by Lana Sky
“Perhaps I seek to warn you?” he adds.
I hate how confident he sounds. Smug. As if I’m an idiot he’s decided to take pity on and inform that the sky is indeed blue.
“Warn me?” I say, forcing myself to stay focused. “About what?”
“Or maybe I seek to test him?” His lip quirks, transforming his expression from concerned to playful. He peeks toward the hall, where Maxim presumably is, and lets loose a wistful sigh. “He’s stewing now, you do realize? Wondering what lies I’m telling you. What secrets I’ll let slip about him. He’s always been a jealous boy, too possessive for his own good. That is why he could never father children, you see. He would only ever see them as competition—”
“Just get to the point,” I snap, losing my neutral tone.
His words sneak into my brain long after he’s gone silent, sowing seeds of doubt that blossom into full-on panic. Could there come a day when I’ll have to choose between my family and Maxim...
No. I shake my head, picturing the way he acted at the beach house. He’s already proven the steps he’ll go to in order to avoid that very situation—I can’t deny that the effort pushed him to the breaking point.
“The point?” Dima sits back and sips from his wine glass. “Maybe Maxim and his love life are the least of my concern? My motives may be more selfish in nature.”
“You just want to taunt him, then?” I deduce, pushing back from the table. Irritation prickles my skin. I’m such a fucking idiot, falling for his trap. “You just want to play with him for entertainment like Milton said.”
“Yes.” He nods thoughtfully. “Or closure. According to my therapist, I will never be truly happy unless I close old doors, so to speak. He’s a bit of an old fuddy, duddy. He claims that I must discover what’s been bothering poor Dima since he was a wee, little lad and finally slay that monster.”
I stiffen in horror, still perched on the edge of my seat. “You want to kill him?”
“Maxim?” He frowns. “No. Where would the fun in that be? I want something from him, though. I want…acknowledgment. I want him to admit that he is as weak and as human as the rest of us. That he is a violent, broken, damaged fool, as am I. To pretend otherwise is simply unproductive. Having him say as much might do wonders for my psyche. His too.”
“By toying with him?” I croak. Dima is still smiling, but the vitriol in his words stings deeper than it should. Perhaps because Maxim all but confessed the same thing? “Why do you feel like he can’t change?”
“Because I cannot,” he says simply. “I’ve tried. It’s no fun. No family for poor Dima. No woman to ply with some ring. I’ve chosen against pretending it’s even a possibility.”
His lips part in a beautiful, chilling smile. “Therefore, I’ve decided my dear brother should realize the same before he hurts you in more ways than by using a whip.”
I cringe, but he beams in triumph. “It isn’t my place to kink shame,” he adds. “Maxim’s been known to dabble in masochism for a long while. Though who am I to judge? I have my own…quirks.”
He waits as if daring me to ask him more. When I don’t, his smile widens, baring all of his white, perfectly straight teeth.
“I don’t prefer to tie up my women, but I do enjoy the odd mind game or two. Convincing some poor, desperate bachelorette that I may be the answer to her financial dreams—only to watch her run in disgust the more I put her desperation to the test. Love is relative, you see. A little humiliation here. Some deception there. You find out quickly what price some might put on their so-called happy ending.”
I can’t disguise my disgust this time. “That sounds insane—”
“Insane, yes.” He forms a steeple with his fingers and perches his chin on top of it. “Because I am. Clinically, though I assume you were being a tad dramatic in your assumption. The old man had us both rigorously tested, you see. And I was tested yet again when I was separated from my brother and sold to…let’s call it a ‘boarding school.’”
I nearly choke. Maxim put it a different way. The loser would go to Sevastyn, he said. Sevastyn, the pedophile who gained influence through corruption. The same man Milton despised for equally murky reasons.
