Chapter 48
CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT
Maxim
Val and I gazed up as another entered the room.
The air left my lungs.
Oxygen from the room completely disappeared when I saw Sia. She was wearing a sweater around her tiny frame, her arms bunched up, her gaze wary. Her dark eyes locked on me, and I did something stupid in that moment. I left Val’s side and the men I used to call friends, brothers. One had taken my cellphone earlier and given it to Natan.
I’d plotted his death after he’d done that. I’d plotted everyone’s in this room outside of Val who’d come in shortly after Natan had been acting peculiar. He escorted me into my own office where he already had men stationed.
My cellphone had been taken not long after.
“Sia...” I had no weapons on my person, but I had hands. I had hands and the drive of a man who’d been fucked with.
The men guarding Val and me had no time to react before I was halfway across the room. Sia was within my reaches when someone called for me to be restrained, but that wasn’t needed in the end.
Because Sia stopped. She didn’t come to me. In fact, she backed away , which made me hesitate. I had the briefest iota of hesitation, but it’d been enough for someone to grab me.
Natan came out of the shadows.
He’d gone off on his own after acquiring my cellphone and refused to answer my inquiries about what was going on.
Instead, he had me restrained.
He did that to me, then Val, and I’d been doing recon on the situation ever since. I’d been deciding which action to take next and who to kill once I did. Make no mistake: I was in this room and this situation by choice. Val and I both were. Especially when I heard word that Lettie and Sia had made it to my safe house. There’d been whispers amongst the brothers that my daughter and another girl had made it there. My girls were safe and, until I could make them safe further, I didn’t act.
Not until I knew what the fuck was going on.
I growled. “Natan?—”
“Do you not recognize her, son?” My adoptive father was circulating Sia, his gaze peering over her. “I suppose you wouldn’t, would you? The last time you saw her she was what? Three?”
I didn’t know what he was goddamn talking about, and I was about to act if he kept looking at her. I never questioned Natan the man, but he was fucking with me and mine. I growled. “What are you talking about?” Before he could answer, I glanced at Sia. “Sia?”
She wasn’t looking at me for some reason. The floor was suddenly her fascination…
And she cringed when I said her name.
It was like me calling her hurt her for some reason, and I didn’t understand. Natan’s head tilted. “I told her who you are, Maxim. Who you are to her.”
I didn’t know what game Natan was playing, but I was tired of fucking playing it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” His hands gripped the desk, his expression stern. “After all, you lied to me for nearly two decades about her.”
Two decades…
I really didn’t know what he was getting at, but two decades was sticking out in my mind. It was a very distinct period of time, and one I knew well as of late.
It’d been one I’d been trying to run from.
For all those years, I’d avoided correcting a mistake, but now I had. I spent damn near a month doing so. It’d been a month away from my family. My Sia.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I said, and he would. The things he was saying didn’t make sense, and my pakhan’s eyes darkened.
“You take me for a fool, Maxim.” He went behind my desk, appearing to be the king of my motherfucking castle. He sat down. “But I think you and I both know I’m not one. How else would I have come to be in my position? You know as you helped me rise.”
I had helped. I served him loyally up to this point.
Almost…
I didn’t speak, and the only reason I continued to breathe, remain calm, was because I had to. There was too much at stake. Especially with Sia here. “Natan?—”
“Why is it you think she can’t look at you, Maxim?” Natan frowned in Sia’s direction. “Why it is she can’t bear to look at you?”
What had he done to her? Said to her? “Sia?”
Eyes still on the floor, Sia hugged her body as if she was cold, and I was about to act. I was about to move and take her away.
That was until Natan said what he had next.
“She’s the spitting image of her mother Keena, but her eyes,” Natan paused, as if for dramatic effect, “Her eyes are all her father. I should know the eyes of my enemy well, and you do too Maxim. After all, you watched the life leave them after you killed him.”
Dread hit me, and Sia cringed again. Her jaw locked so tight, and I shook my head. “Keena…”
The word left my mouth lightly. I hadn’t heard that name in a long time.
This didn’t make sense.
“Tell me, Maxim, did you kill her father in front of her?” Natan came from behind my desk. “Did you let him suffer in front of your fiancée?”
I had no words for Natan, too busy staring at Sia who, once more, wouldn’t look at me. There was no way she was who he was insinuating, that she was a child of…
“Nikolai Novikov,” he said, his chin lifting, and I blanched. Val did too. She was watching this whole thing, and this was a name she probably hadn’t heard in a while.
