one fucking bit.
Chapter Twenty-One
“They’re on their way,” Maxim murmurs against my forehead. Sunshine spills in through the wide bay windows beside us, enhancing every nuance of his face. Two days after his meeting with his grandfather, and I can’t tell if he’s bothered by what happened. Or if he’s finally at peace with the possibility that Anatoli might be gone from his empire—for now. I want to assume it’s the latter. The gleam lurking in his gaze reinforces that hope, anyway.
“Lucius called and estimated they’ll arrive within ten minutes,” he adds. “Though, I believe everything is already sufficient.”
I frown, skeptical of that. Within a little under a week, I’ve realized the power that money can buy. In some ways, it’s like magic. Back in my old house, buying something like a new couch or mattress was an ordeal that required scouring the stores for a cheap deal, finding nothing, and eventually having to fish out whatever we needed from the dump.
In Maxim’s world, a house can be fully furnished in a matter of hours, complete with a fresh coat of paint. Jonathan’s recommended designer certainly knew her shit. A few minor touches and modest furniture work to transform the ‘rustic’ waterfront home into a world befitting the aloof style of Maxim—combined with enough nuances to make six kids feel comfortable dwelling in the same space.
Muted, soft grays and pops of navy create a cozy interior. The kids’ rooms each contain their various preferences—though Ainsley’s pony will have to wait, according to Maxim. A stable was one thing that he couldn’t guarantee within a week.
I hadn’t had the sense of mind to decide if he was serious or not. Getting every detail perfected consumed my focus. Why?
I have no fucking clue. Nothing in our old house inspired the same obsessive need in me before. I never went from room to room, hunting for a single piece of dust that might be out of place.
I never felt invested.
“They will love it,” Maxim insists for the umpteenth time. His hands snake around my waist, drawing me against him. “I will still maintain a property in the city for business reasons, but this…” He exhales raggedly, and I think I sense a hint of something that could be…contentment? “I am impressed with this.”
My heart swells up as I scan our surroundings, attempting to see whatever he is. A house untainted by blood or death. A view of the water with the city in the distance. A home, untouched by the Koslov name.
“Thank you,” I whisper, finding his hands with my own. “Thank you—”
“You thank me for a house?” he wonders incredulously. “I will thank you for this.”
He tugs aside the collar of his shirt, revealing his chest. It takes me a second to understand what he wants me to see—but when I do, I gasp. There, scrawled amid the scarred flesh is a series of inked lines spelling out a single name—kotyonok. Inflamed skin around the edges of the tattoo betray just how fresh it is. A day? Hours?
As I gape, he takes my hand and slips something cool and round onto my finger. I look down, unsurprised by the sight of his ring.
His lips brush my shoulder, imparting more than words could ever say. Slowly, his fingers creep along my collar, slipping beneath the thin fabric of my dress.
“Sir?”
We break apart and turn to find Tomas in the doorway. “They are arriving now, sir.”
Nerves flutter to life in my stomach as I follow Maxim to the front door. Two black cars advance toward us slowly, and the second they come to a stop, the kids stream out, craning their necks to take in the house.
“Holy shit,” Mikie exclaims, using his hand as a visor. “We could actually have a fucking boat!”
“Watch your mouth,” I scold, though my voice must lack the authority it used to.
“Holy shit!” The twins share manic grins and then take off, tearing into the house.
“Wait for me!” Eric calls, racing to keep up.
A hand tugs on my skirt, and I look down to find Ainsley staring up at me, wide-eyed.
“There is no pony,” Maxim says coldly.
She blinks in shock, her bottom lip trembling. Before a single tear can fall, he extends his hand.
“But would you like to see where he will live when it’s completed? Come with me.”
“Really?” She practically squeals as he leads her on a path across the expansive acreage surrounding the house itself. There, near the back with a view of the water, a team of builders have already erected the base of a stable and cordoned off the footprint with caution tape.
Ainsley peers over every inch with Maxim in tow, her eyes bug-wide. “Is my pony really going to live here?” she asks him repeatedly.
“Yes. One pony, or two. Perhaps more…” He meets my gaze from across the structure. “Whatever your sister allows, of course. Do you want to see where you’ll be able to ride him?” He points to a section of land a few yards away.
“Okay!” Ainsley merrily skips off while Maxim returns to my side.
“This is one small feature I attended to,” he says while tucking a loose curl behind my ear, “I hope you aren’t too offended.”
Am I? I can’t tell. The sun is shining, painting the property in shades of emerald with a pop of silvery blue marked by the water. It truly is a beautiful place. A private stable may not have been in my original list of requirements, but I can’t muster the energy to truly care.
“She doesn’t even know how to ride, though,” I admit. “She just wants a pony because every girl her age is genetically programmed to want one.”
