by Nicole Fox
My heart aches.
A large shadow casts over me. I look up to see Maksim.
“I know where you live,” he says, the phrase slipping by before I can grasp its meaning. “I can drive you there if you’d like.”
I glance back at the school.
“I don’t believe they’ll allow you back inside,” he remarks. “Despite the neighborhood, it’s a good school. Security seems tight as well. I’m surprised you managed to get so far.”
He offers me his hand. For reasons I don’t understand, I take it. My hand feels small in his. He keeps a guiding grip on my elbow as he leads me to his car. It’s a black Camaro. Of course.
He opens the door for me. As I sit down, I smell the new leather. Before he gets into the driver’s side, he checks under the car. I don’t ask what he’s doing and he doesn’t explain.
We don’t talk. I risk looking at him a couple of times, but it makes it hard for me to breathe again, so I quickly snap my eyes back to the road. The rhythm of the car is soothing, like a mother rocking her child to sleep.
But I feel a consistent string pulling me in two directions—one toward my daughter and the other toward the man sitting silently less than a foot away from me.
6
Cassandra
I settle onto my ass beside my bed, dragging out a box of shoes. The black heels are cushioned by a layer of tissue paper. I take the shoes and the tissue paper out. Underneath, a thin photo album lies snugly at the bottom of the box. I pull it out. The edges have frayed over time.
I open the album gingerly, my fingertips barely touching it.
The first photo is when I was seven years old. I’m grinning at whoever is taking the photo as the candlelight from my cake makes the lower half of my face radiate. My father is sitting to the left of me, looking over his shoulder. In the faint light, there’s another man behind him. The edge of a gun is visible under his sports jacket.
In the next photo, I’m nearly twelve. I’m embracing our new puppy, Shana, as we’re surrounded by a warm winter’s slush. We’d never had a pet before. Nearly a month later, my father told me that Shana had been sent to another home. When I was fourteen, he admitted she’d actually been poisoned by his enemies.
Next page. I’m thirteen. My father is standing beside me, his arm around my shoulders as we’ve finished a trail. One of his men took the photo; he followed behind us as we hiked. For a long time, I thought the men that traveled around with us were a normal security team. In this photo, I’m fully embracing my father. He’d been attacked less than a month before and told me it was a robbery attempt. I bought the story then. Now, I doubt it was true.
Flip. I’m still thirteen, but as my father takes a photo of me standing tall in a pale blue dress, ready to go to a school dance, I’m looking at him like a deer eyes a hunter. I’ve seen him, the real him, as he beat the man who followed us on the hike. He later told me that he had to set an example—he told me that he had to hurt that man in order to ensure that no one would repeat the man’s mistakes.
Another page. I’m sixteen now, standing in front of a brand-new Mustang. It’s in that Mustang that I’ll end up picking up some men from a meeting point after they’ve killed members of a Columbian gang, at my father’s orders. It’s also the first time I’ll meet my daughter’s father.
Then I’m eighteen, cooking a meal for my father and me. I’m already plotting to leave him and never talk to him again. I can see it my body language—the tense arms but the lowered shoulders, the forced smile while I try to keep my eyes wide open like I’m innocent. It hadn’t been long since he snatched my daughter from my arms and jettisoned her into the void.
It’s too much.
I shove the photo album back into the box. The box breaks at the edges, but I ram the tissue paper in along with the shoes. The top doesn’t fit until I fix the edges. I jam the box far enough back that I can’t reach it anymore. It’d be for the best if I never look at it again.
I lean against the side of my bed. I try to not think about anything—I’ve been told meditation is good for my health—but my mind keeps returning to two opposing thoughts.
First, my daughter. She had the same hair as me. I didn’t expect that. I’ve spent years trying not to picture her, to think of what she might look like or smell like or be like. I try to recall her face from the park, but everything now is a blur. It all happened so fast. I wasn’t ready for any of it.
