I step to the doorway and pause, looking back at her. “I understand if you don’t wish to speak to me, and I won’t blame you. No matter what. But I will keep you safe, and I will save Maggie. I promise.”
With that, I move back into the main room and look to Felix, who’s still at the computer, but the look on his face tells me he has something.
“Progress?” I ask him hopefully. I could use a distraction. I’m not a man who usually retreats into memory like that, and it puts me in a strange funk.
“Progress,” Felix affirms with a smile, tapping something on his screen before turning the laptop around to face me. I see an address on the screen, as well as a map of the location the phone was traced to.
“That’s quite a manor,” I say, “on the outskirts of the city.” I grimace, my fists flexing. “Liv said the bastards already have a buyer for Maggie. If they’re at an estate like that…” I trail off, knowing that the answer may be that she’s part of the entertainment for the night, and Felix looks concerned by my face.
“A manor is gonna have one hell of a security force, Max,” Felix warns, but I’m not fazed as I cross the room and pick up the same weapons I used to storm the apartment the first time, strapping some to my legs and some into a leather jacket that I draw over my shoulders.
“Yes, but you forget, this is the Bratva,” I say, rolling my shoulders. “I still have a few connections there — I only pissed off the ones tied to the slave trade, and most parties like this are mixed company. I am highly skilled, Felix,” I say with a smile, glancing back at him to enjoy his perturbed expression. “More than a few high-ranking members will jump at the chance of having me back. Even if that means my crashing a party under friendly pretenses.”
“So you’re just gonna...waltz in there?”
“I’m more of a tango man myself, but yes,” I reply candidly.
Felix opens his mouth a few times to protest, but sighs, taking a drink of the beer he’s helped himself to from my fridge. “Well, shit. You know what? Okay. I’m not even gonna say anything. You go do your scary murderer thing, and I’ll just uh, sit here with my spreadsheets and make sure your girlfriend doesn’t go chasing after you.”
“Student,” I correct him, giving him a meaningful look, and he rolls his eyes.
“Alright, alright. Go on, get out of here. And Max?” he says as I’m halfway to the door. “Don’t get shot — my hacking programs can’t extract a bullet.”
“No promises,” I say, “just keep her safe.” And without another word, I head out the door and down the stairs to walk into a manor full of the Russian mob.
17
Liv
We’re awkwardly avoiding each other’s eyes, both pretending to be totally engrossed in our own respective distractions. I’m fidgeting with my hands and looking down at a Kindle in my lap, even though I haven’t turned the page in several minutes. It’s open to some book about gymnastics training techniques, but the whole thing is written in French, so it’s not like I can comprehend anything on the pages anyway. And Felix, my glorified babysitter, is fiddling with an iPad, clicking around on the screen and heaving dramatic sighs every now and then.
The near-silence is getting to me.
“So, how do you know Max again?” I ask suddenly, unable to stand the quiet tension any longer. The young man’s bespectacled face quirks upward and he blinks at me, his dark eyes comically enlarged behind the frames of his glasses.
“Uh, well, we’re good friends!” he begins. Then he quickly corrects himself: “Okay, more like okay friends. We go way back.”
“Are you, like, a gymnast or something?” I question, doubting that would ever be possible. This guy doesn’t look like he’s ever done anything more strenuous in his life than post a Facebook status. But I’m determined to dig into the mysterious background of the man who saved me, the man whose hard body was pressed up against me in bed last night.
I want to know he isn’t horrible.
I want to know that falling for him isn’t the second biggest mistake since landing in France.
Felix snorts as though I’ve said the stupidest thing in the world.
“Oh, god no,” he retorts, wrinkling his nose. Then, as it dawns on him that I might find this response a tad bit offensive, he backpedals. “I mean, I wish. It would be nice to be a jock. Might have better luck with the ladies, if you know what I mean…”
“Sure,” I agree flatly. His smile fades away and he swallows hard. I can tell he’s not used to spending time around women alone — or around women, period, for that matter. He’s the kind of guy who’s got a closer bond with his laptop than he’s ever had with another human being. But I don’t get the same sense of creepy desperation from him I would usually expect from such an awkward, mouthy, nerd type. He seems less threatening than that.
I don’t suppose Max would have left me alone with him if he’d had any suspicion otherwise. Apparently, despite Max’s heavy confession, I still trust his judgment. That comes as a bit of a surprise to me.
Anyway, I have a feeling I could probably take this shrimp down pretty easily, even if Max’s judgment is off.
“Anyway, Max and I have known each other for a long time. I know, I know, we don’t look like we run with the same kinda crowd, huh? Well, for your information I used to hang with some dangerous types back in my day,” Felix says.
“Back in the day? You can’t be much older than I am,” I remark, frowning.
He sighs and sets down his iPad. “I’m twenty-two, alright? But let’s just say I got an early start down the wrong track.”
“What happened?” I press him, eager for any information he might have. While Max is gone, and I’m stuck with this guy who seems all too willing to talk my ear off if I let him, it seems like the best opportunity I’m ever going to have to find out what’s actually going on. To make sense of what I’m actually feeling.
