by Renee Rose
The air leaves my lungs. Maxim will decide our fate. Whether we live or die. I honestly can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.
Does he hate me enough to condemn us to death?
Ravil gives orders to the soldiers with him, and they start to move around, staging the bodies. “You two—get your things.” He beckons to us.
We scramble up off the bed. My mother grabs her purse and zips up a small suitcase.
To Pavel, the pakhan says, “Get them out of here and into a different hotel. Sit on them until I contact you.”
Pavel nods wordlessly. He doesn’t look at me when he walks past. “Let’s go.”
We leave the dingy hotel room, and Pavel leads us down the stairwell and out a back door to the alley behind the hotel.
“I didn’t know, Pavel,” I try to tell him as we follow his long strides. “This wasn’t my plan.”
“Save it.” He affects a cold, bored tone.
My heart thuds painfully against my sternum. “I got in my, car and my mom pulled me out, and then it blew. That was the first I knew about this.”
“I don’t give a shit about your story, Sasha. Save your breath.”
Hot tears burn the backs of my eyes. “I need to talk to Maxim.”
That seems to get under his skin. He stops and whirls. “No, you don’t,” he snaps. “You don’t ever need to talk to him again.”
My tears start to fall in earnest.
“You don’t fucking deserve the tears he shed over you.”
My heart squeezes so tight it stops beating for a moment. Maxim cried over me?
Pavel throws open the door to a white Mercedes SUV, and my mom and I climb in the back.
“This wasn’t my plan,” I repeat brokenly as he starts the car.
“Shut your mouth, Sasha,” Pavel says. “Or—” he breaks off and shakes his head.
He probably left the threat unspoken as a fear tactic, but the silliest part of me wants to believe it’s because Maxim loves me. And Pavel can’t threaten me in case we work things out.
I cling to that hope for the drive.
My mother says nothing. Her face is drawn up and pinched, and she squeezes my hand tightly, but doesn’t say a word.
She probably knows how much danger our lives are in.
Pavel takes us to another seedy hotel, and we follow him in. After he books a room with two doubles, he lets us in it, and sits down in the chair.
When he takes out his gun and rests it on his knee I give up on conversation.
In fact, I give up on figuring any part of this out. I pull back the covers to one of the beds, crawl in and squeeze my eyes closed.
If only I could fall asleep and forget it all.
Maxim
I stumble into the penthouse, which appears to be spinning. I thought I waited long enough, drinking straight vodka at the bar on the corner, that everyone would be asleep, but no fucking luck.
It’s like the assholes were waiting up for me.
And the sympathetic vibe makes me want to hurl.
“Fuck off, all of you.” Not sure if I growled it in Russian or English. Maybe Chinese.
I stumble, and Nikolai gets up like he’s going to help me, so I take a swing at him.
And miss.
And somehow end up on my face, my shoulder smacking the couch on my way down.
Oleg hauls me to my feet. At least I think it’s Oleg. No one else could do it so easily.
I blink up at him. “Fuck off,” I slur.
I’m not sure what happens after that. I think I black out.
When I become aware of my surroundings again, light’s pouring through the windows straight into my skull. I try to move and roll off the couch onto the floor.
All the fucking assholes are still in the living room. Or maybe they left and came back, I can’t be sure.
I climb up and sit on the couch. “What do you want?” I grumble at Dima, who gazes at me from his work station.
“I’m sorry about Sasha,” he says.
I want to kill him for saying her name.
I hold up a finger. “Don’t ever say that name to me again.”
Ravil plops down next to me. “Just one more time.”
My head seriously feels like it’s been split in half with a hatchet.
“Pavel is sitting on Sasha and Galina. What do you want to do with them?”
My lip lifts in a snarl at hearing her name again. My stomach lurches. What do I want to do with her? My first thought is to put them both in a tower on a remote island where they can never trick another man.
It could be a luxurious tower. Somehow, despite my pain, I still want her to be comfortable.
And safe.
Because on a remote island, all the sharks who want that money wouldn’t be able to find them.
But that isn’t my problem now. I honored Igor with my promise, and now his daughter is dead.
By her own choice. My obligation to protect her is over.
Why, then, do I still feel the urge?
I scrub a hand over my face. The stubble on my jaw scratches my palm. “Let them go. Tell them to never show themselves again to any of us. The responsibility for their actions is theirs alone. I wash my hands of it.” I meet Ravil’s gaze for the first time. “You should, too.”
He nods. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“I’ll call Pavel. What do you want me to tell Moscow?”
“Tell them… “ I rub my forehead. “Tell them Sasha’s dead.” I shrug. I have to protect her that much. They will probably still hunt down Galina, but this way if Sasha separates from her mother, she might live. “Don’t tell them we know any differently.”
“All right.” Ravil stands. “We cleaned the mess at the hotel.”
I stand, feeling like I weigh a million pounds. “Thanks.”
I stagger into my room. Being in the space I shared with Sasha hits me like a semi-truck. I want to throw everything she owned out the window. Instead, I grit my teeth and pack her shit up—as much as I can fit in the two suitcases she came here with, and then I toss them out of my room.
