by SE Chardou
“I don’t know what it’s like? Really?” Max knew he was starting to lose it but he couldn’t help himself. “You say you love me but the moment a very rich man came into your life, you dumped me in his lap. Dimitri sodomized me and had his soldiers do the same. He tortured me and made me kill a man when I was sixteen years old. I’m not exactly sure what your definition of love is because frankly, I don’t see how any parent could allow that to happen to their child if they love them.”
Mila threw her head back and laughed. “Do you think your life would have been that much better with Sean? For God’s sake, Edward belongs to a motorcycle gang. He sells drugs and murders people. Same as you do. At least you were exposed to the best in the world. You have made millions of dollars working for Dimitri and you never have to work again. For God’s sake, you are worth over two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Why are you with that guinea mafia bitch? She’s an Abandonato you know—her mother, Sophia, was a meddling bitch of epic proportions. All I’m saying is that she belongs to one of the most powerful Mafia families in the world—they’d squash you like a bug. You cannot trust her, Maksymilian.”
Max could feel his temperature rise. He glared at his mother with a look of complete contempt. “Don’t talk about Magnolia that way.”
“Magnolia—is that her real name?” Mila asked in a condescending manner. “Darling, you could do so much better. I suppose she was that irate cunt who showed up at the estate earlier today raising a fuss about some Cuban woman?”
He was well and truly pissed off at this woman who he called his mother. If he didn’t consider himself a better person, he would have punched her the fuck out. “Yes, that was her. We were scoping the place out . . . I knew you were home when I saw Viktor roaming the grounds. I know Dimitri would never allow you to leave without him.”
“He is quite annoying, following me around like a lovesick teenager. I can’t stand it to be honest. The only place I’m trusted to go by myself is Oasis but that is because Dimitri’s minions are crawling all over the place.” She tried to scrunch up her face but the Botox merely made her expression seem like she was constipated. “I suspect the reason you’re here is because you want money. Trying to make me buy absolution from you but . . . why are you broke in the first place? Were you foolish enough not to keep any personal accounts? You’re a college graduate, Max—how could you be so naïve? I expected more from you.”
“I was worth two hundred and fifty million but Dimitri has emptied out all of my accounts except the one he never knew I had,” he said in a slow and deliberate voice. “There’s over one hundred millions dollars there. The problem is I can’t reach that account because it’s offshore and I’m sure Dimitri has his computer experts tracing every move I make, financially speaking. The money I worked so hard for, slaved and did the unimaginable to acquire has been taken from me and is now in accounts held by you and that slut half-sister of mine. I. Want. My. Money. Back.”
“Well, depending upon whether you can convince me you’re going to let me live, we can talk about whether or not I will help you get the cash back that was stolen from you and more.”
“You’re going to give me as much as I want.” He pulled out an untraceable compact, Desert Eagle .45 Undercover pistol and pushed it into her flat stomach. “Are you under any assumption I won’t murder you just to send that piece of shit you’re married to a message? Please don’t underestimate the hatred and rage that has built in me over the last decade and a half when it comes to you.
“I can’t quite see you as this helpless woman who’s merely a victim of her circumstances. You knew what you were doing when you left Edward with Sean and you still understand the implications of your behavior. You best clear out that coke-addled brain of yours and get ready to sing like a motherfucking bird . . . Mother.”
Mila shifted in her seat as she crossed the leg closest to him over the other. “If you kill me then you won’t get any money, Max. You need me a hell of a lot more than I need you. Furthermore, if you lay a finger on me then Dimitri will come down on you like the wrath of God.”
Max moved closer to his mother and leveled his face until they were inches apart. “Tell me, does he know you’re still a whore? How would he react to finding out you’re fucking men young enough to be your son?”
She glared at him as if he were the devil before she slapped him across his face with a quick hand.
His blue-green eyes hardened before he backhanded her across the face, his expression unchanged. “Don’t you ever touch me again, not if you want to make it out this vehicle alive. I remember exactly what you and that animal you call your husband did to me and believe me, I will seek my long awaited revenge against you as opposed to Sean and Edward.”
A look of fear and attempted horror passed across her Botoxed features. “That was never negotiable. It was part of the contract you agreed to when you began working with Dimitri. You have to take your father and brother out—no exceptions.”
The silence between them was so thick it could’ve been cut with a butter knife.
Max smirked, more than happy to make his mother suffer just a little bit. “What do you know? I’m starting to have second thoughts about whether I should hurt Edward or Sean, let alone kill them. My bone to pick isn’t with them but with you . . . and the monster you married.”
Chapter Fifteen
Magnolia
I didn’t like the way this night was beginning to turn out at all.
Of course I trusted Max; at this juncture in my life after knowing him for such a short time, I never thought I’d ever get to this point but I’d arrived.
I wasn’t ready to say I loved him without further prompting on his part but I could unequivocally say—without a doubt—I trusted him with my life.
His mother, on the other hand, was a heartless bitch who would manipulate Max if she were given the opportunity. I could only hope she didn’t have the hold over Max she seemed to have in the past.
