54. Dimitri
54
DIMITRI
I make that dreaded phone call to Max Montgomery.
"Who is this?" he asks, picking up after the first ring.
"This is Dimitri," I say. "I have?—"
"You have some nerve calling me after everything you did," Max hisses.
"Look, I'm as enthusiastic about this conversation as you are," I say. "The only reason I'm calling you is because I know where your wife is."
"I swear to God, if you tell me that you have my family hostage one more time?—"
"Yes, because that would make perfect sense. It hasn't even been a week since I returned your woman to you, and I thought it would be a fun idea to kidnap her again," I say.
"What do you want?” Max grits out.
"It's their mother," I say. "She used Chloe as bait to get to Briar. They're both on a private jet right now. It hasn’t taken off yet, but Chloe has been poisoned. Their mother gave her a lethal dose.”
Max is quiet on the other end.
"Is this some sick game?" he says finally. "Is this more revenge for what I did to your brother?"
My vision blurs at the edges at the mention of my brother. I never thought I would be able to forgive Max for what he did, but Briar needs me to be the bigger person right now.
"Believe me, if I had it my way, I would never see or hear from you ever again," I say. "But the women we love are sisters, so it's best if we learn to tolerate each other's presence. I have no reason to mess with you. The only reason I even made this call is because Briar insisted on it.”
Again, Max goes quiet as he processes this. I hear a screaming kid in the background, no doubt his young son.
It makes me feel something I haven't felt in a long time—empathy.
I've seen this happen to my best men before.
It's especially common when your heart is involved. You freeze up. You do nothing.
But we don't have the luxury of doing that right now.
"Look, I didn't expect that it'd turn out like this either," I say. "But it is what it is, and all that matters now is keeping the sisters safe.”
"I can't believe I let this happen," he says.
"I didn't see it coming either," I say. "But we don't have time to think about where we went wrong. We need to do the work first and then worry about it later.”
"I didn't even see it coming," he says. "I had every room in the hotel booked. The place was supposed to be a fortress."
“We made a mistake,” I say. “We underestimated her again.”
He starts to hyperventilate. I can’t be his therapist today.
“Listen, don’t worry about your woman,” I tell him. “I came prepared. I don’t know where the girls are, but I have access to a universal antidote. I brought it along just in case Jennifer pulled a fast one on us.”
"A universal antidote?" he asks. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
"It's prepared by Vera Reznikova," I say.
The Russian woman is legendary in our world for the designer poisons and antidotes she creates. Some call it witchcraft, but she's just someone who has deeply studied and experimented with botany.
“I don’t know what to say,” Max replies. “Thank you.”
"You're welcome," I say. "I'm sharing my current location with you. All I know about the private jet is that it’s by the waterfront. Briar said that she’d do something to stall the takeoff.”
“I have men over the entire coastline of Monaco, France, and Italy,” Max says, sounding both pissed off and determined. “I’ll have them keep an eye out on every jet that’s about to take off.”
“Good,” I say. “The more people we have on this, the better.”
“You mentioned someone named Jennifer. Who is that?"
He’s about to find out anyway, so I fill him in on the entire situation. I tell him everything I’ve learned in the past few weeks about Briar’s mother.
"So the only reason she's not behind bars right now is because there's no evidence of her crimes?" Max asks.
"There was evidence, but she got rid of it," I say.
"I still don't understand how this woman is still alive. Chloe stabbed her in the chest.”
"She's like a cockroach. Just when we think she's gone for good, she shows us that she has wings."
"This time, we need to make sure that she's really dead," Max says.
At least we can agree on one thing.