Worse, I can remember Maksim’s face perfectly. The sharp jaw, the incisive gray eyes, the stubble that is so easy to imagine against my hand, against my cheek, against my inner thigh.
I propel myself to my feet. I’ll focus on work. I’ll focus on anything other than everything that’s haunting me.
Walking into the Fifth Avenue Journal, I feel like I’m in a mental hospital. Everyone seems to be on the brink of a meltdown. Arthur Lawson has five different smart speakers in front of him, each droning on in metallic tones. Another journalist named Allison stares at various syringes, muttering about venous air embolisms.
She stops as she notices me passing by. “Hey, Cassandra!”
“Hey,” I say, continuing toward my desk.
“Tom wants to talk to you.”
I stop, desperate for more information than a casually uttered death sentence like that, but she’s already focusing on her syringes again. I take a deep breath and change course towards Tom’s office. Better get it out of the way sooner than later.
As soon as I’m within a few feet of his office, the door jerks open. Amelia Bloomer steps out of the office, her face a deep red as tears well in her eyes. She keeps her head bowed, but I still see the tears escape down her face.
I adjust my blouse awkwardly. I close my eyes, trying to get in a five-second meditation, but all I can hear is Allison muttering, “Too much air to be accidental.”
I open my eyes and step into Tom’s office. I paste on a smile.
“I heard you wanted to talk to me,” I say.
He nods without looking up as he continues typing on his laptop. “Come here.”
As I walk toward his desk, I imagine what I’d tell my daughter in this situation. Chin up—confident, but not arrogant. Be certain in your words, but not so certain that they’ll come back to sink you.
Tom stops typing. “Did you see Amelia leaving?”
“Yes,” I say.
“She was just fired. Do you want to know why?”
A thousand sarcastic answers cross my mind. I think about my daughter again. Don’t let your own words sink you.
“I have no idea, sir,” I say.
“Amelia told me that she was going to investigate Magnus Airlines for allegations that they overcharge non-US citizens. And she is. But she’s also been spending a fair amount of time investigating allegations of sexual assault too. I didn’t approve that. She didn’t ask. She decided on her own that her gut instincts overrode my experience and my wallet.” He shrugs. “So, she’s gone. It means the initial investigation will take a lot longer as I’ll have to get somebody else to cover it and I’ll have to hire someone new to replace her. But I’d rather spend tens of thousands of dollars replacing her than have someone disrespecting me. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely,” I say, biting my tongue hard enough that I taste copper.
“You’ve run out of time to choose a topic,” he says. He glances at his laptop. “Are you going to write about your family or are you going to be standing in the unemployment line?”
“You don’t need to worry about me, but I’m not going to write about my family,” I say. He glances at me, a flash of indignation on his face. He thinks I’m not playing his game, but I’m just playing it at a more complex level. High risk, high reward. My father told me only to make these kinds of moves if I was desperate and right now I’m so far at the bottom, the only thing I have left is my dignity and this job. I might as well try to keep both.
“I’m going to expose the entire mafia network in the city.”
<
br /> I see the doubt on his face, but it slowly dawns into greedy enthusiasm. He thinks he’s won, that I’ve submitted. That I’ll inevitably end up using my family for information.
That means I can use him while he believes he has the upper hand.
Both Tom and Maksim think I’m a tiny prey animal, ready to surrender to their whims. But they haven’t had the experiences I’ve had.
They aren’t ready for what I’m about to bring to their doorsteps.
Either of them.
In NYC, there are four major mafias. There’s Dos Gatillos, the Puerto Rican mafia, who mostly stick to the South Bronx. The Polish mob run things in Greenpoint. The Balduccis occupy various sections of the West Side of Manhattan. They’ve been battling for territory for years with the fourth and most powerful organization, the Akimov Bratva.
I sit in the public library, digging for more background on each of the four families, but I keep returning to the Bratva. To Maksim Akimov.
