Page 58 of Maksim
I slam on the brakes, my car skidding to a stop at a red light. I turn to her and smile as she places a hand to her chest, panting.
“Are you insane?”
I point at the stoplight. “You have until the light turns green, sweetheart.”
She looks between it and me, her mouth open. When her face lights up with a green hue, I shove my foot on the gas pedal and laugh when she gasps.
“My father!” she blurts out.
My smile slips as I ease off the gas.
She stares at the glovebox. “My father lives in Chicago.”
I ease the car up the road, my mind fogging. “He’s an immigrant?”
She doesn’t answer for a long time. Not until I pull onto the curb in front of Hugh’s place and shut off the car, regretting teasing her. She’s just … a locked safe. It feels hardly fair that she knows my life while I know nothing of hers.
“He’s from this country… He and my mom were never married under the law, but they loved each other, and he visited many times a year. My entire life, my mother has only been with my father.”
I nod, unsure how else to respond. She sounds defensive, but I’m not sure why.
“My mother is not a whore,” she snaps like my nod was somehow offensive.
My eyes widen, and I blink. “I never said she was.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Elira,” I say, dumbfounded. “I…”
I what?
What are the right words to say?
“How could I judge your family when mine is so grotesquely on display for you?” I settle on.
Her angry face begins to relax.
“I’m sorry I pried…”
“You should be.” She glowers. “You could’ve gotten us killed.”
My lips curve without my command. “Then tell me on your own next time. It’s uncomfortable having you know all my dirt without having any idea who you are.”
“Your discomfort is my satisfaction.” She unbuckles her seatbelt, her lips tugging into a mischievous grin, then throws open her door.
Amusement warms my smile and flushes my face as I open my door and hear the music from the backyard disturbing the would-be quiet street.
Elira
Laughter.
Loud. Masculine. Deep laughter.
That—mixed in with Russian rock music—is what I hear past the wooden fence, and it chills my bones thinking about what could elicit those laughs.
I see the faces of the men who came to pluck us one by one from the truck in my mind and wonder how different these people could be. They exist in the same world. They play by the same rules.
They’re the same. Of course, they’re the same. Maksim is different because he has to be, because that life wouldn’t work with the one he’s trying to fake for Anya, but these men are freed from their restraints. They can do whatever they want.