Page 106 of Maksim

I bite my lip and feel my face pinch with pity.

“He was a slave,” Henrietta answers for me. “One of many. Your father took foreign, cheap labor to an extreme. He farmed out dozens of boys when they were young and raised them like the crop he forced them to harvest.”

Anya’s lips part as her shoulders hunch. “What?”

“Maksim killed your parents and took you as revenge.”

My eyes widen, and I shoot up. “That isn’t true!”

Henrietta smirks. “You’re not his sister, Anya. You’re his revenge. His means of controlling the people who controlled him. He took away your childhood the same way they took away his.”

“Shut up!” I sneer, the legs of my chair rocking as I jerk. “Just shut the fuck up. That isn’t true, and you know it.” I look at Anya and soften my features. “Maksim loves you. He has always loved you, from the day you were born. You were his sister then, and you’re his sister now. Your mother claimed him as her son, and he would never have hurt her.”

Tears slide down her cheeks while she stares at me in disbelief. “What about my dad?”

I take too long to answer. I hesitate. And in that hesitation, she sees the truth. She turns her head to stare at her lap and says nothing.

“He didn’t hurt your dad. I swear to you, he didn’t.”

“Whether he did or didn’t,” Henrietta pipes in, “it’s safe to say you were as much a burden to him then as you are now.”

“That—” Caroline yanks my hair again to shut me up and slaps me for good measure.

That isn’t true.

“Imagine an eighteen-year-old with no citizenship or knowledge of the country they’d been a slave in their entire adolescence, trying to make it on their own. Now imagined them with a toddler weighing them down. Honestly, I’d be impressed if I didn’t hate him so much. I don’t know if he’ll feel pain at your death or relief. Maybe I’m doing him a favor.”

Anya’s lip trembles.

“You’re a monster,” I say, feeling my strength drain as Anya’s pain grows.

Henrietta walks to me, her eyes fiery as she brings the knife from behind her back. “Are you just now getting that?”

I expect her to stab me. My eyes clench shut, and I brace for the pain, but the sharp slice along my shoulder pulls a groan from my throat and shoots my eyes to the knife. A thick line of blood forms before drops run down my arm.

She moves the knife to my other arm and slices along my bicep.

“Ahh!” I cry, throwing my head back.

“Stop it!” Anya screams, then sobs. “Please, stop.”

Henrietta moves the knife to my stomach and makes a slow, curved cut up my torso. My pride shreds as I scream at the top of my lungs.

It’s hard to think. Hard to breathe. Hard to register anything but pain.

But still, I understand what she’s doing.

She isn’t going to kill me by stabbing me. That would be letting me get off too easily.

She wants me to die a cliché. Death by a thousand cuts.

“Beg,” she spits in my ear before cutting my side with a quick jerk of her hand.

No.

It will not make it better. Only worse.

Still the words are on my tongue.