That name was burned into my memories for a lifetime though. The man killed my father.
And so I made him pay.
It’d been my biggest accomplishment, an achievement to avenge my father. I shook my head. “You believe Sia is…”
“Anastasia Novikov, yes,” he said, and my mouth parted. Val’s did too. Natan put his hands on the desk. “But I don’t just believe it, son. It’s true, so don’t lie to me and tell me it’s not. Don’t lie to me and tell me you didn’t betray me for all these years. Just look at your fiancée, Maxim. Fucking look at her!”
He spat every word, and I was looking at the woman I loved. Apparently, I hadn’t really looked at her closely.
How could this be?
I hadn’t looked for the features of Keena Novikov, or the dark eyes of the man who took my father. I’d only seen the eyes of the woman I loved in Sia. I saw her beauty and passion.
I saw her heart.
Natan was mistaken, and, swallowing, I broke my gaze away from Sia. She wasn’t looking at me anyway, and I needed to maintain composure for what I planned to say to my adoptive father next. “Anastasia Novikov is dead. She was killed by Ilya?—”
“Ilya Titov.” He mentioned the full name of my deceased Bratva brother, the one I’d killed via his instruction. Natan claimed Ilya betrayed him, and I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t question and didn’t need to. The word of the one who led us was good enough to damn one of our own, and I’d trusted Natan completely. We all did. Natan wet his lips. “She wasn’t in the car that day with her brother, sisters, and mother. She escaped the bombing. Something Ilya recently admitted.”
My chest locked, tightened, and for the first time during this conversation, Sia gazed up. She stared at Natan in the horrified way one would look as if they learned they had an entire family…
And lost them all in the same day.
Her eyes even got glassy, but this wasn’t true. This wasn’t. I swallowed. “Natan…”
“She was sick, Maxim. Stayed home with her father who you were assigned to kill,” Natan continued, and the room got so silent with his words. “So you see how this looks, son? Because you did show proof of Nikolai Novikov’s death, but you failed to mention his daughter was at home with him during the kill.”
Finally, my girl looked at me. Finally , she saw me, and I didn’t want her to see. I didn’t want her to see my reaction to the devastation in her eyes, the hurt and pain I saw in response to Natan’s accusations. Seeing her this way destroyed me , and I didn’t look away from her as I said, “It’s true. Anastasia was there, but I took care of her.”
I had. I might not have that day, but I did. I corrected my error.
I protected my family.
My thoughts traveled back to that day, that kill, and I was hard-pressed to forget it. I had a little girl at home myself during that time, a baby. Lettie had been dropped on my doorstep by her deadbeat mother. She hadn’t told me I had a child, and after she left me with our daughter, she split. I hadn’t seen her since and didn’t need her. We’d done fine on our own.
I saw my little girl in that child who’d been there the night I’d been assigned to kill her father. Anastasia had been older but I saw Lettie in her.
“Dropped off at a fire station when she was three,” Natan said, pacing around me now, circulating. “With no memory of hardly anything.”
That was because she’d fallen.
I’d been shocked to learn Nikolai’s child was there that night and the only reason I had was because I heard her cry.
She’d been upstairs.
I could only imagine the sound of her father hitting the ground had woken her. She’d been in her crib and when I found her, she’d been on the floor. Like she’d crawled out and tried to get to him or see what the noise was. Either way, she’d fallen, hit her head…
“ Natan ,” I urged, watching Sia visibly pale. It’s not true, malyshka. “Anastasia Novikov is dead . I may have let her go that day, but I took care of her. Recently, I took care of her.”
I didn’t know how he knew all this. About what happened with the fire station, or that Anastasia had memory issues when I dropped her off.
I traveled far to get her to safety, as far as I could away from the reaches of her father’s sins and the hand of Natan. A kill order had been out for her whole family, and though I never agreed with slaughtering women and children for the sins of a monster, this was the reality. The Novikov bloodline had to end for the Brotherhood to start anew by order of my father.
But I couldn’t do it that day with Anastasia. She was so young. Just a baby with round cheeks, dark eyes, and these little curls. She’d had chubby arms just like my baby had at the time. My Lettie.
“Her orphanage had her under a false name. Probably because she couldn’t remember hers,” Natan continued as if I hadn’t spoken. It was as if he didn’t care that I had spoken. His expression went hard. “Though she wasn’t far off. It wasn’t widely known her parents shortened her name. Called her Sia.”
