Page 107 of Maksim

Please stop.

No more.

“I’ll end your misery,” she assures me, but it’s a lie. She may end Anya’s, but she won’t end mine. I won’t allow my words to be what puts a bullet in Anya’s head.

“Elira, please,” Anya sobs, her voice so clear it’s like she’s in my ear.

I sob with her.

Regrets, about a million, slap me in the face one by one, harder than either of these women ever could.

We’re here because of me. Because of my anger. My need for revenge. My family will be dead because of it. Any minute, Henrietta assures me the call will come to confirm that it’s done.

Bora.

Asher.

Mami.

Anya.

All dead. All because of me.

I can’t hold it in anymore. My anguish bubbles to the surface, but it doesn’t come out as a useless plea.

“I’m sorry,” I sob around the pain of the knife in my knee. “I’m so sorry.”

Henrietta gets in my face. “Sorry for what? Say it.”

Say it.

She thinks I’m sorry for Daniel.

I’m not talking to her.

“I never should’ve done it,” I say, knowing Anya is listening. “He deserved it. He destroyed more women than I’ll ever know, but if I would’ve known it’d cost your life, I would’ve found another way… I’m so sorry.”

“My life?” Henrietta laughs. “Daniel was my world.”

“It’s okay,” Anya says, her voice soft. “I forgive you.”

I close my eyes and allow myself to tremble with remorse.

Above me, Henrietta’s rage brews as the room quiets. When I open my eyes, she stares at me with so much malice, that I think she’ll end this early. Her plan to keep me alive long enough to confirm my family’s death, to watch Anya die, doesn’t seem as worth it to her.

I know her plans for Maksim. She wants him to find us, the way he found me before. Only now it’ll be my corpse brutally shredded. She can’t kill a made man, but she believes she can kill his whore.

She’ll pay for this too. It’ll be a cycle of revenge until there’s no one left.

Maybe if we were still yelling and crying, we wouldn’t have heard it. Maybe things would be different.

But in the quiet of the room, everyone’s head moves to the entryway as the front door opens.

29

MAKSIM

My finger hooks over the trigger of my gun as I push the door to the secluded home open, my eyes roaming the entryway. The safety is off. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing.