Chapter 31
“Being scared doesn’t mean you’re weak. It just means you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”
— ROBERT MONROE
Constance
As we leave the airfield, my phone dings with a message from Melissa: I swear I think I just saw you get shot on the news. Please tell me you’re okay!
It takes me a moment to think of how to respond.
Melissa is going to think I’m insane if I tell her the entire truth.
Hell, I’m starting to wonder myself if I haven’t lost my grip on reality after everything that’s happened these last few weeks.
I finally reply to her with, That was me, but I’m all right.
I can’t tell you everything that’s going on right now, but we’ll talk soon.
She replies almost immediately with: Please be careful.
I’m here for you. You don’t have to go through all this alone.
Tears well up in my eyes as I read her response.
I lean my head over against Maximo’s shoulder and try to relax as the highway slides by outside the window.
I wish Melissa could help me carry the weight of all this, but the only person who can right now is sitting beside me.
By the time we return to the estate, I can hardly keep my eyes open.
The ride from the airfield was quiet, Maximo and I both lost in our own exhaustion.
My body still aches from trying to sleep in the hospital bed, and I can tell Maximo’s ribs and leg are still paining him by the stiffness with which he moves.
“Come,” he murmurs, brushing his lips against my temple when I exit the Escalade and lean against him. “You need some rest before you burn out, firefly.”
As we step inside the manor, his voice hardens. “Enzo,” he calls into the kitchen where the captain is eating a sandwich. “Find out who we have in the county jail right now and make the arrangements. I want Francis to have an accident before tomorrow morning.”
I thought Enzo would ask for clarification or more instructions, but he only nods as if this is all completely expected. The chef’s betrayal has sealed his fate.
Maximo leads me upstairs, and turns on all the heads in his huge, walk-in shower.
He helps me wrap the gunshot wound in my arm to keep it dry, then does the same to his leg.
After that, we let the steam and warmth of the shower envelop us.
The water washes away the grime of my long night at the hospital, along with the sharp sting of anxiety and fear I hadn’t realized I’ve been carrying in my chest.
The adrenaline, fear, and exhaustion all churn together until I can barely tell one from the other.
Under the spray, Maximo’s hands steady me, his mouth finds mine, and exhaustion gives way to something more primal.
By the time we collapse into bed, we’re so slick with heat and sweat that the world outside feels far away.
But it can’t stay that way.
Lying in the quiet, my head on his chest, I find the question slipping from me. “What does it really mean, Maximo? To be a soldier in your world. The way you talk about me as a civilian makes it sound like I’ll never be an actual member of the family.”
His hand, which had been rubbing up and down my bare back, comes to a stop and gently grips my shoulder.
He takes a breath, then says, “There’s a code we live by.
Nothing that’s written down like a formal law, but everyone in our business knows them.
Civilians, family, women, children, are supposed to be off limits.
Violence is for soldiers. Being a soldier means you accept the life, and you take the risks.
We don’t ask the same of our wives or children. ”
“And now the Volkov family has broken those unwritten rules,” I say softly.
“Whether by accident or design,” he growls.
“Either way, once the code breaks down, everything becomes bloodier and harder to contain. Our rules exist to protect our families from law enforcement. Most of our rackets, not including drugs of course, are fairly legal. But once bodies start hitting the ground, even I can’t stop the police from asking difficult questions.
” He tilts my chin up, eyes dark and burning.
“That’s why I worry about you, Constance.
You’re in a gray area. My enemies see you help me, and how I keep you close, but they know you’re not formally protected.
To them, you’re not family. You’re just… my weakness.”
Before I can respond, he pushes himself up onto his knees, the covers falling away from his muscular, naked body.
He looks down at me, also still nude, with that dark intensity that grips him each time before he ravages me.
I can feel my body respond in kind, a flush of heat and dampness as my body clenches eagerly for another round with him.
I reach out to embrace him and take him into me, when he speaks the words that make my hands freeze in mid-air. My heart stops mid-beat.