Nikolai, Dima and Oleg stare at me. “Will one of you bring those to her?” I mutter.
Nikolai’s brows lift. He must still be feeling sorry for me because he stands right up. “Yeah. I’ll bring them now. Clear this shit out of here.”
“Thanks.” I stomp back into my room and get in the shower.
That’s the end of it.
I’m over her now.
I’m over all women.
I will never, ever trust a single word that comes out of a woman’s mouth again.
Chapter 21
Sasha
We’re not at the type of hotel with food service, but Pavel orders delivery of donuts and coffee. I think they’re mostly for himself, but he got a half dozen, and after eating, he tosses the bag onto the bed where my mother and I are still huddled.
He didn’t sleep in the bed. I’m not sure he slept at all, but he doesn’t look tired. He looks exactly the same. Indifferent. Casual. Lethal. So jaded for a man so young.
We spent the morning in silence. I’m too afraid to appeal to him again, like I’m afraid of using up my only chance to fix this.
Is it even fixable?
The dread in my gut tells me no, but I can’t accept that.
Pavel’s phone rings, and he answers it. “Yeah. Got it.” He stands. “Nikolai is bringing your shit, and I’m leaving. You’re on your own. Maxim says you can stay dead and keep your fortune, as long as neither of you ever show your faces to anyone in this cell again. Got it?”
I stand up. “No.”
He cocks his head, disbelief and scorn mingling on his expression. “No?”
Now that I know they don’t intend to kill my mother, I can finally move. Can finally function and make a choice. “I need to see Maxim and explain things. I don’t want to stay dead. I want to go back.”
“Sasha!” my mother barks. �
��What are you doing?” She also climbs off the bed, walking around behind me.
For as long as I can remember, my mom has made me believe she’s done everything for me. That she and I were on the same team, conspiring against the outside world. Against the men. Growing up, she made sure we were well taken care of, and she also made sure I knew it was through her efforts.
She showed me all her tricks. Explained why she needed me to be a good little girl and wait in my room while she seduced my father again and again, night after night. When I was older, why I should stop asking him to let me go to America for college. Why I needed to act more like her.
For whatever reason, I rebelled against my father, but I never rebelled against her. I guess she made it seem like she and I were in the same boat.
Now, for the first time in my life I take a stand against her. “It was my money, Mama.” The words sound awful to my ears, and my mother recoils, but it’s the truth. My father didn’t trust me with my inheritance, so he gave it to Maxim. Now my mother’s taken it from me.
And if I had to choose between being controlled by Maxim or my mom… I’d take Maxim any day.
“You told me Maxim and Ravil wanted to steal it, but you were the one who wanted to take it from me.”
My mother slaps me across the face, hard.
My eyes smart, and Maxim’s words come back to me, like a horrible taunt—a bitter reminder of what I’ve lost.
No one will ever slap your face again—this I promise you. Not if they want to live.
“I did this for you, you ungrateful brat!” My mother snarls. “We could have killed you for real in that car.” She jabs a finger at me. “That’s how I would take your money, if that had been my desire. It would’ve been far more simple. And Viktor would still be alive for me to enjoy it with!”
I stare at her, fighting back the weight of grief that washes over me. Not from this conversation, but from a lifetime of knowing subconsciously that my mother truly didn’t love me, except as an extension of herself. That I was a pawn in her game against Igor for his money. Nothing more.
She spreads her arms wide. “I did this for you. To free you of that man.”
“I didn’t want to be freed of him!” I shout. I look desperately toward Pavel, who stands at the door looking like he wants to leave but is incapable of looking away from this trainwreck between my mother and I.
“Please, you have to tell him. It wasn’t me. I didn’t want this.”
Pavel shakes his head in disgust. “I’m not telling him anything,” he says and walks out the door.
My mother turns and grabs her suitcase. “Let’s go. We have a flight to catch to Moscow.”
I can’t seem to move. I’ve never felt so lost or alone in my entire life. The desire to sink down into it—to gripe, complain, rebel—all the old stale tricks of my childhood surface, but I see how completely useless they are.
Maxim was right—power isn’t something someone grants you. It’s something you take for yourself.
“I’m not going.”
My mother freezes and then slowly pivots. “What?”
“I’m not leaving my husband.”
“Did you not hear? Your husband said if we ever show our faces again, they will strip us of the money.” She gestures with both hands. “We can’t live without that money!”
“Look at you,” my mother scoffs. “You’ve never had a job in your life. What would you do? How would you live? And for what purpose? Maxim isn’t going to take you back. I saw his face when he saw you were alive. You betrayed him once. You’re lucky he didn’t choke the life out of you right there for betraying him a second time.”
I wave my fists in the air like a lunatic. “I did not betray him a second time! You did! And I will make him see that.”
My mother’s eyes go wide. “Are you insane? You would wish us both dead, then?” She takes a step back, pretending to be hurt.
I suddenly see where I got the acting gene.
“Or just me?”