I mean, if Felix trusts Max and sees some of the same things in him that I do, maybe I’m not so crazy after all for falling for him.
“Well, I came up through famille d’accueil, kept getting bounced around from one group home to the next. I’ve always been too smart to really get along with my fellow foster kids,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It was never easy for me to make friends, I guess. Because I’m too smart, obviously. People just can’t handle it.”
“Mhmm,” I agree reluctantly.
Felix looks a little giddy to have me agree with him on something. “So anyway, when I was eighteen I aged out of the system and luckily I got into college here in Paris. Dieu merci. Finally got me out of that slummy little town down south. But I was a scholarship kid, you know, and not one of the athletic rides like you. No offense, of course.”
“Oh, none taken,” I say rapidly, smiling. He looks genuinely taken aback to have received a smile from a member of the female gender. It’s almost enough to make me pity him.
“So I was the poor kid, as usual. Once again, I didn’t fit in with my peers. While everyone else was partying it up, I had to find myself a job to keep my ass housed and my expenses paid. Lucky for me, I’ve always been a whiz with computers, so I started working at the administrative offices, in billing. It was cool, having access to everybody’s private information. I have the university to thank for sparking my interest in hacking,” Felix says, his eyes glittering behind his spectacles, as though remembering an especially fond memory.
“How did you end up running into Max, though?” I push onward, my curiosity overwhelming me. He gives me a slightly annoyed look.
“I’m getting there. Well, I started looking into everybody’s private school accounts… then their emails… and from there I figured out how to hack into people’s bank accounts, too. That was the big breakthrough. But most of the students were too broke to be worth anything, anyway. The real jackpot was the donors. You wouldn’t believe the kind of le fric these guys had. I’d never seen numbers like that! I started thinking, well, they had so much money they probably wo
uldn’t even notice if I started skimming a little off the top,” he explains, shrugging.
“Probably not the best idea,” I comment, looking at him dubiously.
“I was desperate, alright? I was tired of being the shrimpy little poor kid!” he says defensively. “I just wanted to have money for the first time in my life.”
“Alright, alright. Go on.” I know what he was doing was wrong, but at the same time, I get it. There were a few poor kids in my classes growing up, and they always struggled. Grades, getting to class on time, bullies, everything was a struggle.
“Well, this went on for a while, no problem. I finally had cash in my hand. It was awesome. But then one day I get this letter, pushed under my dorm room door. And it says they know who I am and what I’m doing, and if I don’t pay them back every cent with interest by tomorrow, they’re gonna flay me alive,” he says, fidgeting.
“Geez!” I gasp, pulling my legs up into the armchair. “How did you get out of that?”
“Ah, that’s where our hero Max comes in,” Felix says triumphantly, brightening up. “You see, I found out everything about everyone who was affiliated with the university, and I remembered seeing something about a guy named Maksim. I remember thinking, hey that’s a weird name. And so I researched him using some… less than legal methods… and found out he was running with the same kind of shady figures I was stealing from. Tracked him down, begged for his help. With dignity, obviously.”
“Wait, if he was one of them then why did you reach out to him?” I ask suddenly, holding up my hand to slow him down. This isn’t making any sense. And my heart is sinking to hear that Max was, in fact, one of the bad guys. I begin to feel antsy, unnerved by the fact that I just spent the night with a hardened criminal.
But god, he’s also my savior, isn’t he?
“I had found his name in some police databanks, that he gave up that life before he started working at the university. I knew I could use that against him if he refused to help me,” Felix reasons.
“So you were going to just blackmail an ex-mobster to get his help against… other mobsters?” I clarify. Felix nods.
“Desperate times, desperate measures. Isn’t that the phrase?” he says simply.
“Well, what did Max do?”
“He was pissed as all hell, first of all. Since I hacked into his private life and all, and brought up his past. He wanted to start fresh, and didn’t want anyone to ever find out about any of that. But when I told him who was targeting me, he got all serious. Took care of it right away.”
“How? And why did he ever leave that old life behind in the first place?” I ask, leaning forward anxiously. I feel like everything hinges on the answer to that question.
“Turns out he was only running with them at first because he got roped into it. He came from some shitty ice cube of a town back in Siberia and a life of crime was his ticket out. But once he found out about the human trafficking thing, he broke all ties with them, headed for the straight and narrow,” Felix says.
I feel a little better, instantly. At least I know now that Max isn’t one of them. He was telling me the truth.
“So what he did… he took me to this safe house where I could hide out while he covered my tracks. Paid back all my debts, somehow. I had no idea he had that kind of money.”
“And when he paid them off, they just let you off the hook? That easy?” I question, confused. Nothing about what limited knowledge I have of the mafia indicates to me that they would so easily give up a grudge. Especially against someone so insignificant as Felix. He had to have been just a blip on their radar. They could have easily disposed of him, or at least punished him. Couldn’t they?
“Easy?” Felix repeats, raising his eyebrows. “Pas moyen! I had to stay in that safe house for months while Max took care of things. I couldn’t go to class or work, couldn’t even use the Internet for fear those thugs would track me that way. I had to virtually disappear. I had to drop out of university. Never did go back for my degree,” he finishes bitterly.
