Chapter 49
CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE
Maxim
“Maxim?”
Sia’s voice was in the back of my mind as I started my Mercedes. I kept cars hidden away for times like this, escape. My garage on the outer most reaches of my property hadn’t been tampered with.
We barely got there.
There’d been another shoot out in the end. Natan’s men had chased us, but Sia and I got away. I had home field advantage.
Val hadn’t been so lucky.
My head of security followed us, but we’d been separated. She told me to go on since I had Sia, but I lost her in the fray. I was sure she was fine. Val knew how to handle herself.
She would be fine , and as I put my car into drive, Sia grabbed my arm. “Maxim, we have to go back. Maxim!”
My fiancée’s voice was more urgent now, but at least she was talking to me, touching me. I shook my head. “We can talk after I get you safe, Sia.”
And going back wasn’t an option. Honestly, I had no other thoughts besides getting her out of the area. We had minutes before my father’s men caught wind of us, seconds.
Sia tugged my arm again. “Maxim, we talk now. Maxim!”
“ Malyshka— ”
“Maxim, they have my brother!”
Her words sobered me, and I finally faced the woman I loved. She had a cut above her right eye. No doubt from the glass as we escaped.
My stomach rolled I had been the culprit of that, and people would pay for her blood that was spilt. This would have to be later. I needed to get her safe. I had to.
Sia blinked down tears. “Maxim, they have my brother. We can’t just leave .”
But couldn’t we? We could, and I intended to. My daughter was safe, and she knew the escape route to the main roads. I’d trained Lettie on the tunnel system I’d built in the safe house since she was a kid. She knew the procedure. She was to remain there until she heard from me, which she did when I pressed a button on my watch. I was safe, and she was too when she pinged me back on her own smart watch.
I peeled my gaze away from Sia; it was hard to look at her now. She did look so much like her mother.
How could I have missed this?
I was a hunter, tracker, but even I hadn’t picked up on her connection to Nikolai Novikov. Sia’s mother, Keena, was the second wife to Nikolai after his first had died in childbirth. It was that death that set off a chain of events that affected my entire life. My father was Nikolai’s family doctor. He’d delivered Sia’s three sisters, and though the last had survived childbirth, the mother obviously hadn’t.
Nikolai had taken out that death on my father, and it was something I had to live with even after Nikolai’s own death. It stuck with me long after my revenge. How could it not?
It haunted me today, my enemy present in the eyes of the woman I loved. She did have Nikolai’s eyes. She really did.
I faced away from Sia, my hand white on the steering wheel. “We have to, Sia. I have to get you safe.”
“Maxim, they have him...” So many tears poured down her cheeks, her voice strained. “Please. Please, they have him. They have him and Lettie and Val.”
“We’re going to rendezvous with Lettie,” I said, unable to look at her tears. They’d break me if I allowed them. “I’ve already contacted her. She’s safe, and Val will be fine.”
I couldn’t guarantee the latter, but my friend knew her shit.
My friend.
She really was. She’d gone with me. She chosen this ride even though this would draw a line for her against Natan. She showed her loyalty, and that shit meant so much.
Val could take care of herself, and the two of us had our own procedures for times like this. We had rendezvous points too, and we’d use them once we heard from each other. We had steps, plans, and things would be okay.
I refused to believe anything else. I couldn’t. I’d go mad, and as far as Sia’s brother, I had thoughts on that too. I bared my teeth. “In regards to your brother Andre, we’ll go back for him. I’ll go back for him after I get you and Lettie safe.”
“Andre?” Her mouth parted. I forgot she hadn’t heard his name. Natan never said it, and he was actually her full brother. They shared the same mother, Keena.
I nodded. “I’ll go back for him. I promise, but I need to get you and Lettie out of here.”
I was only thinking a few moves ahead, and right now, getting her and my daughter safe was priority.
“It might be too late by then,” she said, whispered. She hugged her body. “He said he’d kill him if you took me.”
Natan did but I also knew my father. He needed this boy as leverage right now, and if Andre was off the table, there’d be no room for negotiation.
“He won’t. I know my adoptive father. He’d need the boy to maintain the status quo. He won’t harm him. Not yet.”
“The boy…” She whispered that too. She shook her head. “Is that all he is? A kill? A vendetta?” She blinked down more tears. “Is that all I am?”
I tensed, hard not to. “Of course not.”
I said this but I’d be lying if I said her statement would have been false mere months ago. Had I not actually known Sia, fallen in love with her, she might have been shrunk down to that. The fact of the matter was she was the daughter of the man who killed my father.
I dared to look at her now and was so frustrated she placed herself in harm’s way. She should have never come back to the house.
“Why did you come back to the house, Sia?” I asked, then reached for her. My fingers brushed her arm, but when she winced I pulled away. I frowned. “I won’t hurt you. You don’t have to be scared of me.”
She said nothing, swallowing. “You killed my father,” she said, and my throat thickened. “He said you had so I came back to learn the truth. I had to know the truth…”
The truth.
“Why don’t I remember anything?” she asked, finally facing me, and the anguish in her eyes, the betrayal, sliced me in half. I’d been physically sliced before, and it felt nothing like this. “I don’t remember anything. I remember nothing about my family.”
