Chapter 54
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
Maxim
“You got five minutes, Maxim. If someone sees you, I didn’t.”
I still had friends amongst the Brotherhood. People I’d saved or done right by.
I nodded at the latest after what he’d said. His name was Sasha, and I’d had him over for dinner more than once.
All that would be gone now. I’d have to leave the country with my family.
I knew where they were holding Sia. Besides being able to track her phone, I cashed in a few more favors amongst the Brotherhood. Friends told me exactly where she was being held, and I also knew her brother was being held somewhere in the building.
I found him first.
He was in a holding cell underground, and though Sia wasn’t there, he wasn’t alone.
“Val,” I signed as I said her name, rushing over. She was laying on a stone bench, and the boy beside her appeared absolutely terrified.
His likeness to Sia was uncanny.
I saw that now that I knew the facts. There’d been similarities in his picture of course, but I just hadn’t seen the connection.
I actually had to swallow upon seeing him in real life, and, backing away, the young man hit the wall. He probably didn’t know whether I was a friend or foe.
I showed him my allegiance as I moved to study Val’s injuries. She was covered in blood, and I pulled in a breath when I lifted her makeshift bandages. She’d bled through a coat and shirt combination, but the bleeding from her wound did appear to have stopped.
“Val,” I said, and she lifted her hands.
“ It’s just a flesh wound, Boss ,” she signed, her smile wobbly. “ You have to get Sia .”
“Where is she?” I asked. I was told she’d be in this room. I faced Sia’s brother. “Where is your sister, kid?”
He blinked, but, as I attempted to lift Val, he helped me.
“They took her,” he said, grunting when we both managed to get Val on her feet. She was one of the strongest people I’d ever known; not only did she carry her weight with a clear fucking bullet wound, she took steps.
“Took her where ?” I gritted, guiding Val toward the door with the kid. I knew who he was, and he obviously knew that I knew.
“ Natan ,” Val ended up signing, and we had to rest once we got out of the holding cell and against the wall. She lifted her hands. “ She demanded to see him and get help for me. Foolish girl. ”
Foolish indeed, but that was Sia. If Val was suffering, she wouldn’t have taken that lying down.
I wouldn’t let my thoughts linger on whatever situation she decided to walk into because in that next moment, I was making Sia’s brother look at me. I knew he was only a kid, but he was going to man the fuck up today. Val’s and Sia’s lives depended on it. “Kid, can you hold her weight?”
“Andre,” he said, and I nodded.
“Andre, can you hold Val’s weight?”
He did, pushing himself under her arm. Val sucked in a large breath again, but I knew she’d be okay. Her wound was a clean through shot, and her bleeding had stopped. She had time.
It was Sia I didn’t know about.
Don’t think that.
I wouldn’t even entertain the possibility of something happening to her, my stomach goddamn tight. Once I knew Andre had Val, I left her to him.
I put a hand on Andre’s arm. “I need you to help her get to my car. You follow this hall. Take two rights, and then a left. Your path will be clear for at least five minutes.”
I’d cleared it. I cut through anyone who’d been in my way. I hadn’t wanted to shed the blood of people I had considered friends, but my father left me no choice.
I squeezed Andre’s shoulder. “You need to be strong, okay? I’m going to get your sister. You leave her to me. You get Val to my car. You’ll see it right outside, then you sit. You wait.”
He nodded. His dark eyes made me cringe because they did look so much like my fiancée’s.
“Tell her thank you,” he said before I left, and I shook my head.
I told him he’d thank her himself once I saved her.
As promised by Sasha, my path remained clear, and though I didn’t know where I was going, my father resided dominantly in two places in his large brick home. One place he liked to dwell was his bedroom.
The other was where I found his body.
I saw him first. He had a shard of wood in his chest, and his eyes were open. He was bleeding out in the middle of his office’s floor, and the only reason I didn’t take anything else in inside the room was because of the shock of that.
“Maxim…”
If I hadn’t seen him, I would have seen her first. Sia was also on the floor, bleeding out…
I rushed over to her, stumbling. She was caked in blood, and I gathered her up, hugged her to me. I touched her face. “Baby, baby. Baby…”
I was shaking, and she gasped when I searched for the source of her wounds. Her brown skin was so pale, ashen.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, trembling. Thinking I found the source of her wound, I ripped her shirt to study it. She winced. “I tried to buy us time. I tried to buy Andre and Val time.”
I forced the shake out of my hands, making myself look at the wound. She’d been shot in the stomach, and it wasn’t a graze.
I covered it, picking her up in my arms.
“Maxim, I’m sorry. I stabbed him but not before he pulled out a gun.”
She did that to my father?
My brave malyshka .
She managed to take down the leader of the Chicago Bratva. She did that while shot.
“Don’t apologize, baby. Save your strength.” I calmed my nerves by tucking her into me. I needed her heat and she needed mine. “Just breathe and stay close against me.”
I couldn’t really defend either of us with her in my arms, but I’d do what I needed to do.
The woman I loved wouldn’t die today.
Andre and Val were in my car when Sia and I eventually made it outside. Val was in the backseat hunched against the door, and Andre was across from her.
“ Sia? ” Val’s hand motions were weak when I opened the door, but she was stronger than Sia. “ Oh, no. ”
“Sia!” The word ripped out of Andre’s mouth, and he got out of the car when he saw I had his sister. “Oh, God. What happened?”
“Andre, I’m going to need you to drive, okay? You can drive stick shift, right?” I prayed to a god I never prayed to when I asked a teenage boy this question, and I was granted with a gift when he nodded.
I handed him my keys, then remained in the backseat with Sia. I didn’t let go of her, her bleeding body cradled in my arms.
Her frail body trembled. “Maxim…”
“I said to save your strength, baby.” I touched her hands, my head shooting up. “Andre, go now.”
He did, getting us out of there. I directed him twist after twist through the woods, but I didn’t know how I fucking did. I didn’t know how I was still here in my body.
“Maxim, it’s cold,” Sia said, tears pinching out of her eyes. She curled into me. “I’m so sorry.”
Why did she keep apologizing? Why ? It was so brave, what she did. She didn’t even know her brother, and she did that for him, for Val.
I hugged her. I hugged her so fucking tightly. “You did beautifully, okay?” I touched my mouth to her forehead, and I realized I was shaking too. “You were so brave. So very brave, malyshka .”
“Are Lettie and Polly okay?”
I actually had to laugh she was thinking about them right now. She touched my face, and I touched her hand. “They’re both safe, and Lettie’s pissed at you for making her stay in that safe room.”
No one argued when my girl wanted something.
“Are we going to the hospital?” Andre asked from ahead. We were taking the backroads, but we were clear. No one was following us.
Probably because my father was dead.
I made myself stay stone to the fact. It was either us or him. Sia or him. I shook my head. “I have a safe house. We’re going there.”
I’d tend to Sia’s and Val’s wounds there, but we had to go quickly.
“Maxim?”
“Baby, I said to save your?—”
“Natan told me something,” Sia gasped, holding my hand. “It’s about your father. Your real dad.”
I blinked, my hand threading in hers.
She cringed. “He said he convinced my dad to have yours killed. He tricked him.” Her face screwed up again, and Andre glanced back. Sia’s lips turned down. “He’s the reason both our dads are dead.”
Andre’s mouth parted, and my chest locked, tight. In the end, I had no time to react to what she said. Because, in the next moment, Sia’s eyes rolled back.
My heart stopped shortly after that.