“But you survived,” I tell him. He nods slowly.
“That’s true. And I got a lifelong friend out of it!” he says, beaming. I get the sense that Max doesn’t quite see him the same way, but I won’t be the one to tell him that.
“So he really did leave all that behind, right? He’s not working for those guys anymore?” I press him. I want so badly for him to ease all my worries, for him to tell me that Max really is safe, and that my feelings for him aren’t terrible. I wonder if Felix even knows, though. Max is a secretive guy with a dark, mysterious past. He doesn’t seem like the kind who would easily trust others with his secrets — and especially not someone like Felix.
“Oh yeah. Absolument. I think he was already way over all that by the time he even met me, and after what he had to do to get me out of trouble with them… well, let’s just say I don’t think they were planning on inviting him to the reunion anymore,” Felix explains. “Burned a lot of bridges back then, used up what little was left of his credit with them. But if you ask me, nobody ever really gets a clean break from an operation like that. You can’t just retire and say goodbye to your old life without some… complications.”
“Like what?” I ask, my stomach churning.
“Well, I’m not the best authority on the inner workings of the mafia, but I have a feeling they’re still watching him. Just waiting for the right time to take their revenge.”
My eyes go wide with fear. Felix notices this and winces a little, realizing that he’s probably said far too much. “I’m sure they would’ve done something by now if they were really going to, though.”
“How many are there out there?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. I can feel the air leaving my lungs as it dawns on me just how big this whole ordeal really is. I wasn’t just swept up in some small-time operation; I was a fly caught in the complex web of a very large and venomous spider.
“Mobsters?” Felix asks, cocking his head to one side thoughtfully. “Well, it’s probably like trying to play that arcade game — Whack-a-Mole, I believe it’s called? The second you crush one, another pops up. But to his credit, Max really took out a lot of them himself. The Russians didn’t see him coming. After all, I think they still saw him as one of them, you know? But once he found out what all they were doing with the sex trade and whatnot, he really eliminated a lot of them. I mean, they’re still out there, of course. But not here. He really cleaned up the Paris scene a lot more than anyone knows,” he says proudly, as though he had any hand in the process.
Something confusing stands out in my mind, tugging at my thoughts. Something I remember from my time locked up down in that horrible cell. Even though most of my captors spoke Russian, I recall them discussing in hushed voices their hatred of the Russians. As though they were a separate entity entirely.
“But there’s something I don’t quite understand,” I start off slowly, poring over my thoughts to try and make sense of them.
Felix looks positively overjoyed at the chance to potentially school me on something. He’s definitely the kind of guy who gets off on being a know-it-all. It’s actually kind of endearing, in an odd way.
“What don’t you get? I explained everything. What do you wanna know?” he pipes up, a little too excitedly, but I’m caught up in trying to untangle the question in my head.
“Those guys… the ones who captured me and held me in that horrible place,” I begin, “I-I don’t think they were Russian.”
“What do you mean?” Felix asks, squinting at me condescendingly, like he’s talking to someone of severely diminished intellect.
“They spoke Russian sometimes, but they also talked about hating the Russians. Like they weren’t part of the same thing. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Maybe I just misunderstood them,” I say quietly. But Felix’s already huge eyes are widening, his mouth falling open. He reaches up and drags a hand back through his curls, some kind of grim realization coming over him.
“Oh no,” he breathes, standing up suddenly.
“Wh-what? What is it?” I ask, panic seizing me, too. He looks genuinely frightened, all traces of his old cockiness dissipated.
“I’ve got to call him — I’ve got to warn him —”
“Warn who? About what?” I demand.
“Max! If those guys he’s going to meet aren’t Russian… that means he’s walking straight into the den of the enemy. Into a trap,” Felix reveals, frantically dialing his cell phone.
“What?!” I burst, rushing to his side.
He silences me with a harried shush and presses the receiver to his ear, listening to it ring over and over… with no answer. “Merde,” he swears under his breath.
“What do we do?” I ask, my voice shaking.
Felix meets my gaze, looking absolutely petrified. “I don’t know what we can do.”
I find myself enraged at his defeatist tone. He can’t possibly be considering just leaving Max to the wolves while we sit here and twiddle our thumbs. “Get your things. We’re going to find him and warn him before it’s too late,” I order him firmly.
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “But what if it’s already too late?”
“We don’t know that for sure, and I’ll be damned if I let something bad happen to him without even trying to help. He’s saved your ass and mine, and now it’s time to return the favor,” I declare, scooping up my jacket and purse, suddenly very grateful that Max had Felix bring me a change of my own clothes from the flat.
Felix hesitates a moment, but seeing the fire in my eyes, he finally sighs and relents.
“Okay, fine. Let’s go.”
And I very well just might’ve signed our death certificates.
18
Max
The manor I arrive at is more of a villa, arranged in Roman fashion complete with weathered, ivy-covered walls and wafting gardens that seem to sing in the midday Parisian sunlight. The only thing marring the sight as I pull up to the side of the road not far from the entrance is the legion of guards patrolling the estate.
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 65