She had been young. I faced the road. “You hit your head on the day of your father’s death?—”
“You mean his murder .” Her eyes were red, glassed. “You killed him, Maxim, and then you went after me . Someone you thought was me.”
I’d done that too. My hand gripped the wheel. “I had to do what needed to be done. I did it to protect you, finished the job I was assigned to protect my family. Natan would have come after all of us. He did.”
“And you realize how that sounds?” She sat back in her seat. “You wanted to keep me safe, but you literally killed someone you thought was me. Then there’s my dad?—”
“He’s not.” The words came out before I could stop them, her eyes flashing at me. I faced her. “That man didn’t deserve you to acknowledge him as your father. He killed my father , Sia, for fuck’s sake!”
“And what did my mom and sisters do?” She angled forward, her hand shaking when she touched her chest. “What did Andre and I do? You had a hand in all of it, Maxim. You and the organization you belong to destroyed my entire family.”
We had, and she was right. I kept my focus on the road. “The sins of your father destroyed your family, malyshka ,” I said, and I was weak then. I didn’t look at her reaction to what I said so boldly, coldly.
Again, I was weak.
“Maxim…”
Sia’s voice came again not long after our drive into the backroads. She’d cried herself into silence, her whimpers against the door. I had to steel my heart against them. I had to in order to get her out of here and get to my kid.
I didn’t even have to look at her to know why she called my name. We hadn’t been driving long through the labyrinth of woods, and though I knew I only had moments to get us on a clear path, I thought we’d have longer than a few stretches of road.
I was wrong.
Dozens of vehicles blockaded the road ahead, dark Range Rovers with blacked out windows.
“Fuck!” I cut, peeling between two trees. The wheels labored and burned on brush. I darted ahead only for my path to be blocked again. More Range Rovers with dark windows.
Sia grabbed the door when I rerouted again. I think she screamed or at least called my name.
I’m getting you out of here.
I would, even if I had to sacrifice myself. There wasn’t a scenario in which the woman I loved would die today.
I would die first.
“Maxim, they’re everywhere,” Sia shrieked, her voice strained. “Maxim!”
We were forced to stop when we were suddenly surrounded. There was no way to go forward or back…
Only through.
I intended to do that, telling Sia to hold on, but I hesitated slightly when Natan stepped into the road, his hands deep in the pockets of a gray wool coat. His dark hair fanned in the breeze, and I shut off my heart again. There was only one way to go, and I revved up the engine of my Mercedes.
Sia shook her head. “They’re going to kill my brother. You have to stop.”
I told her he’d be fine, though I couldn’t guarantee that. “ Malyshka , we have to go on. He will be safe.”
“You can’t know that! You can’t. You…” She faced the road, her tears falling again. This shit was gutting me, but I couldn’t stop.
I refused.
I revved up the engine once more, and the only reason I didn’t shift into drive was because of what Sia said next. She screamed it, her voice drumming in my ear.
It did until I listened.
She was panting next to me, crying. She rubbed her eyes. “If you don’t stop all of this and allow the only family I have alive on this earth to die, I will hate you. I will hate you forever, Maxim. You need to stop .”
I couldn’t see past what she said. I couldn’t not hear it. She said her brother was her only family.
Which meant she denied anything else.
Despite all the stakes and all that happened between us, I reached for her again, and this time, she shook her head. I wasn’t allowed to touch her. I wasn’t allowed to have her.
She got out of the car before I could stop her, and there was no shake in her body when she did. She braved that shit out and left the vehicle. She put her hands up in front of dozens of armed men, and I ran after her.
Guns drew. Pistols were everywhere, including my own. Natan had one out as well, and he kept it aimed on Sia.
The blood in my veins turned to ice.
“Natan, if you ever cared about me at all, let this go.” I’d never asked for anything from my father. Not a thing. If he could just give me this one… I put my gun away, lifting my hands. “Take me. Let Sia and her brother go?—”
“If I go with you, will you stop?”
My eyes flashed, and Natan’s did too.
Sia swallowed. “If I go with you, will you let Maxim leave? You don’t go after him.” She put her hands on her chest. “You take me, and you let him and Lettie go. You leave them alone.”
I stepped forward. “Sia?—”
“You have my word.” Natan snapped his fingers, and all the guns were put away. All but my own when I lifted it. Natan shook his head. “Your fiancée’s made a deal, son. It’s an admirable one, and you should honor it.”
He wouldn’t take her. He wouldn’t have her , and I reached for her arm. “ Malyshka ? — ”
“I’m not going with you, Maxim,” she said, her arm snapping away before I could touch her. She lifted her head. “I don’t want to go with you.”
She didn’t want to?
She blinked back a tear. “Go get Lettie. Get out of here and get her safe.”
I would get her safe, but I needed her . “Baby, please.”
I’d never pleaded with anyone before today, and I already had twice. She couldn’t leave me.
And yet, she was.
My father kept his eyes on me as he took the woman I loved. She didn’t want me, and that felt colder than the snow on my knees when I dropped to the ground. It started to snow after they left.
Both the world and mine froze around me.