My heart thundered in my chest as I followed the Porsche Cayenne back to the ostentatious estate where Mila was kept like a Queen in her own palace. We were basically walking into a trap. The chances of us escaping from this gilded cage unscathed were slim to none.
I could only prepare myself as I grabbed the matching Desert Eagle .45 Undercover Max had given to me. I checked the gun and chambered a round before I checked for the three spare clips I had. Twenty-four bullets. That didn’t seem like nearly enough to get out of this place.
As soon as the Porsche parked, I pulled up next to it and grabbed my handbag before I stepped out. I grabbed the keys but I didn’t bother to lock the door. What was the point when we had no idea how much time we’d have before trying to escape this place?
The problem was I felt like every horrific episode from my past—including the death of my parents, years with the WKs and meeting Max had all led up to this point in my life. This standoff between the man I knew I had feelings for—though I wouldn’t dare admit I loved him—and the woman who’d damn near destroyed him.
I refused to believe Max was damaged and needed my help to become a better person. Nothing was ever black and white. I’d rather believe both Max and I could help each other heal ourselves.
People didn’t truly change and once we’d had our DNA imprinted on us and life experiences that molded with nature, our personalities were set in stone. I knew I couldn’t change Max anymore than he could change me but we would make each other better human beings. We still had a shred of our humanity and if we had that then nothing else mattered.
I strode towards Max and the woman who’d carried him for nine months and birthed him into the world. With her long, fake platinum-blonde hair, plastic face and the body of a twenty-year-old, there was nothing about her that was real at all. Not even the slight look of contrition she tried to feign but failed miserably due to only the slight movements she could make with her face.
He wrapped an arm around me protectively as soon as I was within his r
each before we followed her inside. Her sheer arrogance and fearlessness could be forgiven since as soon as we entered the grand foyer, several soldiers from the Koslakov Mafia appeared out of nowhere, including that ’roid-raged fucker I knew only as Viktor.
“Mila, what’s going on?” he demanded as he walked towards us with an air of authority.
“Viktor, I need some time alone with my son. We’ll be in the library but no one is to enter without my permission. Feel free to guard the doors with the rest of your minions,” she replied with utter condescension as she led us through the foyer and past rooms decorated with antique furniture, Persian rugs, and sparkling works of art by all the greats over the last two hundred years.
“Holy shit! Is that a Basquiat?” I whispered to Max as we passed a colorfully grand painting that looked like the love child of a Jackson Pollock and a blue-period Picasso.
“Yes, it is. I knew the man and we had a casual relationship when I was eighteen, a couple of years before he died. I loved him in my own way . . . that painting was all he left me.”
I looked at Max and he shrugged his shoulders. He would have been a toddler at the time but it seemed like his mother made no apologies or excuses about how she’d been around . . . and around . . . and around again. Was there anyone notorious she hadn’t fucked in her lifetime?
We followed her, flanked by soldiers until we reached a set of double doors that opened to a grand library. She walked inside, Max and I following her closely before Viktor leaned in and said something to Max in Russian. He replied back in a cold voice as Viktor closed the doors. Max flipped the lock and turned to face his mother.
She shrugged her shoulders. “What did you expect? Of course Viktor is going to inform Dimitri you two are here. It will make it more convincing when you escape. I can help you with that too but . . . if you’re only going to murder me then what is the use?”
He looked my way, his gorgeous aquamarine eyes unreadable as he shook his head slowly.
“God knows I want to do it.” Max walked toward his mother who seemed so small underneath his towering height. “I’ve dreamt of how I would end you. Slit your throat, put a bullet in your head. Alas . . . perhaps it’s just everything is different now. I have Mags to think about and our life will be hard enough. I can’t put her through that.”
My eyes narrowed toward him as he stood with his back facing me. “How did I get brought into this? I always said that if you couldn’t do it then I happily would! We can’t die here, Max—I refuse to end my life in this gaudy, overdone pseudo-palace. I haven’t had a chance to live!”
“And that is why we will leave Mila alive, sweetheart. I love you.” Max looked away as if he’d confessed he hated me. “It wasn’t supposed to happen but it did . . . maybe I realized it when we met and perhaps it’s why I did everything in my power so you would never feel anything for me. I thought I could make it just go away if I tried hard enough and you showed me nothing but venom and fury. I filled my head with lies about how I would always be a substitute for Edward and you would only see him in me—never me for who I truly was.”
Mila laughed out loud before she murmured in Polish. “This slip of a girl has managed to fuck both my sons and screw with their heads entirely? How can this be?”
Max turned toward his mother. “You’re not the only femme fatale in the world, you know. Mags has skills you could only dream of—”
“Is she a good shot?” his mother asked seriously before a Ruger SR9 materialized in her left hand. It was a small nine-millimeter that made it easy to be carried in a woman’s handbag but powerful enough to do major damage.
I heard the fire and I knew I was hit as I crumpled to the floor but the pain in my right thigh forced me to stay in the moment. My whole body felt like it was beyond my control as I started to froth at the mouth and generally shook on the floor like an epileptic before my body seemed to slowly return to normal. It hurt like a motherfucker but I refused to cry. It hadn’t hit bone, thank God, but it had pierced my flesh and it would need to be treated.