Maksim’s parents died in a car crash. There’s no information for when he became the Bratva boss—unlike several other Mafias, it seems no one has snitched on their boss—but the Akimov crew notably started gaining power about twelve years ago. They shifted gears from small-time to big deal, and they stopped running from the Balduccis. Instead, they started fighting, and the Balduccis became the ones doing the running.
I raise my head over the library’s cubicle. There are a few college students, an old man reading in an armchair, and a mother with a couple of children nearby.
Paranoia is getting the best of me. I’m not a Balducci. I’m not running from these Akimov thugs.
But it’s best not to be a sitting duck.
I pack up my laptop. As I walk through the library, I keep checking around me. Nobody is looking at me, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m on someone’s radar. When I leave the library, I weave through the crowds of people on the street. I take out my phone, pretend to dial a number, and hold it up to my ear.
“Hey,” I say. My mind blanks. How long has it been since I talked to somebody that didn’t involve my classes or my job? My mind drifts back to my daughter. “I’ve missed you. I’ve got so much to tell you. I have a lot to explain.”
I swallow. I look over my shoulder. Nobody.
“I just, uh, first I want to know how you’ve been doing. If you’re happy,” I say. “I just want to make sure you’re happy. I want to know … I mean, I’d prefer if you were here, but it makes it easier if I know you’re happy.”
The silence on the other side of the phone is hard to deal with. If one of Maksim’s men snatched me off the street right now, it might almost be a relief.
I run out of words and lower my phone. Walking down to the subway, I pocket my phone and wait for all those feelings to vanish. I know regret is useless and life moves on without my permission.
But the regret lingers like a stain.
Living on the first floor of an apartment building is like dosing yourself with a constant suspicion that someone is peeking through the window. At least it’s cheap, and it’d be fairly obvious if someone tried to break in. Any neighbor would be able to see it and call the cops.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
I keep staring down at the doorknob. It was definitely locked when I left. Nobody leaves their door unlocked in New York City. I would have locked it even if I only stepped outside for half a second.
But it’s not locked now.
I should call the police. I take out my phone.
I flinch as I hear a loud burst of laughter. A group of young teenagers runs up the stairs. I look back down at my phone.
Don’t be an idiot, Cassandra. Call the police.
I turn the doorknob, letting the door swing open. It can’t be a coincidence that Maksim contacted me, that he knows where I live, and now my apartment has been broken into. I keep the door open as I quickly check my apartment. It’s a small studio, so there are really only two rooms—the bathroom and the main room, which includes the living room, the kitchen, and my bedroom. I check each one, then the closet.
Nobody.
I close the door behind me, locking it, and latching the chain and deadbolt for good measure.
As I step back in, I notice a single rose on the kitchen counter. In my tunnel vision, I hadn’t noticed it before. It’s small, the bud still closed.
It has to be Maksim.
I pace through the apartment. It’s a threat, absolutely. He wants me to know that he can reach me. If he’d been here when I came home, I don’t know how I’d have reacted.
I keep my eye on the door for the rest of the night. Every creak I hear sends a chill of fear through me. By the time it’s dark and midnight is rolling around, I’m equal parts exhausted and ready to jump out of my skin. I turn on the TV to convince any intruders that I’m fully awake. A documentary on mountain lions starts playing, which isn’t reassuring when they’re talking about them being ambush predators.
I settle into my bed, pulling only one of my covers over me in case I need to jump out quickly. I stare up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of cars driving by, punctuated by honking, people yelling, and sirens.
“The mountain lion isn’t picky with its diet. It will devour anything from insects to its prime prey, mammals in the deer family. Its natural enemy, the gray wolf, competes against the mountain lion for prey, especially in the colder months.”
Maksim’s wolf-like behavior prowls around in my mind. I’ve encountered dozens of men—muscular, intelligent, dominant men—but they never had much of an effect on me. Maksim, however, is the savage side of the wilderness. I’m vulnerable to him. His to take, whenever he pleases. He knows it, too. I could see the knowledge in his eyes. It scares the hell out of me. And it does something else to me, too.