Sia…
“That was probably the only name she could pull from her memory,” Natan continued. “The last name Reynolds the system most likely gave her. Anyway, I know that you know she was placed in an orphanage. Your head of security let me know you were looking into children’s homes recently, ones who had girls who fit Anastasia’s description and were dropped off there by fire station representatives during that time.”
I glanced at Val who paled. Her look said everything.
I didn’t know.
She wouldn’t know. I hadn’t told her anything and her reporting to Natan would have been normal. She probably would have even done so casually, not knowing not to. She’d never betray me. Even for Natan.
“As it turns out, there were two girls who were dropped off during that time who matched the description,” Natan said, which I didn’t know. Val searches I had her do hadn’t resulted in much. In actuality, it’d been my searches that found who I was looking for and there’d only been one girl. One.
“Natan, you’re right. You’re right about everything from the fire station to my search regarding the orphanages.” It’d been a proactive measure, a loose end I had to fix, and one Ilya’s death did prompt me to correct. He was the other side of the kills that night and seeing him put in front of me as meat to slaughter let me know I needed to fix things. Our sins could always be found out, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. The fact of the matter was Anastasia Novikov may have been a toddler at the time of my mistake, but she wasn’t anymore.
I studied my fiancée, still pale in front of me. My throat thickened. “And I don’t know how you’ve come to this conclusion about Sia, but I assure you she’s not Anastasia Novikov. She’s not because I spent a month recently hunting Anastasia Novikov down.”
Sia’s head jerked up, her eyes narrowed.
I swallowed hard. “I took care of her, and if you need proof of death, I can give that to you. I made a mistake that night with Nikolai, Natan. He had a little girl not much older than Lettie at the time and I…” I glanced away. My jaw clicked. “I found it hard to take care of her that night. I’d been weak back then, but I’m not now. As it stands today, Anastasia Novikov is dead by my hand.”
She hadn’t suffered, her death quick. She was working at a seedy bar, and she had no other family or children.
There was no one to miss her.
Of course that didn’t make it any better but taking her life had been easy in the way where I knew her death would save those I cared about. There’d be no end of the terror Natan would inflict if he knew a Novikov was still alive, and though he loved my daughter, he would take her from me. He might not kill her but he’d take her, and she’d be at the mercy of him and the system of the Brotherhood.
Then there was Sia.
He would hurt her. He would have and would have thought nothing of it. She meant nothing to him.
Anastasia’s bullet to the back of the head had been quick. It’d been mercy. Natan would have done worse, and after it was done, I disposed of the body via the proper channels. I did acquire proof of death and DNA for safekeeping though. I’d done it as a safeguard, and apparently, I’d been right to do it.
I always wanted to protect Sia from the specifics surrounding the darkest parts of my life, and it wasn’t easy for her to hear this news. A gasp touched her full lips, and I wasn’t surprised. The people she’d seen me hurt in the past she’d witnessed reasons for, with the exception of one.
Sometimes if a death was justified it made it easier for one’s mind. It made it easier for her, but this wasn’t the same as those other deaths. Today, all she did was stare away from me. She saw Natan’s executioner today.
She saw the monster.
“You killed the wrong girl, Maxim.”
I wasn’t able to dwell on Sia’s reaction. I was too busy shooting my attention over to Natan.
You killed the wrong girl…
“Like I said, there were two,” Natan said, and my heart raced. “A DNA test confirmed it wasn’t her.”
I couldn’t even fathom what he was saying. What he was saying couldn’t be right.
You killed the wrong girl…
Natan put a hand out. “The woman in front of you— your fiancée is the real Anastasia Novikov, and she was right under your nose. I’m sure if you test her DNA you’ll find the same. I had a member of your household sneak a glass with her prints. She is the true Anastasia.” His eyes went cold. “She is the true daughter of our enemy.”
Our enemy.
This wasn’t possible. The things that had to take place for this to happen…
The fate and happenstance.
My daughter finding Sia and later her coming to work for me had to happen. Then there was what happened after. Sia Reynolds had completely upended my life.
She allowed me to fall in love.
I didn’t know this was possible, and this woman did the unthinkable. She changed me. She…
A hand folded on my shoulder. It was Natan’s, but I was staring at Sia. She looked so much like Keena, her mother, but she did have her father’s eyes. She had my enemy’s eyes.
