by Nicole Fox
“It’s not my fault what my father did,” I mumble through lips that feel numb and slow.
“You exposed where we stored our guns and undermined our authority. What did you think was going to happen?” he asks. “I told you what would happen. I showed you everything to prove that I was being honest. And you spread that information for all of my enemies to gorge themselves on.”
“What did you expect when you became a criminal?” I retort. “You can’t put all of the blame on me! I didn’t put a gun in anybody’s hand.”
He covers Bogdan’s head and pulls down the next sheet. He continues to show me the bodies. He knows each one in an almost familial way. There must be something infectious in the room because I feel it taking over. My skin is warm despite the refrigeration. My heartbeat is erratic. The feeling of bile is wrestling in my throat.
“Ivan Tsvetkov.” Maksim indicates to the last man. “He was twenty-nine years old. He had a deadbeat father and his mother went to prison for heroin use, so he grew up with his grandmother. He started playing ice hockey when he was seven years old. He had high ambitions of becoming a professional hockey player, but his career ended when he suffered a severe knee injury. He joined the Bratva to help pay for his grandmother’s medical bills. He was shot four times in the chest. I don’t know how I’m going to tell his grandmother because she has nobody else.”
“I get it,” I say. “You blame me. You think it’s my fault that all your men were killed. And I am sorry that they’re all gone, but it’s not my—”
There’s a knock on the door. Dr. Lisov leans into the room. “I’m sorry, Mr. Akimov, but my break is over. I have a surgery scheduled.”
“It’s fine, Dr. Lisov. We’re finished.”
As we get back into the elevator, my mind is a mess. I know Maksim is manipulating me, planting all his shame and guilt into me, but I also know that he deals with emotional pain by lashing out. I know he cared about those men. And, God, hearing their past, their hobbies, their families, their dreams—it’s a tragedy. It’s a disaster that my actions triggered.
Dr. Lisov and Maksim shake hands before Maksim and I walk back out. I take in a deep breath of fresh air. Maksim’s long stride returns as he heads back toward his truck. I consider running—it would be relatively easy for me to lose him amongst all the aisles of cars and cross in between the cars on the road. I could hide out somewhere like a motel or a shelter. But it would mean I couldn’t see Lily. It would mean he’d have time to make her disappear or tell her the truth without giving me the chance to justify my actions.
I follow him. I get into the passenger side. Maksim turns on the truck, returning to his policy of not looking at me. When I slam my door shut, the sound snaps a nerve in me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snap. “Should I show you all of the people you’ve killed? Except, instead of writing an article, you gave an order or you held the gun.”
“You can go right ahead,” he says. “I have no regrets about killing those people. I’d kill them again. Like I told you that day I showed you the Bratva’s operations, I don’t hurt the innocent. I only kill people who deserve it. So you can dig up every one of their graves and I’ll piss on every one of their corpses.” He stares at me so intensely that I look away.
“But you did it. You killed them. You’ve got blood on your hands.”
“Are you wearing a wire?” he demands. “Did the police send you to get a confession out of me? Is that why you’re bringing this up?”
“What?” I blurt. He grabs at the front of my dress, yanking it down. There’s a sound of ripping and the dress goes slack. The dress is strapless, so I didn’t wear a bra with it. It’s abundantly clear there is no wire hidden underneath. I shove him and press the dress back up. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
My hand remains against his chest. We stare at each other, his eyes reflecting grief and greed.
When he kisses me, it’s not soft or romantic. It’s pressure and urgency. His hands move under my arms, grabbing onto my ribs, and he pulls me closer. I slide over the center console and onto his seat. I adjust my legs, settling them on either side of his lap. Our mouths continue to clash, the heat billowing between us.
I hike the skirt of my dress up as he unbuckles his belt and pulls down his pants. I reach down between us, taking his thick cock in my hand. I place the head of his cock at my entrance, starting to slowly sink onto him. He bucks his hips upward, driving himself halfway into me. He doesn’t wait for a reaction, his hands gripping onto my hips as he thrusts into me again.
The shock of pain sends all my focus to our bodies. Anything else could have happened today, but now there is just us.
His grip tightens on my hips as he starts bouncing me on his cock. The top of my dress has fallen away and when we kiss, he moves his hands up to my breasts, pinching my nipples into firm nubs before his mouth settles over my left breast. His tongue teases my nipple, sending a new shock of pleasure.
His hands return to my hips, coaxing me faster. It feels so much like when we first met, but it’s so much more at the same time. The actions feel similar, but the undercurrent below it is full of burbling emotions.
He pulls away from me as his hand moves past the torn section of the dress, up my spine to my hair. He grasps onto it, pulling my head back. My back arches to compensate, inducing a new pleasure as my clit skims against his lower abdomen. I try to lean closer against him. He plants his hands against my hips, holding me down hard enough that all I can do is squirm. It’s the worst kind of torment.
We look straight at each other. I can almost see how we loved each other before—with that belief that we’d somehow made it through the war—but I also see a new kind of love there. It’s desperate and it’s furious, but it’s still love.