“So he has told you something,” Dima suspects with a knowing grin. “Maxim is a very smart man. In fact, he possesses above-average intelligence, though he goes out of his way to disguise the full extent. Milton, now he is just a tad smarter. But me?” He waggles his eyebrows. “My intelligence was deemed immeasurable twice. My sanity, equally confounding. Depending on who you ask, I am afflicted by a long list of ailments and disorders. Asperger’s. Dissociative identity disorder. Antisocial personality disorder. Generalized anxiety. Paranoia. Post-traumatic stress. Attachment disorder. It goes on and on…”
He gestures with a bored flick of his wrist, and I nearly contemplate surrender. My fingers grip the sides of my chair, rooting me in place. Fear of Maxim’s potential reaction is the only reason why I don’t lurch to my feet and head straight down the hall.
Yet.
“So yes, I am insane,” Dima continues, oblivious to my discomfort. “Though I wouldn’t take it as an insult. In fact, I’m grateful for my many quirks. They’ve kept me humble, you see. In touch with my feelings.” He extends his slender arms and hugs himself. “But as I work through my many…hang-ups, I was forced to confront the reality that there are some things in my past I must address. Even if the other parties involved may not be inclined to revisit such memories. I need to bury them once and for all.”
The violent phrasing draws my interest enough for me to question, “Like?”
“Like, did Maxim tell you about the day he tried to kill me?” He tugs at the collar of his sweatshirt, revealing his scar. For the shock value of it, I realize. He wants me to jump in disgust at the raised, ropey strip of flesh.
But I don’t.
“Yes.” Does that surprise him? I can’t tell. His amused grin doesn’t reveal an answer either way.
“Let me guess. He told you some sob story about how I ruined his perfect, innocent childhood via our father’s ruthless need to assert his authority? He told you that I was a weak, worthless rodent always scurrying underfoot? And I’m sure he boasted about taking a knife to my throat as well. So typical.”
I school my expression to match his—hopefully unreadable.
“He did.” Unconvinced, Dima leans forward, his eyes sparkling. “Do you want to hear the truth? The truth is that, one day, a stranger barged into the bordello where my mother worked and lived—she was a prostitute, you see—and he dragged me out by my hair. I’d never seen him before in my life, mind you. Still, he took me to a strange house, full of strangers who looked at me like I was nothing. Then he said I was his son.” He wiggles his fingers, his eyes comically wide. “Quite the surprise, you see. But my newfound brother, didn’t take the news too well. Not long after our meeting, he attacked me. Punched me in front of our father, who egged him on in approval. Always the showoff, he made a spectacle of it, dear Maxim. He knocked me down. Fractured my cheek—” he points to his left eye. “He spit on me. Told me I was a rat, unworthy of living. Blah, blah, blah. Given my previous life circumstances, those words were nothing new to me. But…”
He frowns, eyeing his hands, and a rare real emotion slips through his façade. Confusion. His slim fingers grasp at the air as if trying to capture the memory and dissect it properly.
“You know what was new? Later that night, I realized that he had slipped something into my pockets without me realizing it. Do you want to know what I found? It was the oddest, strangest thing…”
My brain shies from the dare. What kind of object could make him look so conflicted? Nothing good, and I’m not afraid to admit it. “No—”
“Socks,” he says simply before I can fully voice a refusal. “A single, scarlet pair. Hand-knitted by his mother, I suspect—she was the crafty sort. They were worn enough that I knew they had to be his. Possibly his favorites. He’d noticed that I had
none of my own, you see—” He points to his ankles. “There was also a piece of candy hidden inside one—extravagant chocolate he must have stolen from our father’s private collection. The bastard was quite the glutton…” He chuckles only to trail off, his lips pursed. “But do you want to know a secret? That was the first time anyone had ever given me anything. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the concept. A present? Such a mythical thing! When I saw him again, Maxim, I looked for any hint of that kindness, but alas, I found nothing. He continued to beat me. Berate me. I thought, perhaps I’d imagined it? But no.” He frowns more deeply, stroking his chin. “I continued to find small, tiny things shoved into my clothing. Combs. Toys. Food…”
His gaze turns distant, and for the first time, I see a hint of similarity between the two brothers. They both express confusion in the same terrifying way. Via anger at whatever dared challenge their understanding.