“No, Mama. He’s not going to kill you. He would’ve already done it. He spared you because he cares about me. That’s the part you missed. Maxim and I were falling in love. He bought me that car!” I gesture to the street as if my car was still out there and not blown into a billion pieces. I use the car as an example because money is all that matters to my mother. Of course, to me, it wasn’t the car. It was how he looked at me in the car. How he said it matched my eyes. How he walked to fuck me over the top of it. How he liked to spoil and then disrespect me in equal measures.
“I saw his face,” my mother says stubbornly. “He won’t forgive you.”
I straighten my spine. He forgave me once. I think he could do it again. Hopefully it won’t take eight years to heal this time.
“You go to Russia. I’m staying here.”
My mother puts down the suitcase. “I’ll wait. When he rejects you, we’ll go together.”
I don’t pretend she wants to be here with me. She’s staying because if I go back to Maxim, if I declare myself undead, the money is mine again.
Not hers.
When she was talking about being penniless, she was afraid for herself. With Vladimir alive, she would’ve been given a monthly allowance. Now that she killed him, she’ll get nothing. In fact, she’s probably not safe in Moscow at all. I don’t know if Vladimir had many friends, but it seems like someone would want her blood for what she did.
A knock sounds on the door. I walk to open it, but my mother whisper-snaps, “Wait!”
“What?” I whisper-shout back.
“Just because he said we’re free to go doesn’t mean we really are.”
I open the door a crack. It’s Nikolai with my suitcases. As soon as he sees me, he turns and walks away.
“Wait!” I call. “Please. I need to talk to Maxim.”
“That’s not going to happen, printsessa,” Nikolai says.
“He’s my husband,” I insist, as if that will mean something to Nikolai, who is already three-quarters of the way down the hall to the elevator.
“He’s a widower.” Nikolai doesn’t even turn as he speaks the words. And then he steps into the elevator and is gone.
Dammit.
I’ve never hated myself so much in my life. I did everything wrong with Maxim. My stupid, cruel lie about him trying to force me into sex as a teenager. Acting like a spoiled brat when he brought me here.
And I don’t know what I could’ve done differently with my mom, but I wish I’d done it. I shouldn’t have bought the burner phone and told her about my acting class. I shouldn’t have let her sow all that doubt about Maxim. I should have told her—convinced her—that I was happy with him. Then she wouldn’t have made this desperate move.
The one that just ruined my life along with hers.
I choke back a sob as I wheel my suitcases into the hotel room. “I have to see him,” I say.
My mother blocks my path. “We don’t have any money, Sasha. No credit cards, no cash. Nothing.”
“How did you get here?”
“Viktor,” she whispers.
Right. Viktor. Who is dead. My credit card—courtesy of Maxim—was blown up with my purse.
I have no phone. I can’t even take an Uber to the Kremlin.
“We need to use those plane tickets and get back to Moscow. Then we can get your money and a fresh start.”
Here she goes again with her big plan.
“Mama, it takes months to transfer property after a death. Maxim didn’t even have access to Igor’s money yet.”
Her face goes pale. “That’s our only hope.”
It’s hers.
But not mine.
My hope is Maxim. My life is Maxim. I just have to get him to see me, so I can make him believe.
I open my suitcase and change out of yesterday’s clothes and into a pair of capri jeggings and a cute top. I opt for practical shoes.
“I’m going to see Maxim,” I declare. I don’t care if I have to walk acr
oss Chicago, I will get there, and I will see him
I ignore my mother’s dire warnings and protests and leave the building. It takes me all afternoon to get to the Kremlin on public transit.
The moment I walk through the front doors, the guard shakes his head. “Get out. You and your mother are forbidden from entering.”
“Please, I just need to speak with my husband.”
“Get out, or I throw you out. I’m on strict orders,” he tells me. “If you come back, I’ll call the police. And you wouldn’t want that, would you? Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
And that’s when it hits me. I definitely don’t want to be dead.
And if I’m not dead, then Maxim has control of my money. Which means his obligation to Igor will still be in place. Unless he believes I nullified it.
Either way, it’s a good place to start. I nod. “Please call the police. I want to report myself not dead.”
Maxim
I’m on the couch working on drinking myself into oblivion again when my phone rings. It’s the security guard downstairs.
“Fuck off,” I mutter and dont answer.
He calls Ravil next.
“Huh. Well, call her bluff. Call the police on her,” Ravil says.
My head snaps up. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
Ravil shrugs. “She says she’s going to report herself undead unless you come down.”
I settle back and nod. “Call her bluff. She has to stay dead if she wants to control her money.”
“I was going to wait a few days to tell you this, but—” Nikolai starts.
I hurl my glass at his head. It misses but smashes against the wall, shattering.
“Right. I’ll wait a few days.” Nikolai has the grace to look unaffected by my attempted assault.
It shouldn’t be so hard to go one day without hearing her goddamn name.
Without thinking about her. Imagining I smell her. Wondering how I could be so stupid as to get played.
Forty minutes later, the asshole guard calls again. This time I answer, ready to chop off his fucking head. “What is it?” I snarl.
“The cops want to talk to you.”