6. Maksim
Maksim
The building I bought for my newest club is a gutted shell, but I can already see what it will be.
I walk through the massive space, listening to my contractor explain why the load-bearing wall we wanted to move will cost thirty percent more than the estimate.
“I want the wall gone,” I say. “This needs to be open. I know you have options.”
“The rerouting alone adds two weeks to the electrical," Vasily says. He's a good contractor. He’s on the bratva payroll. Rather, Sergei’s wife’s payroll, which is our payroll by association. Or in this case, marriage. The businesses are blending and growing, which is a beautiful thing.
“That’s fine,” I tell him. “We can have columns, but I don’t want a wall.”
He mutters something. I’m difficult, but I know what I want. And I’m good at this.
"Figure it out and bring me a revised number by Friday." I turn and look at the space. High ceilings. Good bones. The bar will run the full east wall. I can see it. "I want to begin the mezzanine framing next week regardless."
Vasily sighs and uses the stylus to tap away on his iPad. Damien drifts over from his spot near the entrance, where he's been standing like a guard dog.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just got a call that the tariff situation has been rectified, and a formal apology was delivered.”
I smile. I’m not the pakhan, but the power of the bratva is mine to wield.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out and glance at the screen.
Her.
I look at the time and feel a little satisfaction. It took less than two hours. I’d have bet three.
The woman is stubborn, but stubbornness only carries you so far in this life. She was never going to make it out there alone. Not with Bekir's people motivated and Arlind's name attached to whatever deal she's tangled up in.
“Hello,” I answer with a smile in my voice.
Silence. I hear shallow, soft breathing.
Every hair on the back of my neck stands up.
"Lila. I move toward the exit. "Are you okay?"
A sound. Not a word. Something between a breath and a cough that tells me the answer is no. Is she hurt? Can she speak?
"Lila, I need you to talk to me." I push through the door, out into the blinding afternoon. I feel Damien behind me. I snap my fingers at him, pointing at the car. He moves. "Can you tell me where you are?"
Another cough. Weak.
"It's okay." I keep my voice calm because panicking helps no one. "You don't have to talk. I'm coming. I just need the phone to stay on, alright? Can you do that for me?"
A sound. It might be yes.
The tracking app is open in my other hand.
I'm holding two phones now, mine and the one I use for monitoring.
The prepaid registered its location when she turned it on as I dropped her off.
I had it preloaded with tracking software before I gave it to her.
Yeah, yeah, I told her I was letting her go, and I did.
But deep down, I knew. I told myself I was just keeping an eye on the situation.
It wasn't surveillance, just me making sure she got out of the city.
I stare at the little dot that tells me she’s in Little Havana. She's not moving.
"I’m coming," I tell her. "I know where you are. Stay on the line."
Damien has the passenger door open by the time I reach the car. I shake my head and go around to the driver's side.
"Maksim, I won’t let you go alone.”
"Get in the other car." I slide into the Porsche. "Keep up."
He looks at the sky the way he does when he's exercising patience and goes to the SUV.
They'll follow. They always do. I have a complicated relationship with security details — I grew up watching my father move through the world surrounded by an army.
I swore I'd never live like that. I'm not Sergei, who carried the weight of succession, or Nikolai, who spent years in his shadow.
I ditched my detail constantly as a kid, and they let me. I knew my place early. I embraced it.
I pull out of the lot and into traffic.
"Still with me?" I ask.
The breathing continues. She's there. Hurt? Or hiding?
"Good." I take a left. The GPS is on the dash. "Don't hang up. Don't move if you don't have to. I'm ten minutes away."
I’m driving too fast for the crowded streets, but I don’t care. I feel an urgency that has no name; the kind that lives in the body before the mind catches up. I've felt it once before, a long time ago, standing there, helpless to do anything about what was happening.
I take a corner so fast that my little car nearly goes up on two wheels. The SUV can’t keep up, but they’ll find me.
The street she's on is narrow and runs behind a row of apartment buildings. There’s a dumpster on one end and a chain-link fence on the other. I see the alley and hit the brakes.
I'm out of the car with the door open and the engine running.
She's sitting against the wall with her knees pulled up and one hand pressed to the side of her face. Relief hits me like a punch that I have no business feeling.
I run to her, not caring what the cracked, wet pavement costs my leather shoes, and crouch next to her, being careful not to crowd.
She looks up at me like she can’t believe I’m there. She’s been beaten. Her eye is an ugly purple with a huge bump swelling above it.
"Easy," I say quietly. "It’s me."
There's blood on her temple. Her lip is split at the corner. Her knees are bleeding. One fingernail is torn far below where it should be and is bleeding as well.
"Can you stand?"
