Page 29 of Maksim

“There’s a spare key,” she says, pointing to a planter in a flowerbed off the porch. “If it’s truly an emergency, I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it.”

Her lip twitches like she wants to grin, and I’m too relieved to care about the fucking block party she’s probably about to form to watch me drag my whore from this asshole’s house. If there’s any good that comes out of that, it’ll be Daniel’s ruined reputation.

I get the key from the bottom of the planter, then nod at the woman who stays rooted in place, excited to see the show. “Thank you.”

“Whatever I can do to help. For all I know, your sister could be a child.”

She’s obviously baiting for more information, but I ignore her altogether as I go inside and shut the door, locking it in case she decides to keep up the good neighbor act and investigate.

The moment I turn around, my muscles tense at the dead woman on the ground. It takes a full second to register her plumpness, her oversized breasts, her highlighted hair that doesn’t resemble Elira’s.

Her silk robe is sprawled open and is melded with the puddle of blood she’s laying in that came from the single stab wound in her stomach.

I blink at the woman, not sure what to make of this, not sure if this is a good sign or bad.

Shaking the woman from my attention, I storm through the house, hearing nothing, seeing no one.

Is there a basement? If there is, that’s where he’d take her, if she’s still here.

“Elira?” I call, my voice booming off the walls. I stomp past an open office doorway but halt when a sea of red pulls my attention inside.

My heart pauses. For a full second, I don’t think I can breathe.

I did not think I would care if she was dead. Necessary or not, she’s a pain in the ass. I warned her not to run, I trusted her not to run, and in two days I’ve turned myself into an absolute fool of a man.

I put that address on the back of the photo. I gave her the information. This is my fault as much as it is hers, so maybe that’s why when I see the blood staining the wallpaper, I feel … remorse. Guilt. Fear.

“Elira?” I call, my voice low as I step into the office. Blood has seemed to spray all over the room. It coats the walls, the desk, and the rug. There’s so much, the source of it takes me a moment to find.

I look to my right to see the body of a man lying face down, and my very stupid, very disobedient ‘gift’ in a corner of the room. Her face rests against the wall as she stares at nothing. Her once white dress is painted red, the knife that must’ve slaughtered Daniel and the woman grasped in her palm. It’s how I know she’s alive. Everything else about her looks lifeless.

“Elira?” I slowly approach her, my eyes running over her to search for injury. She’s so covered in blood it’s hard to tell. Even her face is a red mask.

I crouch in front of her and gently take the knife from her hand. “Are you hurt?”

“What do you care?” she whispers, startling me. She looks so catatonic, I wasn’t sure she could hear me.

I glance over Daniel’s body then roll him to get a better look at the cause of death. There’s too much blood here for this to have been a quick kill.

When I spot the sliced artery on his neck, the spraying pattern over the walls makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why the man’s shirt has more holes in it than I can quickly count.

I lift his blue shirt to reveal over two dozen stab wounds to his torso.

This kill was unhinged. It was brutal. It was Nikita-level psychotic.

What in the fuck?

I turn my head toward Elira, unsure what I’m feeling at this exact moment.

“He deserved it,” she whispers, looking alive for the first time as she peers at her knees in shame. “You don’t know how many women he’s hurt.”

I could ballpark it.

“I know,” I say, thinking about what I would deserve if she were my judge. She’s… This must subtract so many masculine points from my total, but I may be a smidge afraid of her.

Should I kill her after all? If I don’t, how long before my torso looks like a cheese grater?

Staring at her sad, hopelessly empty expression makes me want her in my arms. I want to believe he was a villain who deserved this fate while I am a man of higher morals. I want her to see me as a man different from the one she hated enough to stab twenty or so times after slicing his carotid.