“What the fuck?!” Max yelled frantically. “Why did you do that?”
“No is going to believe you got away from me if no one was injured. It was an electric bullet for Christ’s sake. They do damage and they enter the skin but other than a scar, she’ll be fine. It didn’t even shatter the bone. If you make me fire again, the rest of the bullets in this gun aren’t electric—I assure you.”
I tried to sit up but there was no use. An electric bullet had taken me down and made me piss myself? I was almost glad I hadn’t done anything else remotely embarrassing besides slobber all over the place along with the inability to control my bladder functions.
“The money. So we can get the fuck outta here before we’re trapped in this ostentatious hellhole indefinitely.”
Mila rolled her eyes and walked away with Max on her heels.
Shortly afterward, I heard another gun shot—definitely one of ours—before he came running toward me and scooped me up as if I weighed nothing.
Max dragged a Louis Vuitton wheeled carryon while he navigated us through the library until we came to what looked like an ordinary set of books. He pulled a hardback—Of Mice and Men—and the door swung open. After the door shut behind us, he locked it from inside and we navigated through a tunnel with minimal lighting.
“Aren’t we being too loud?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Course not. They can’t hear us. Besides, we need to figure out how to get the hell back to the Range Rover. Did you leave the door unlocked?”
“Yes, of course I did!”
“If I’m able to navigate us quickly enough then perhaps we can get the hell out of here.”
I didn’t ask the one question that played on my brain over and over again. I knew he shot his mother but I wondered if he killed her. I couldn’t ask because some questions were better left unknown.
The tunnel ended abruptly. Max set me down and I stood, testing the weight on my leg where I’d been shot. A pain shot up my leg but I ignored it and nodded toward him. “I can make it.”
“Are you sure?” He slid a hand against my face and leaned in toward me before he kissed my forehead. “I can carry you back to the car.”
“No!” I exclaimed forcefully. “This was our plan and we said we’d do it together. She didn’t even shoot me with a real goddamn bullet. I can make it and I will carry my own weight. When you open that door, don’t fucking look back at me. I will be on your heels. We can’t afford to make mistakes tonight.”
Max’s blue-green eyes were vivid in the dim light before he nodded once. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“I know what you want to hear but we have plenty of time to get mushy when we’re far the fuck away from here.”
He smirked before he stole a quick kiss from my lips.
Max turned the deadbolt, opened the door slowly and we made a run for it. I wish I could say it was easy but every time I put pressure on my right leg, I felt like collapsing. Would it really be so bad to die here? I knew I was loved and the pain seemed to get worse the more I ran. I couldn’t keep this up for long without crying out in tremendous agony.
We finally reached the Range Rover and I quickly got into the back seat and kept my head low. Max jumped into the driver’s seat and threw the suitcase on the floor in front of the passenger seat before I tossed him the keys.
The next few moments seemed unreal. Multiple calibers of weapons shot at the vehicle as we raced toward the front gates, which were open. In the distance, sirens could be heard. Max went the opposite way of the sirens and drove steadily until we reached Boca Beach Club. We didn’t bother trying to valet park. Instead, we pulled in next to a white Nissan Armada.
Max turned toward me. “I’m gonna get us into the Armada but I need you to be able to stay here. I need to get our suitcases out of the hotel. You have a change of clothes in there and everyt
hing we need is still in there.”
I nodded. “Hurry. I don’t know if we have much time. This car isn’t exactly stellar now that it’s been shot up a few times. All we need is someone to get nosy or better yet, call the cops.”
He smiled. “Have faith in us—I do. Time is on our side.”
I couldn’t help but laugh as he left the SUV and ran off towards the hotel.
My heart thundered in my chest the whole time he was gone.
A million scenarios raced through my mind and every one of them ended up with Max abandoning me with a shit load of money but never returning.
Four months ago, I wouldn’t have cared. The money would have been fine because I knew my life had only just begun and I had no one else to care about except myself. I would be able to travel to all the places I’d always wanted to see but never got the chance. Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, Venice, Edinburgh, Dublin—they all flashed before my eyes and I could feel the light coldness of Autumn on my skin. The weak sun, the sounds, the people, and the traffic—it was all a lovely, bittersweet dream with a soundtrack provided by Sia, Massive Attack and Lana Del Rey.
Perhaps I could start again and in this new life, I wasn’t angry or jaded. When a man approached me with a warm smile and a hard dick, I smiled back. I reveled in our useless chitchat about our different cultures and the places that had shaped us into the people we were. The hotel room—mine, of course—would be a delightful setting where we could share in the delight the human flesh provided when it was stroked, touched and massaged the right way. We would make each other come, screaming the other’s name and then have a late night snack while reveling in the new found status from casual acquaintance to lover in the span of an evening.
The funny part about my wacky daydream was every man eventually turned into Max until I gave up and imagined us in those places. Maybe then and there, I could tell him I loved him, even if it felt like insta-love that percolated in a bad coffeemaker and hadn’t quite steeped long enough. The feelings couldn’t be real and genuine because how could we possibly know we liked anything about each other past our stellar looks?