In my bed, I slip my hand under the waistband of my pajamas. The tip of my finger finds my clit, circling around it with an easy familiarity. But my body reacts far faster than normal.
He snaps the button off my pants in order to get them off. I start coming to my senses, trying to pull away, but it only helps him get my pants off. As he starts to kiss me again, I fall back under his desire. It’s dominant, irresistible. Contagious.
Our bodies grind against each other. His hand grips my jaw, holding me in place as he kisses me. His other hand finds my breast.
My fingers move faster around my clit. They slip inside me before bringing the wetness back up.
He tugs me to the edge of the bench, opening my thighs wide. When he thrusts inside me, there’s a sharp pain at first—a decade of abstinence catching up to me—but my body yields to his. His hands grip my ass, keeping the edge of the bench cutting into my flesh, but I barely notice as his strokes edge out every other sensation.
My hand is moving so hard against my clit, I’m certain the whole area is going to be bruised in the morning. I don’t care. Nothing else matters except getting to that peak.
And that’s what he’s thinking, too, as he’s thrusting into me with a punishing pace. The bench’s wood starts to splinter beneath us. He picks me up, his fingertips digging into my ass as he’s using me like a fuck doll.
I love it.
So, many times in the past, I’ve started masturbating but stopped near the end because the fear of losing control overrode my desire, but he’s not going to stop. He’s going to get what he wants and I’m going to help him do it. The fact that I am about to burst like a firecracker is irrelevant to him.
But, God, it’s so close, it’s so, so close, and for once, the idea of losing a grip on my body isn’t a sin.
It’s nirvana. My body goes stiff, my thighs go rigid as my feet arch and pleasure overrides everything else in my bloodstream. I’m reborn and free. I’m returned back to the beginning of the world, where there’s just myself, Maksim, and fireworks exploding underneath my skin.
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it go. As I fall asleep, Maksim’s voice ripples in my thoughts.
>
I’m going to take you, whether you like it or not. If you come willingly, I’ll give you what you need to find your daughter. If you don’t, I will take you forcefully.
This far away from him, his words aren’t a threat. They’re coaxing me closer, promising me things I’ve only dreamed of.
And I do dream of them.
7
Maksim
I have spent my life shadowboxing death. A half-dozen times or more, the world has tried its damndest to kill me. I suppose I should thank someone—God, a guardian angel, sheer dumb luck—but I am not feeling grateful as I stand in front of Ravil’s house, the bandage around my wrist starting to peel off and the pain in my leg burning.
Because, two days ago, my closest friend was bombed into a charred remnant at the cemetery where my murdered wife is buried.
I’m not going to be grateful. I’m going to be vindictive.
I knock on Ravil’s door. A frantic barking ricochets inside the house. I hear Lynna’s voice inside. When she opens the door, her dirty blonde hair is tied back into a braid and she’s wearing a pale yellow dress with a white sash at her waist.
“Hello, Maksim.” She starts to smile and then stops when she notices my bandaged hand. “What happened?”
“Can I come in, Lynna?” I ask solemnly. She nods, face suddenly tight. She leads me inside.
We pass a wall covered in photos. Every Christmas and every July, Lynna and Ravil went on a trip. There are ten photos of the two of them—Akaka Falls, Garden of the Gods, Rockefeller Forest, the Adirondacks, Patagonia, Dodger Stadium, Denali, the Bellagio, Yosemite National Park, and a steakhouse in Austin—surrounding their wedding photo. They had that ceremony in my backyard.
Lynna takes me straight to the dining room. “Do you want some coffee? It’s still a fresh pot.”
“No, thank you,” I say.
She turns to me, leaning against the table. “What’s going on? You didn’t send Ravil over the border again, did you? We were thinking of going to Mexico City this summer. He says they have amazing cathedrals and we could make it extra romantic.”