Chapter 29
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Maxim
“I apologize again for what happened,” I informed Natan outside of my office. Val held the door open for me, and I nodded at her. I faced Natan. “What happened at my home shouldn’t have.”
For many reasons, it shouldn’t have. We handled things in different ways in the organization, and I acted rashly.
Though not unjustly.
If I had it my way, the man who attacked Sia— my Sia— would have been carved from the inside out. A swift death wasn’t justice enough, and I think I’d only made it quick because of Sia.
I knew that was the case, but I still worried that night after I disposed of that filth in front of her. I feared Sia’s judgment I supposed, but once again, she surprised me. She hadn’t been disgusted by the bloodshed.
She hadn’t been disturbed by me.
I braced my hands, sighing when Natan nodded at me. He was known as pakhan , the leader of the Bratva here in Chicago, and he hadn’t been upset when he found out what happened in the vineyard.
“I’m just glad you told me,” he said, putting on his sports coat. Sophia had it ready for him when I guided her in. He nodded at her, and after putting it on, he tugged down the sleeves. “The man never should have entered your home, but then again, you should have told me when he initially attacked your member of staff.”
I didn’t like calling her that, but I had no other way to explain her to him. At least, not in a way my adoptive father could understand. Sia was so young.
My jaw shifted. It wasn’t like that didn’t happen. Especially in my world, but things were complicated. At least with me. Sia was my daughter’s friend, so yes, that complicated things. Whatever Sia and I were wasn’t anyone’s business. It wasn’t anyone’s but Lettie’s, and I would be talking to her about it the next time she was home. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone. My daughter and her approval meant the world to me. She and I were all each other had.
At least, that was how it used to be. Before Sia…
I did do things I didn’t normally do when it came to her. Things like silence one of my Bratva brothers for hurting her instead of going to the pakhan . Natan would have handled things in his own way, but I never let him.
Again, I acted rashly, emotionally. These were my sins, but my father was understanding. He placed a hand on my arm. “You’re fine. Just, next time, you talk to me. He might not have come back for revenge had you done that.”
I acknowledged this, bobbing my head once. With a gesture of my hand, I started to walk Natan out, but he stopped me.
“I actually have a job for you,” he said, reaching into his coat, and when my brow lifted, he raised his hand. “I’d never ask unless it was important.”
He knew my protests before I voiced them. I didn’t do jobs on location anymore: hits. I didn’t like who I became when I did. I became obsessed with the job, the bloodlust…
What I did now I had more control of which was why I earned the right not to be one of the Bratva’s hitmen anymore. We had underlings for that, others who hadn’t earned the same right as the pakhan’s son.
Though getting back into the field unsettled me, I took what Natan pulled out of his jacket. It was a photo, and I immediately blinked at the image. I glanced up. “But he’s just a boy.”
He wasn’t a child but a boy nonetheless. He wore an academy uniform, his hair curly and his skin light brown. The tone reminded me a lot of Sia as well as his smile. It was innocent, young.
This kid couldn’t have been more than seventeen, which was why I think this affected me so much. He was too close to my daughter’s age.
“Do you know who he is?” Natan questioned, and when I shook my head, he studied me. “His name is Andre Duncan. At least, on paper. In actuality, his name is Andre Novikov.”
Instantly, my head shot up.
My body went numb.
The photo nearly dropped from my fingers, and I had seconds to recover before Natan drew closer.
I decided to speak before he could. “How is this possible?” I asked but kept my voice even.
“Because I obviously can’t trust those who I thought I could,” he said, studying the photo beside me. “Now you understand why that traitor Ilya had to be eliminated.”
Ilya’s voice sounded in my head suddenly. He’d pleaded with me in his final moments.
“Maxim, please no… Natan made a mistake…”
“You didn’t make a mistake, then,” I stated. The words tasted like gravel in my mouth, but I played it off. I made myself sound unaffected. “He said as much as he pleaded for his life.”
Before I had my people beat him like a pinata. He said he just couldn’t do something and mentioned a little boy.
Christ.
The dread hit me then. So many thoughts fired back at me but not one did I allow to play across my expression. I couldn’t with my adoptive father here.
He studied me again. “The Bratva makes no mistakes. I make no mistakes,” he said, his voice callous, cold. I was usually the same way. It was necessary in the organization. “Gratefully, not all of our people are as foolish as Ilya. Someone found out he was hiding the boy and reported that to me. He was keeping him at a boarding school in Switzerland or some shit.”
Natan never lost his cool.
But when it came to the Novikovs…
He was easily triggered by that topic, and I was the same. Nikolai Novikov was responsible for the murder of my father. He killed my dad, his doctor , because he couldn’t save the man’s wife. He was a man of bloodshed and greed, and Natan had just as many tales regarding his heavy hand. The Novikov Bratva had to end in Chicago…
So the rest of us could rise.
I stared at the photo in my hands, my swallow hard.
“And I thank you for what you did that day. To Ilya?” Natan placed a hand on my arm. “I hoped that traitor’s death would coax whoever was helping Ilya keep the boy safe to come forward. We received a tip Ilya was helping the boy, but we didn’t exactly know where the kid was being kept. Ilya was questioned, but even after his betrayal was found out, he wouldn’t reveal the truth.”
The lining in my throat thickened. “And his death helped revealed the truth? The boy’s location…”
This was obviously true, but I asked anyway.
“Yes, though not without struggle. I had to make a statement so Ilya’s family was also tortured. I had to make it known to anyone who may be helping that traitor what would happen if secrets were kept from me.”
I gripped the photo. “He had a wife and child.”
He was me, just like me.
My father didn’t have to vocalize that torture meant elimination. He took out Ilya’s family.
Again, he made a statement.
This too was normal in our world unfortunately but such savagery regarding a man’s entire family was rare.
Natan’s hand moved to my shoulder. “I had to, son, and doing so got us the information we needed.”
He knew how this affected me. I had a kid myself…
Going for one’s family to gain information wasn’t outside of the norm in our organization but such tactics were more common under the Novikovs. When my father stepped in as pakhan , he made it known the Bratva didn’t do any unnecessary bloodshed.
The torturing and killing of Ilya’s family felt unnecessary, but I didn’t vocalize this, and I wondered why he didn’t ask me to torture Ilya myself for information. The fact he hadn’t made me grip the photo in my hand more tightly.
“Why are you asking me to do this?” I asked but, again, kept my voice even.
“Because you’re the only one I can truly trust to handle something like this, son,” he said, and my head lifted. “Take care of it please and do it quickly. He is a boy and doesn’t need to suffer for the sins of his father.”
And yet, he would die anyway. The punishment always fit the crime, and in this instance, this boy was paying for his father’s sins.
Like the rest of his family had before him.
Sia
Maxim was filling a bag for some reason. He was packing and moving in quick time. The only reason I knew he was packing at all was because I happened to catch him in the middle of it.
“Maxim?” I questioned, and he crossed in front of me. I mean, he barely noticed me at all until I stood in front of him. “Are you leaving?”
“I have to go out of town,” he stated, then proceeded to cross in front of me again when he grabbed a t-shirt off the bed. I’d never seen him so frantic. He’d taken a shower, then immediately started doing this. His shirt was open, and his hair was still wet. He glanced up. “I uh, it’s for work. I have to leave for work I mean.”
“Okay.” I sat on his bed and watched him scurry around for various items. Socks. Toiletries.
Normally, I didn’t come into his room before bedtime, but I hadn’t seen him all day. He never came to find me after his meeting ended, and I did see the guy he’d been speaking to leave earlier. He pulled away in a car with blacked out windows, and I watched him from the window of the library.
I went to find Maxim after that, but I was told by Val that he was in his office making calls all afternoon. It wasn’t unusual for him to work from home, but what was unusual was how frantic he was. He seemed frazzled and completely unnerved.
I placed my hand on the bedpost. “When will you be back?”
“Not sure.”
“Like a day or…”
“Most likely longer.” His bag was packed, and he zipped it. He also didn’t look at me.
My head cocked. “Will it be more than a week?—”
“I said I’m not sure, Sia.”
Having been snapped at, I closed my lips.
Maxim did too, and the last time he’d snapped at me had definitely been before we were fucking. He pushed his hair back with a sigh, and I got off the bed and started to leave the room.
He cut me off.
He placed his hands on my face, strong, warm hands. He didn’t apologize to me, and for some reason, I didn’t fight when he brought me forward.
He kissed me, his lips just as warm and encapsulating as his hands on my cheeks. Maxim was never a man of words. He wasn’t generally tender either but this kiss and his hands on me were.
“I’ll try not to be long,” he said, his finger wrapping around one of my curls. He scanned my face. “Usually work trips don’t take long, but I don’t want to get your hopes up by giving you a timeline.”
Yeah, I didn’t like the sound of that. Especially since he’d had a meeting today with a guy who looked more than ominous.
“Is what you’re going to do dangerous?” I asked, thinking about the unsaid thing in the room. As far as we both knew, he ran funeral homes where he sometimes eliminated people. I still didn’t know why, and of course, I never questioned.
I was smart enough not to.
I wasn’t sure what I expected him to say in response to my question. He’d been quite vocal in the past that I didn’t know who he was. This obviously wasn’t just in the bedroom. He was a different person outside of this house, and I just accepted it.
I had to.
I thought his openness about the more secret things in his life might have changed, though, considering we’d gotten closer, but when he picked up his bag and placed his hand on my cheek, I knew that it hadn’t. He didn’t say anything right away, leaving us in silence for a moment.
He wet his lips. “You text me if you need anything, okay? Val’s been informed to look after you while I’m gone.”
As suspected, he didn’t answer or even acknowledge my question. I folded my arms. “So you’re not going to tell me if what you’re doing could get you hurt. Nice.”
“ Malyshka , I think you know I can’t.”
Actually, I didn’t know that. I mean, could he still not trust me? Really?
He guided me to look at him. “Just wait for me, all right? I’ll try to be back as soon as I can.”
That wasn’t good enough, but I guess I didn’t have a choice but to accept what he was telling me.
He kissed the top of my head before letting me go, and I had a sinking feeling in my chest as he allowed the door to close behind him. I was pretty sure Maxim was in the mafia, and maybe him keeping things from me was less about trust and more about keeping me out of danger. Regardless, I was here and was a part of his life. At least in some capacity.
I felt like the guy I was seeing was going off to war or something, but at least the partner of a soldier in the military knew what they were in for. I had no idea what Maxim was doing or what he was about to do. I had no idea if he could get hurt .
And that fucking terrified me.