“Even you?” he wonders, his voice uncharacteristically soft. When I nod, a rare smile creeps into the corner of his mouth. “Then I will have to ensure the stable is big enough for more than one pony. As for the riding, I can teach her. I would like to teach her.” He frowns as if that simple phrasing surprises him—namely the intensity with which he says it. The man with a tortured past, forced to ignore his humanity, wants to teach a little girl how to ride a horse. He wants to live in a house overlooking the water. More importantly, he wants to shed his name and finally become someone different.
Himself.
“It’s getting late,” Maxim murmurs. As he speaks, he entwines our fingers. “I’m eager to see what surprises my room might contain.”
I shiver at the innuendo. It’s the one room in the entire house that we’ve yet to tour. My cheeks burn as I look back at the field. “Ainsley?”
“She probably already ran to tell the others news of her impending pony,” Maxim says. “You go. I’ll look around just in case she went further up the path.”
When I reenter the house, I find the others on the deck in the back, observing the view of the water.
“This place is perfect,” Daisy murmurs as I draw up beside her. “As perfect as you can get outside of a private island, but…perfect.”
“You always gotta quantify shit,” Mikie taunts. “It’s amazing, Frankie.”
“Yeah, amazing,” the twins chirp in unison before scurrying off.
I can’t ignore my smile anymore. It strains the corners of my mouth, making them ache. I’m not used to the expression—painful happiness.
“Maybe this Maxim guy isn’t all that bad,” Mikie adds. “Eh, Daisy?”
She stiffens, her eyes darting to me and away again. “Yeah,” she says softly. “Maybe. Frankie…” She faces me, her eyes downcast, her bottom lip skewered between her teeth. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay.” In some ways, can I even blame her for being suspicious? After everything we’ve been through, I can’t.
She smiles, her posture relaxing. It’s only when I register the lack of a distinctive, girlish bit of laughter that I remember my task. “Where’s Ainsley?”
Daisy frowns. “I don’t know. Last I saw her, she was with you.”
“She’s probably upstairs screaming inside her new room,” Mikie suggests.
But when I enter the house, I don’t find her in any room. Not near the waterfront either. Or outside. When I head back out by the stable, Maxim is walking to meet me, but Ainsley isn’t with him either. Something in my expression makes him stop short.
“She wasn’t at the house?”
“No!” My throat thickens as I race past him. “Ainsley? Ainsley?”
“I’m sure she hasn’t gotten far,” Maxim insists. “She’s probably just playing—” He breaks off, frowning. His hand dips into his pocket, withdrawing his cell phone. Whatever number he finds on the screen makes his eyes narrow.
“I’m going to look for her near the shore,” I say, starting for the dock. “God, I just hope she didn’t go near the—”
“Francesca…”
I look back to find Maxim watching me with the cell phone pressed against his ear. Slowly, he offers it to me, his expression stone.
“What’s wrong? Is it Lucius?” I take the phone warily. “Does he know where—”
“Did you give her the phone?” a man wonders, his accent distinct. “Ah, you did! I can tell from her breathing. Hello, Francesca!”
“D-Dima?”
“Yes, yes!” He chuckles playfully. “I’m afraid little Ainsley won’t be coming home anytime soon. Though do not fear, Maxim alone knows what must be done to ensure her return—if he cares to, that is. In the meantime…I will show her every courtesy my brother ever showed me. Every last one. And just to give you a taste—” He breaks off just as a loud, high-pitched scream resonates through the receiver. “Adieu!”
I don’t even know what I do next. What I say. My only coherent recollection is just…screaming. And someone holding me so tightly it hurts, his voice a persistent, echoing bellow.
“We’ll find her.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Somehow Maxim gets me inside without the other kids noticing me. I’m vaguely aware of Lucius ushering them to another part of the house as Maxim calls in his guards, questioning them one by one.
Though he shouts, his voice eventually fades to an unintelligible murmur that serves as background noise to my own panicked psyche.
How could I be so stupid, stupid, stupid?
So reckless?
Of all the coherent thoughts to cross my mind again, the first is that I was right—this house was designed to amplify Maxim’s voice until the rafters shake with it.
“How the hell did he get past the security?” he bellows at Lucius. He stands in the center of the living room now, bathed in the glow of a hanging lamp. It’s already dark out, revealing the passage of hours. Hours while Ainsley suffers God only knows what…
“How?” Maxim snarls. “I demand answers—”
“As do I, sir,” Lucius insists. “Heads will roll, I can assure you. As for his current location, we are tracking a vehicle most likely to be—”
“What if he hurts her?” I barely recognize the sound of my own voice. I can’t stop rocking back and forth as a million twisted images run through my brain, each new one more horrible than the last.
I will show her every courtesy my brother ever showed me.
I should be out there, hunting for her. Kicking down whatever door I can to find her. But the fact that Maxim isn’t betrays a truth even he has enough tact not to say out loud—we would never find her.
“God, what if he hurts her?”
“I’ve never known Dima to act this way,” someone says from the back of the room. I look up, finding Milton standing apart from the other two. I didn’t even notice him come in. He isn’t wearing a suit, but a black shirt and a pair of slacks, his gaze distant. He stands near the window overlooking the bay, blending into the darkness of the sky behind him. “But I do know he would never be capable of harming a child.”