Malyshka…
A gun was handed to me. My father jerked his chin toward Sia. “You can correct your error, my son. You can do right by me.”
I could correct my error.
“Kill the daughter of our enemy,” he said in my ear as if he were the Pied Piper. “Finish the job you started almost twenty years ago.”
Twenty years ago I’d been a broken man, a broken boy . I had so much pain and my father had healed me. He allowed me to seek justice for those who hurt me. Sia’s father took my dad from me.
I raised the gun, and Sia stepped back. This whole time she’d been watching our exchange with tears in her eyes, a mixture of hurt and betrayal on her face. I had become the same monster her father had become to me. I took her father from her, and that wasn’t lost on me.
The irony made me hesitate, but I swung the gun towards Natan, and when his expression went merely grim, I was surprised. I found no surprise on his face at all.
Only sadness.
His head lowered, and he watched as I moved in Sia’s direction. He watched me place her behind me. I shielded her from him.
I made my choice.
I loved this woman and, vendetta or not, no one was taking her from me.
“We’re leaving,” I said, watching as Val crossed the room with me. She made her choice too. I eyed the room. “I’m taking Sia, and you’re letting me, father.”
He would. There was no debate.
Val got Sia’s arm, and I didn’t miss how Sia locked up. I didn’t think it was because of Val though. All this was just too fucking much for anyone. Sia and I might not be able to come back from this, but we’d handle this outside of this room and without the Bratva’s eyes on us. We’d do this away from Natan.
My adoptive father watched as Val, Sia, and myself backed away.
Natan shook his head. “You take her, Maxim, and her brother dies.”
We all stopped on a dime, and Sia shook after what Natan said.
Natan nodded. “I have her brother, and I will kill him if you take her.”
Sia looked at me, a new ring of terror in her eyes, and I was sure that terror matched mine. Natan had sent me on a task recently, but it hadn’t borne fruit. He sent me to kill a kid, and that kid happened to be Anastasia Novikov’s brother.
Sia Novikov…
My fiancée did look like him. Though, I’d only been given a docket of photos. How had I not seen this?
“You sent me to kill him.” I resisted the shake in my hand. I held steadfastly to the gun, even as I received another horrified look from my fiancée. I ignored it, keeping my gun aimed at my father. “You sent me to kill that boy.”
And I would have if I’d found him. I would have had to as commanded by the pakhan .
“I wanted to see your reaction to the request,” Natan stated, frowning. “I wanted to see your reaction to Ilya’s deceit and also see if you’d admit your own.”
So he knew. He knew this whole fucking time I’d lied about Anastasia Novikov being alive.
“I also wanted to know what you’d do after I asked,” he said, and I grimaced. “You did seem like you intended to execute my order, but I question now if you’d actually have gone through with it. Your betrayal today with Miss Novikov tells me that.”
I said nothing and was well aware Sia’s eyes were on me. The tears had hit her chest now, but she wiped them away quickly upon seeing I saw them. She was locking herself up. She was locking herself away…
And she was doing so from me.
Again, I wasn’t sure if we’d make it back from today, but her trust in me had to be low priority at the moment. I couldn’t deal with anything else until I knew she and Lettie were safe. I assumed my daughter was still at the safe house, and I was going to get her after I got Sia out of here.
“It was a good thing I held onto him for safe keeping, and I do have other plans for him. Plans that will keep him alive,” Natan continued, then studied Sia and me. “The son of my enemy could be a good tool. It could be a tool I’ll utilize, but only if you make the right choice, Maxim. Give me Miss Novikov, and I might consider forgiving you.”
My father was bullshitting. So many of my Bratva brothers were in the room and the minute I drew the line in the sand I knew I was damned. The pakhan couldn’t forgive. He couldn’t because that would make him look weak, and even if he could forgive that wouldn’t matter. He wasn’t taking Sia from me.
He couldn’t have her.
In the next moment, Val and I communicated in the way of two people who didn’t need verbal cues. We’d operated together for a long time, and it took nothing more than a look for her to fill the room with smoke. Sia shrieked beside me, and I lowered to the ground with her.
We had to in order to escape the gunfire.
The room filled with bullets, my Bratva brothers firing at us. Crawling, I kept Sia with me. I got an arm around her waist, and she basically flailed when I picked her up. She kicked when I shot out the window in my office. I jumped with her in my arms and landed on my feet. I went running after that, Val beside me.
We didn’t look back.