“It went on until we both were sent directly to Anatoli. I won’t get into the details of that time.” He waves a hand as if dismissing the horror away. “Eventually the day came when the old man demanded we fight to the death with the gusto of some ancient Roman emperor. Maxim agreed with no hesitation, of course. No fear. But I was bored of that life.” He shrugs. “I was tired. I didn’t care. That time was so…unstimulating. I was ready to die. I made it so easy for him—and death, you see, is one aspect of life the Koslovs fear more than anything. It’s for the animals, in their view. Animals are slaughtered, not men. How to kill is one of the first things you learn in that fucking family. Maxim had already done it before, of course. It should have been nothing. But…” He frowns and picks up the bottle of wine. “More? Oh, you’ve not taken a sip.” Laughing, he takes my glass in addition to his and alternates sipping from both. “Where was I? Oh yes. Killing me should have been nothing. If anything, it would have been too easy. Anatoli demanded it, and the first, most important rule of being a Koslov, is to never disobey. And Maxim, like a good boy, dug his knife into my throat. But…he failed to do it.”
Failed. That’s not the word I would use to describe the scar snaking down the column of his neck. “He still hurt you,” I point out hoarsely.
Dima laughs. “Hurt me? Even a child knows which direction you cut a throat in.” He drags his fingers across his own, perpendicular to his scar. “Maxim didn’t spare my life by some fluke or pathetic mistake. He went out of his way to. I just want to know why. Is that so wrong?” With mock sadness, he bows his head and sighs. “I want to know why my brother spared me, and yet shuns me. Why he despises me enough to ignore my very existence for twenty years, and at the same time, never once, ever, attacks me directly. Even when I get bored enough to play with his little toys or disrupt his supply lines. He can use Milton as an excuse all he wants, but the man isn’t stupid—” He extends his hand to me as if demanding the answer. “I want to know why he’s decided to challenge his nature, especially now. Perhaps the first thing isn’t all a mystery, though? To acknowledge me is to acknowledge that he was never really a Koslov. He failed the first test, after all. But I admit that lately, my curiosity has been piqued—because although he refuses to acknowledge any hint of kindness extended toward me, he seems more than eager to claim some young, average prostitute as his wife. No offense.”
I stiffen. Am I even insulted? I don’t know.
Laughing, Dima continues, “And I know one must be patient when it comes to these things. Milton—I mean, my therapist—” He winks. “He claims that ‘you cannot rush him, Dima. He is not like you. You push him too far and…poof!’” He mimes his head exploding with wiggling fingers. “‘Be patient. One day he will reach out to you. Give it time, time, time!’” He rolls his eyes while mimicking Milton’s accent. “The man babies him to an extent. Though I suppose it can’t be helped. He’s kept the promise he made to me, at least. For twenty years, he’s kept that promise…”
Rather than ask what he means, I take my time putting the pieces of his verbal puzzle together. Then, it comes to me. “You asked him to be Maxim’s friend?”
It sounds so strange when said out loud. Grown men with a twisted web intertwining them, all of it cemented in friendship.
“Maxim is a delicate soul, pretty girl,” Dima says with a tired sigh. “He would have been eaten alive without Milton’s…let’s call it independence. I had hoped the man would convince him to finally break from Anatoli. But it seems that nothing can cut that bond. Even you.” He flicks his gaze in my direction just in time to catch my reaction.
Rather than take the bait, I sigh. “That doesn’t hurt me.”
“Perhaps. But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You want me to help Maxi defeat the big bad wolf once and for all.”
Is that why I’m here? My motives feel less relevant the longer this twisted conversation goes on. Despite all this time, I still don’t know what he wants.
“How do I know you can even help him?”
“How?” Dima cackles, sloshing wine from his glass. He swipes at the drops with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, clearing them away. “You are very amusing! I’m beginning to see the appeal. Pretty girl, Anatoli will do anything to get his precious Maxi under his thumb once more. Why? He is his legacy. His good, loyal boy. Without Maxim, he has nothing but a loosely connected family tree of sycophants and grifters. Maxim is his crown. And the crown belongs to the king—no one else.”