“Marry me, Constance.”
I blink up at him. “What?”
“Marry me,” he repeats, firm, certain, sounding like a demand. “Right now. Before you say no, consider this. If you’re my wife, you’ll have official status. You’ll be untouchable.”
I sit up, my heart thundering. “Max, you can’t just propose like it’s one of your business deals. I don’t want to marry you just to satisfy some…some condition of your world.”
His jaw tightens. “This isn’t about conditions. It’s about keeping you alive.”
“Alive?” I snap. “You said yourself the Volkovs don’t respect the code. You think a ring is going to stop men who have already broken every rule your world lives by?”
Silence presses between us, taut and heavy. Maximo’s nostrils flare, and I see the frustration in his eyes.
“What is this then?” I ask. “An order? Are you ordering me to marry you?”
His glare sharpens, lips parting with a retort. “I don’t want to have to do that, Constance. I know it may not make much sense to you, but…”
Before he can even begin to try and explain himself, the entire world explodes.
Gunfire shatters the night, along with the sound of glass raining down from the windows. Screams echo from downstairs, followed by the thunder of engines roaring across the front drive.
Maximo is off the bed in an instant, pulling me down to the floor with him.
More shots crack through the air as Maximo’s body presses down on top of me.
The gunfire seems to continue for an eternity, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than a minute.
As soon as the pulsating echoes begin to fade, Maximo pushes himself to his feet and then pulls me up into his arms, rushing me over to the interior bathroom away from any windows.
I can hear someone shouting orders downstairs, and more sporadic gunfire.
Engines continue to growl outside the estate as Maximo and I struggle into our discarded clothes, then rush downstairs to see what the hell has happened.
“Enzo!” The name is agonizingly ripped from Maximo’s throat.
His cousin is in the front hallway, sliding down the wall as blood soaks the front of his white undershirt.
He’s torn off the button-up he had been wearing and is using it to try to stem the flow of blood from his chest. Maximo and I grab him under each arm, and together we drag him into the kitchen where there’s more cover, laying him across the tile floor.
His breaths become shallow, each one rattling in his lung where he’s been hit.
“Get a towel!” Maximo instructs me.
I grab one from the counter and press the cloth against Enzo’s wound, my hands slick with red. Panic claws at me as his eyes roll back. “He’s going, Maximo, he’s—he’s—”
“Call nine one one!” Maximo snaps as he pulls his phone out of his pants and hands it to me.
I fumble for the phone, my fingers shaking. “Nine one one, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher asks me.
“I need an ambulance, there’s been a shooting!”
“What’s your location, ma’am?” My mind goes blank at the dispatcher’s follow up question, and I hold the phone out to Maximo for help.
He takes the device from my hand, rattling off the address quickly before laying it down on the floor. Then he crouches beside me, his hand on mine, forcing more pressure on Enzo’s chest.
“Stay with me, Enzo!” Maximo orders, his tone commanding even as his right-hand man, his closest family, slips toward unconsciousness.
Tears blur my vision as I cling to the towel, blood soaking through. For one horrible moment, Enzo goes limp, and I think we’ve lost him.
But then the distant wail of sirens cut through the night.
Maximo’s grip finds my shoulder, steady and strong. “He’s not gone. I’m going to hold on to him and keep the pressure up; you go lead the responders to us,” he directs me.
I give him a nod and bolt towards the front door. Someone must have locked it during the shooting, probably Enzo, and as soon as I throw it open the police burst inside. I wave them in, along with the paramedics who pull into the driveway just a few minutes later.
Within ten minutes, Enzo is rolled out on a stretcher, an oxygen mask pressed to his face as they whisk him away. He’s still alive. Barely.
I collapse and sit back on the kitchen floor shaking, blood staining my hands, as Maximo’s shadow looms over me. His men are still shouting, and the manor is filled with chaos, but all I can hear is the pounding of my heart and the echo of his earlier words.
Marry me. Right now.
Maximo wants me to marry him, to become a permanent part of his violent world.