“Then you don’t know him as well as you thought,” Maxim growls. He crosses to me, brushing my cheek with the flat of his palm. I’m too numb to react to the touch. I can barely look at him at all. “Leave. I should have never asked you to come—”
“Possibly,” Milton says, fingering his collar. For the first time, doubt clouds his features. Then they harden with resolve. “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’ll get it done.”
“Start with where he might be,” Maxim demands. “You know his haunts. His hiding places.”
“I have my men on it already,” Milton admits. “But Dima isn’t stupid. He knows that you’d come to me, and he knows where I’d look for him.”
“So your insight is worthless, then,” Maxim snaps, starting to pace. “You can’t think of anything—”
“It’s my fault,” I croak. “I talked to him. I fell into his trap.”
And he was right. I put an innocent girl in danger. For what?
A sick game, a part of me wails. One you knew you could never win.
“Enough,” Maxim commands, cutting through the hopeless thoughts. “You pitied him, but that does not make you weak. Whatever he’s done…we can face it. Don’t give him what he wants by doubting yourself now.”
“He’s been…different, lately,” Milton admits, frowning. “You don’t speak to him regularly, Maxim, so you wouldn’t have noticed, but he’s been gone for a while. Over a year, I believe. It’s not unusual for him to go off on his own for long periods, as I do, but…” His brows furrow. “It isn’t like him to stay away that long. He kept his usual accounts though, always supplying regular contributions to the club. He only resurfaced in person a month ago, but we haven’t discussed where he was.”
“Contributions?” Maxim inquires. His eyes widen and narrow in quick succession as if a sudden realization came to him. “No. You don’t mean—”
“That’s something we can discuss another time,” Milton says gently. Dima’s secret as the third member of their partnership is apparently out in the open now. “When he returned, he seemed more interested than usual in your relationships. Mainly with Francesca.”
Even in my daze, I marvel at the fact that he says my name for the first time. Not woman. Or her.
“And my relationship with Heidi—” the name of the “blond woman,” Maxim mentioned, I assume. “Although my personal life has no relevance to this situation, Dima seemed more disturbed than I’m used to. He’s not erratic. But, whatever is behind this, I suspect it’s to prove an elaborate point.”
“So, you still defend him?” Maxim demands. “Even now?”
“Defend him?” Milton says softly. “I know him. Just as I know you, and who did I come to first when I learned of this? I’m not in my office waiting for a call from Dima, I can tell you that.”
“You’re right.” Something dampens Maxim’s expression, and he sighs, raking his fingers through his hair. “We won’t find him,” he confesses, even as Lucius continues to make phone calls rapidly in the corner.
“You are sure that he gave no clue as to his motives?” Milton wonders. “None at all?”
“He said Maxim would know what to do,” I whisper. I still hear him taunting me. I still hear Ainsley screaming…
“Is that true?” Milton turns to Maxim, an eyebrow raised. “Do you know what he could want?”
“No!” Maxim curls his hands into fists, and his gaze is so hopeless, that I know he’s not lying. “I don’t know what he could fucking want. I would give it to him if—” Suddenly he breaks off an
d sways. “That son of a bitch…”
I scan his face, desperate to follow his train of thought. Our gazes meet, and something in the set of his jaw has me lurching to my feet. He meets me halfway, clasping my wrist, dragging me against him.
My throat aches as I rush to speak, “He wants you to—”
“I know.” He nods, his eyes glinting with fury. “Lucius!”
“Yes, sir?” Lucius appears by his side in an instant.
Still holding my gaze, Maxim says, “Empty all of my accounts into the club accounts. All of them. Every last one. I don’t care what favors you have to call in. Get it done now.”
“Right away, sir.” Lucius races off while Milton advances from his corner, an eyebrow raised.
“You think that is what he wants?”
“What else?” Maxim snarls. “He wants everything I have. But as for the money…” He flicks his gaze to mine, his voice resonating with authority. “He can fucking take it.”
It’s past midnight when Tomas enters the room, his expression tense. With an apologetic nod in my direction, he crosses to Maxim and murmurs something near his ear.
Suddenly, Maxim lurches to his feet and races for the front door. I catch up to him, just in time to witness a ruby red car appearing in the driveway. Flashy and bold, it’s something Maxim or his men wouldn’t usually drive.
Frowning, I place my hand on his shoulder, straining my eyes to see through the tinted windshield. “Who…”
I barely finish forming the thought before the driver’s side door opens, and a lanky figure climbs out, his hands raised.
“I wouldn’t do anything rash,” he warns with a smile as Maxim tenses, poised to lunge for him. “I may not be armed, but I am not alone—”
“Where’s Ainsley?” I croak. “Where is she?”
“Ah, yes…” Dima flicks his gaze toward Maxim again, lingering over his face. “That would depend on a few small variables...”