I rotate my hips slowly, making small circles while his cock is filling me. He lets out a low groan. His hands move over my bare skin as if he’s trying to memorize the shape of my body. His hand grazes over my neck and up to my mouth. His thumb brushes against my bottom lip.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” he murmurs. His hands move up to my hair, grasping onto it tightly before pulling me in for a kiss. I melt into it, the sweetness and savagery of this moment making me attentive to every small change between us.
But it still takes me by surprise when he grips onto my ass, jolting me with a crude rhythm. His fingernails press into my flesh as he jolts me up and down his cock. His heavy breathing and my small moans fill my ears.
The orgasm hits me without warning. My head jerks back as pleasure shatters through me. It must strike right through to Maksim as my pussy throbs violently against his cock. He lets out a mixture of a groan and a growl as he comes inside me.
I slump against him, still breathing hard. After a couple of minutes pass, he wraps his arms around my waist. Our breathing is the only sound for another minute. Then, silence.
I close my eyes as the earlier events of the night come back to me. When I open them back up, Maksim is looking out his side window, but his grip around me is still tight enough that I know I haven’t completely lost him. At least, I haven’t lost him in this moment.
“Do you love me?” I ask, the question too heavy to keep carrying. He turns his head to look at me. He looks at me like he’s committing me to memory.
“You need to get out of the city,” he says. “And never come back.”
“That’s not an answer,” I say.
“You’re now legally mine,” he says, his voice taking on the same condescending tone he uses with some of his soldiers. The ones that are dead. He drops his hands away from my waist. “I don’t need you to physically be here anymore. I have proof now to dangle in front of your father. He will be able to check and see that we are married and that you belong to me.”
He grabs onto my hips, roughly pulling me off him and setting me on the center console. He pulls his pants back up, buttoning and zipping them. As he starts the truck, I slide over onto the pa
ssenger side. I try to adjust my dress into some form of modesty, but no matter what, I feel stripped bare.
19
Maksim
Morning is breaking over the city, but my thoughts are overflowing with crimson blood from last night. I’ve seen as much death as the average soldier, but this cut me much deeper. This was something I had half a dozen chances to prevent, but I was too shortsighted to see the bloodshed coming.
It started at 10:54 p.m. I received a phone call from Bogdan. The sound of gunshots dominated the conversation, but I knew from his tone that the night was going to end in a massacre. He was a man who knew he was going to die.
At 10:57 p.m., I received another call from Bogdan, telling me that Fedot had arrived to provide support for his brothers. I told Bogdan to tell Fedot to stand down. He agreed.
At 11:08 p.m., I passed by the bookstore, but I heard the crescendo of police sirens, so I kept driving. I let the anger grow. When the police stopped at my front door to question me—since I’d given sizable donations to the bookstore and it was named in Cassandra’s article—they were aiming for the kill. They desperately wanted to be the ones to bring in Maksim Akimov, but we played our parts—them, the diligent police officers, squared off against me, the philanthropic millionaire.
Afterward, I called Dr. Lisov. He told me everything he could. I said I’d be there later in the night to pay my respects.
The rage came in waves. To keep it at bay, I threw myself into planning my retaliation. Marrying Cassandra would accomplish three objectives simultaneously—reminding Gianluigi that he doesn’t have as much power over me as he thinks he does, reminding him that though he might kill my Bratva brothers, I can tear apart his whole family, and proving that my lapse in judgment concerning Cassandra was temporary.
I park the truck in front of Cassandra’s apartment. “You don’t want me to stay at your mansion?” she asks.
“No. I want you to get out of the city,” I reply. “Pack your shit and go.”
The way she looks at me makes me want to take her back to the mansion and pretend that everything is the way it used to be, but I know I can’t. She looks away, opening the door and sliding out, nearly slipping in her heels. She keeps her hand up over the top of her dress to stop it from falling off. I wait until she’s inside her apartment building before driving away.
A deep sorrow grows in me the farther I drive from her. It’s a deeper sadness than when Natalie was killed, which doesn’t make any sense. I loved Natalie. She was my wife. She was a perfect woman—a model, always eager to please, never plagued by melodrama, and knew when to stay out of my way. She was more than most men dream of.
So, why does the most infuriating, difficult, contentious woman draw me in and turn me into a sentimental idiot?
I slam my fist against the steering wheel before pressing my foot against the gas pedal, tempting fate and the police. I slow down as I pass by the shipping dock and I remember all the men who have died to serve the Bratva and how I’m the one they look to for leadership. I can’t lose my head over this.
Fatigue sends me into autopilot. I should be rushing home to deal with the fallout of the attack on Dunlop’s Bookstore, talking to all my deceased soldiers’ loved ones, or preparing to show Gianluigi my ace card, but I’m driving away from all of those things. I don’t know where I’m heading until I park in front of the small brown house with the peeling paint and the kids’ toys scattered in the front yard.
