Page 100 of Maksim
This is the woman from the photo. Daniel’s wife.
The first thing I felt when I walked into this room, saw Anya in that chair with the gun pointed at her, was fear. The kind that swallows you whole. Makes you freeze. The kind that, frankly, I’m used to.
But now… Seeing this woman…
I can’t help the way my shoulders square or the way my mind brings my attention to the ring suddenly too loose on my finger. A poor fit.
It’s sick, but I find my eyes moving to her left hand. Her rock is so much bigger.
“Do you know who I am?” the woman asks like she’s the godfather. When my eyes find hers, I imagine they’re blazing, and I just hope Anya doesn’t pay for my mistakes. But the thing is… I’m not afraid of the godfather. I’ve met worse. I damn sure am not going to cower for the woman trying to avenge a human trafficker.
“Daniel’s wife.”
She tips her chin in confirmation. “And do you know why you’re here?”
I flex my fingers, my damn ring feeling as uncomfortable as ever. “So you can pretend he was a man worth killing for.”
The first bit of emotion breaks out on her face in the form of a smile cracking one side of her lips. “Because the man you viciously murdered was a husband and a brother.” She waves to the woman holding the gun, but I don’t take my eyes off her. Not even when the ponytailed one pulls a chef knife out and brings it to her. She takes it in her perfectly manicured hand, her ring shining.
That must’ve cost a fortune. More than Daniel ever led on to having. I bet her wedding dress did too. It made mine, the dress, look like a rag.
What the fuck did she do to deserve that?
“And today you’re going to learn how it felt to be him,” she goes on, tipping the knife at me suggestively, trying to intimidate me. “And you’re also going to learn how it feels to be me.”
I stare at her, unblinking, my chin lifting slightly. I think she’s expecting me to ask what she means. Maybe even beg. But I’m not an idiot. Well, I am. I am for trusting Maksim. Or for not trusting Maksim, I’m not sure which at this point.
But I know what she wants to do. She wants to kill Anya. And my family. She wants me to feel her pain, and then she wants to stick that knife into me and watch me bleed out, all while begging her for mercy.
Remember how I said I didn’t know what the men who took me wanted? This woman and I are two sides of the same coin. I don’t need to guess when it comes to her. We live by the same principle.
Hurt my family, hurt me, and I will fucking destroy you.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, I remove the imposter ring from my hand and toss it to the floor.
27
MAKSIM
“You’re driving too fast. We could pass her and not know it,” Anthony says, gazing out the passenger window at the pedestrians on the sidewalk.
My foot feels heavy as a brick on the gas pedal, but I ease up, knowing he’s right. It feels hopeless. I’m not even sure which her he’s referring to, but if either Anya or Elira were stupid enough to walk along the sidewalk when they believed a hitman was coming to get them, I might kill them myself.
Still, my search shows just how reckless they both are. Anger tightens my grip on the steering wheel, bulges the vein in my neck. The lump on the back of my head feels hot and swollen.
Fear came and went hours ago. About two hours after I came to, Alik confirmed that the hit was put on Elira’s family. He was able to find a contact in Albania who went to Elira’s childhood home to find it torn apart, as if someone was either looking for something or putting up a struggle. My whole body had frozen listening to that piece of news, and I held my breath for the next half hour until he called to tell me the family was found hiding in a nearby root cellar.
The hit was on them. I am… I have so much making up to do. But with them safe, my anger at both Elira and Anya is barely contained.
They fucking ran. Both of them, like stubborn sheep desperate to be eaten by wolves. Bailey said she went outside while Anya claimed to be right behind her, but Anya must’ve slipped away because she was gone before I woke up and could warn her of danger. It doesn’t get her off the hook. Her free reign with piece of shit men ends today.
And Elira…
I have men at the airport. The bus station. Men speeding up and down the highways searching for my car and staking out every hotel in the city.
She has no ID. No passport. No means of leaving the country. Her fucking phone isn’t even on. If she would’ve just stayed with me, we could be finding Anya together and on a private plane to meet her family tonight.
Stubborn, stubborn fucking sheep.