“But you can defeat him?”
He laughs again as if knowing some wonderful joke that I’ll never even learn the punchline to. “Do you want to know the secret? Come close. Closer…” He beckons me with a wave of his hand. He waits until I finally sit forward before saying, “The only way for Maxim to ever defeat Anatoli is…to break the throne. Give up the name. Walk away. Anatoli will never touch him directly. In some ways, Maxim knows this. The old man certainly does.”
“What do you mean?”
“Milton is a powerful man, pretty girl.” He raises an eyebrow. “But the third member of his so-called club has even more influence. He is a very powerful, very rich man. The bastard has a lot of stock in pharmaceuticals, you see. He controls more money, property, and people than Anatoli can even dream of amassing. Maxim is his only firewall against total insignificance—and he needs his golden boy now more than ever. Even a Koslov can’t live forever.”
“How do you even know who the third member is if Maxim doesn’t?”
He winks. “Let’s say, I know a little about him. He’s incredibly handsome. Highly intelligent. Very charming, though some might say…unassuming. And of the three, he has the most impeccable fashion sense—”
“You?” I blurt out.
“Little me?” Dima blinks innocently and places his hand over his heart. “As a child, I learned my place in this violent, dangerous game of money, and men. It’s better not to play at all. That’s the only way to win.”
I exhale in frustration. Keeping up with him is damn near impossible, and I know now that it’s futile to even try. “So all you want is Maxim to what? Accept you?”
“I did,” he admits, his eyes downcast. “I wanted my tortured brother to take my hand and boldly step out into the light of freedom. Call it childish if you want. I call it progress—but I’ve changed my mind.”
He props his hand beneath his chin and observes me more intently than ever. “I like you, Francesca. So now I want to help you. I want to help you learn the answer to the question you’re too terrified to ask.”
Alarm prickles through my nerves, warning me to back away. But I can’t without conceding defeat—and his fucking grin proves that he knows it.
“And what is that?” I ask tiredly.
“Does he truly love you, Maxim? You love him, or will you deny it?” He smirks as if he’d like nothing more than for me to challenge him.
So I don’t.
And the man practically bounces in his seat. “It’s a good question, you agree? Not only that, but you want to know if he is even capable of love. If the day will ever come when h
e loses control again. When he kills you finally, or takes a knife to little Ainsley and hacks her to pieces on a sheet of plastic tarp—”
“S-Stop!” I brace my hands on the table, and it takes everything I have not to lurch to my feet. The memories of that night still haunt me, threatening to descend. Gritting my teeth and closing my eyes is the only way to keep them at bay. “How did you—”
“Milton doesn’t spill Maxi’s little secrets,” Dima says. “But I have ways of learning what he knows. The messes he helps his friend clean up. The women he examines for him. The blood he has to wipe off his hands when Maxim makes yet another mistake…”
When I open my eyes again, he isn’t smiling. “How can you even help me prove that?”
“Oh, I can. And I always pay my debts, pretty girl. But in this case, I will want something from you in exchange for such a favor.”
“I don’t want anything from you—”
“But you do,” he insists. “You truly do. I know my brother far better than you. I have years of research to draw from, and I will tell you now that he is stubbornly resistant to change. Some might say incapable of it.”
“Research,” I echo, picking up on that particular word. “Like you were researching when you let Maxim’s driver be killed in front of me?”
“Oh, Jacob?” He raises an eyebrow as if he’d completely forgotten about the incident already. “Jacob Marsten had a wife named Ilia, and a daughter named Mariah. And he had spent the better part of ten years, terrorizing the hell out of them. It was fun to him, you see. And with his skill set, he was incredibly good at finding their new home or apartment, no matter where they went. He liked to send Ilia love notes, detailing the many ways he would eventually reunite with her. Chilling stuff.” He makes a show of shuddering. “So pardon me if I don’t shed too many tears for the man.”