And, there, doing toe taps on a soccer ball, is Lily.
I get out of the truck. Kimberly Neal sits on the front steps, flipping through a magazine. I wave at her as I approach the two of them.
“Mr. Maksim!” Lily yells, ditching her soccer ball to fling herself into my arms. I pick her up, lifting her high enough that she squeals in surprise. When I set her back down on the ground, she’s grinning as her dark hair sways in front of her eyes. It’s hard to believe I ever felt that type of carefree joy, not hindered by the weight of the world, but her happiness gives me a trace of how it might feel.
“Mr. Akimov,” Kimberly calls out. I nod at her, taking a step closer.
“I was just passing through,” I say. “I saw you two out here, so I thought I might stop.”
“Ah well, we’re always happy to see interested couples being so deeply invested in getting to know the kids,” she says, standing up. “Do you mind if I run to the restroom for just a moment?”
“That’s not a problem.” She gives me a quick smile before turning around and walking into the house. I look down at Lily.
“Where have you been?” she blurts. “Your wife said that you were busy, but I didn’t think somebody could be that busy.”
Your wife. Our lie has become a fact.
“Well, sometimes life gets really, really crazy,” I tell her. “And it drives us crazy. It drove me so crazy that I thought I could disappear from your life for a little bit without you noticing. Did you notice?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Yes, I did.”
“Will you forgive me?”
She considers me carefully. “I’ll forgive you on one condition.”
A negotiator. I knew I liked this kid.
“That’s fair,” I say. “What are your terms?”
She runs over to her soccer ball. “You have to beat me at soccer. You try to get it between the garbage cans. I try to get it between those two trees. First to three points.”
She grins before using the toe of her shoe to flick the ball up to her hands. I grin back at her. She drops the ball between the middle of us. The moment the ball hits the ground, we both charge for it.
She’s fast and skilled. Those two qualities, along with my formal clothes and my hesitation over knocking her over, gives her a good advantage, but I’m not about to let her win when I know what’s at stake. It’s good to know that sometimes forgiveness is easy.
She dribbles the ball, nearly getting right in front of the two trees before I block the ball, sending it straight between her feet. I dribble it past her. She races ahead of me, our feet bumping against each other as she tries to get it away from me. She stops it right before the garbage cans, her foot pressing down hard on the ball. I kick it out from under her, grabbing her around the waist before she can fall. I set her back down.
“Two more points,” I say. I retrieve the ball.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Why isn’t Mrs. Cassandra with you?”
“She’s busy,” I say. I set the soccer ball down where she’d put it before. She slowly walks over toward it.
“But you two are married, right? You’re supposed to be with each other all of the time.”
“Sometimes that’s not how marriage works. Are you ready?”
She nods. I let her kick the ball first. She dribbles it a couple of feet before I take it from her. I only get it a few inches before she snatches it back from me, her feet moving gracefully. She turns her body, hitting the soccer ball with the inside of her foot, sending it between the trees.
“Two more points,” she teases. She runs to retrieve the ball. When she brings it back, she’s beaming, tossing the ball between her hands. “Are you and your wife lonely?”
“Lonely?” I ask. “No. I don’t think so. We tend to fill our time easily.”
The smile falters on her face. She sets the ball down. “Oh.”
“Why would you think we were lonely?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I thought that’s why couples adopt kids. They’re lonely and want someone else in the house.”
“Oh.” I take a deep breath. “That’s not always the case. Some couples are just very fulfilled and want to share that fulfillment.”
“So …” she says. “Are you two … are you going to adopt me?”
I shouldn’t have stopped by here. I’m only confusing her. I was being completely honest with Cassandra when I said I didn’t want to hurt Lily. She’s more innocent than anyone else in this situation. She
doesn’t deserve to have her hopes raised and crushed, but I’m not prepared to break her heart right now.
“We’re preparing for a change,” I say. “But, like Cassandra told you, we have a lot going on. We don’t want to bring a child into a life where we’re too busy to take care of her. As soon as everything has settled down a little bit, you’ll be the first to know.”
“How long will that take?” she asks.
“It depends on a lot. Maybe a couple of weeks,” I say. She nods, her slumped shoulders and her jittery feet showing conflicting emotions. She’s more like her mother than she’ll ever know.
And just like her mother, it kills me to lie to her.
After she scores another point, I’m determined to beat her and earn her forgiveness. I get another point by tricking her into thinking I’m kicking the ball, instead of rolling it under my foot and dribbling it around her. The third time, we battle it out all over the yard, tearing up the grass as we steal the ball back and forth.
When I score, it feels like a cheap win. She deserved it for working harder than most people I’ve met. She must get her work ethic from her mother.
Bouncing on her feet, Lily’s disappointment has vanished. “Let’s play again. For something else.”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Lily, I’ve got to go. I have a lot of work to deal with.”
“So you can finish it and adopt me?”
“Something like that,” I say. I wrap one arm around her, giving her a quick hug before starting to head toward my truck. “I’ll see you again sometime.”