Chapter 5 – MAKSIM
Five
MAKSIM
“You should have let me finish him off.”
I stop just shy of the elevator doors. It takes her three steps to realize I’m not following. She slows but doesn’t turn around.
“I don’t give a damn about that bastard,” I say, exhaling slowly. “I’ll kill him myself. But you can’t be messy, Mom. You’re not part of the organization anymore. You haven’t been for years. They won’t take up for you the way they did. Cameras and cell phones are everywhere now. And you’re not—”
“What? Young? The same woman I used to be?”
“Untouchable.” I wrap her in a hug. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s always been a miserable piece of shit, and he’ll die like one. I’ll make sure of that.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then tugs me forward. “Come on. Val is waiting.”
We ride the elevator in silence. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and I can sense something is off. I think about asking, but before I can, the doors part and she steps out without hesitation. I follow, deciding to save the question for later.
At Valentina’s door, I press the black button, knuckles resting against my chest as an uneasy twist settles in.
Derek Cain doesn’t need to open the door to know we’re here. I’d bet every inch of Valentina’s condo is wired to the teeth—cameras, mics, motion sensors, the whole damn fortress. Probably has eyes within a five-block radius too. Can’t blame him for it.
Still, when the door finally cracks open, the only thing that greets us is Derek’s stone-cold stare…before he decides to be the petty bastard I knew he’d be and slams the steel door right in our faces.
“Son of a bitch. This is exactly why I never leave home without my lucky blade—in case I run into Derek and he pisses me off.”
Mom pounds on the door twice, raises her fist for a third, and it swings open.
Not Derek this time. Valentina.
She’s smiling, but the tightness in my chest spikes when I see her on crutches, a boot covering her left leg below the knee.
“Maksim!” She shuffles forward, props one crutch against the wall, and wraps an arm around my waist. “Please excuse my dad; he didn’t know it was you,” she says with a soft laugh, looking up at me through her lashes.
I return the hug, my hand brushing her back, automatic, familiar, and suddenly…
not. Something in the air shifts, and I can’t decide if it’s her or me.
Another subject I file away for later.
“I’m sure that’s what happened,” I say, catching Derek’s narrow-eyed stare.
He and I have always gotten along great, and by great, I mean we’ve spent years pretending the other doesn’t exist.
My family wasn’t perfect—shitty, actually—but they were mine. It was the only life I knew. Stable, in its own fucked-up way. Until the night the Cain brothers came knocking and turned it all on its head. A night I’ll never forget. Maybe because I don’t want to just yet.
“What? Am I invisible now that my son is back?”
Valentina gives me one last squeeze before turning to pull Mom into a hug. “Don’t be jealous,” she teases. “You know you’re my favorite Aunt Leni.”
“I’m going to need you to pause a little longer before my name, sweetheart. Commas matter.”
“Would you prefer she lie to you?”
Amalia’s voice glides in from the end of the foyer, her red lips curved into a knowing smirk. “Hola, Maksim.”
Despite my complicated history with the Cain brothers, Amalia and Eva have always shown me nothing but grace, affection that never felt conditional. I’ll always owe them for that.
“I was just asking about you,” Amalia says, pulling me into a hug. I let her.
The constant touch and affection are something I’ll have to get used to again.
“I meant to swing by earlier”—I turn, meeting Valentina’s eyes—“but I got caught up in some things.”
Valentina gives me a quick, sympathetic smile. Derek scoffs and drags a hand over his greying chin.
“You brought your work back with you, Belov?” His eyes drop to the tiny blood spatters on my shirt, the residue from when Mom put her blade into Konstantin’s thigh.
The way he studies me makes me wonder if he’s been waiting for a chance to repay old scores.
Years back he set out to erase my father’s legacy, a slaughter Mom helped finish.
They cut down a lot of men, but the Belov reach ran farther than Philly.
Derek always knew why I left. I wonder if he’s been waiting for me to come home so he can finish what he started.
The fallout would be an entertaining show…if I didn’t care about who would get caught in the crossfire.
“You know how that goes,” I say at last.
“I’ve got something that’ll help with that.” Valentina’s voice slips under my skin, steadying the pulse I didn’t even realize was racing. “Come on.” She brushes past me, expecting me to follow.
Derek stiffens, and I savor it for a second before trailing after her. Whatever satisfaction I feel dies the moment two Dobermans appear in the doorway of her room, standing alert. No barking, no snarling, just waiting.
“Stand down,” she tells them. They obey instantly, but not before Derek’s low snicker carries from down the hall.
“You’ve got the hounds of hell guarding your room. I like it.”
She laughs, shutting the door behind us. “Hermes and Apollo. Graduation present from my dad…when I decided to move out.”
Yeah. That tracks.
“You’d know that…if you’d kept in touch,” she teases, tossing me a wink.
“Fair.”
And then it hits me. The silence without Derek, the weight of her in front of me. She’s not the girl I left behind. And suddenly, I know why I’ve been keeping my distance. Why she’s been in my head every damn day since the hospital.
She’s beautiful, yeah. But it’s more than that. I’m seeing her in a way I never have before, and it unsettles the hell out of me.
“You promised me a clean shirt,” I say, trying to shake off the strange energy between us.
“I lied.” A beat of silence, then she laughs and steps closer. “I mean, if you soak it real good and hit it with some peroxide, you might get those stains out.”
I cross my arms, one brow lifting. “You’re not even going to ask whose blood it is?”
She tilts her head. “Do I know them?”
“Doubtful.”
She shrugs. “Then it doesn’t matter as long as you’re the one standing here wearing their blood and not the other way around.”
If I ever doubted she was Derek Cain’s daughter…
And yet, my pulse kicks a little harder.
“That’s pretty cold, Val.”
Her smile fades. “The world is cold, Maksim. Sometimes the only way to survive is to be colder.”
“Who hurt you?” I tease.
But when she doesn’t answer right away, when her eyes slide past mine, and all traces of humor are gone, something hot stirs in my chest.
“Oh, you know, some asshole ran me over. Broke my leg.”
The lie is obvious. It’s a flimsy deflection, but I let it go. For now.
And suddenly I understand what my mother meant.
Protectiveness surges inside me, my hands restless with the urge to break someone open for hurting her.