She opens her mouth, but no words come out. I don't wait for her to try again. I slide one arm under her knees, one behind her back, and pick her up. She's lighter than she should be. She protests weakly and pushes against my chest.
"Don't," I tell her. “Let me.”
A tear slides out from the corner of her eye before her head drops against my shoulder. I feel her exhale, long and slow, like she's been holding that breath for too long.
I carry her to the SUV. Damien has the door open.
"Drive the Porsche back."
"Right behind you."
I get in with her and don't put her down. She doesn't ask me to. I cradle her as my security drives back to my estate. I know Damien will have called Cinder. I would have, but my phone is in my car.
Sampson hops out of the passenger seat when the SUV stops. He opens the back door and moves to take her from my arms, but I shake my head.
I carry her into the house. Cinder is standing in the foyer.
She takes one look at Lila and shakes her head.
"Med room."
We all knew this was how this would turn out. Too many years in this life to expect anything different. It’s another sign of Lila’s innocence. I hate it that we were right, but I’m grateful to be carrying a warm, breathing Lila rather than the cold, dead one I expected to find eventually.
I carry her to our med room, which has all the equipment of a clinic. It’s a sign of the life we live.
“Put her down and go away,” Cinder orders.
"Cinder."
"Maksim." She gives me the look. "I have her. Go away."
“Should I call the doctor?”
“Not yet. I don’t think she would want that.”
I set Lila down on the med room table. She's awake. Her eyes follow me, and when I step back, she doesn't look away, which I take as a good sign. She was able to call me. She recognizes me. That’s all good.
"I'll be right outside," I tell her.
She nods. It's small but it's there.
Cinder closes the door in my face.
I pace outside the door. Damien appears with a question on his face.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Random or targeted?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could have just been a mugging,” he says.
“Possibly.”
When the door opens, Cinder steps out and pulls it mostly closed behind her.
"She's going to be okay," she says.
"What happened?"
"They grabbed her off the street. She fought. One of them hit her. They used something to knock her out, but she came out of it faster than they expected. She says she ran and hid in the alley." She pauses. "She's lucky they didn't get her in a car."
I blow out a breath. “So, not random.”
“I don’t think so,” she replies.
“Fuck.”
"She asked for you," Cinder says.
I look at her. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to get her some water and pain meds. Be gentle. That girl has a hell of a story to tell when she’s ready.”
I push the door open and go in.
She's sitting up on the table, which I take as a good sign. There’s a blanket around her shoulders.
Cinder has put a butterfly bandage on the cut at her temple.
Her lip has been cleaned up, and there’s an ice pack in her hand that I’m pretty sure is supposed to be on her eye.
She looks like she's been in a boxing ring.
I pull over the chair and sit, so we're level. I've done this before with women who've been through things. But I’m pissed. Angry she didn’t listen to me. Furious that she could have been killed.
She cries before I can say any of it.
Her eyes fill up and spill over. She drops her head like she’s ashamed to show emotion.
I know better than to move toward her. I stay where I am and let her have space. When she wants my comfort, she’ll let me know.
"My father sold me." I hear the pain in her voice, and I feel it in my soul.
"He owed money to Arlind, and he paid with me.
I was ten. My uncle said it wasn't just the debt.
That something about my blood makes me worth more than money to the right man.
He wouldn't explain it. I don't even know what that means.
" She wipes her face with the back of her wrist. "My mother found out, and she ran with me.
And then they came to Texas and killed her in front of me. "
My heart twists. I know that pain. It takes every ounce of self-control not to reach for her and offer comfort.
She looks at me. Excruciating pain mars her features, but it's not the kind of injury that can be healed with medicine or dulled with painkillers.
"He's been looking for me for nine years," she says. "He wants what he paid for."
I hold her gaze and don't give her anything that looks like pity because she would shut down. I know that much about her.
"I'm sorry," I say, and mean it. The words are inadequate but honest.
She nods once and exhales shakily.
I lean forward with my elbows on my knees and just stay in the space, close enough to offer support but far enough to let her breathe.
"You have to stay here," I say. "Not because I'm telling you to. Because it's the only arrangement that makes sense right now. He knows you're in the city. He knows you don't have resources. Out there, alone, you're a target that's standing still."
She stares at the floor and I watch her think through it. She didn't want to accept the harsh reality the first time around, but she understands now. Her life as she knew it would never be the same.
"Why would you do that?" she says quietly. "You don't know me. Why does any of this matter to you?"
It's a fair question. I've been asking myself why since I first laid eyes on her.
"It's what I do," I say.
She frowns.
"You don't have to understand it,” I tell her. “You just have to accept it. Believe it.”
Lila looks back at the floor. The fight has gone out of her posture. She’s not broken—I don't think she breaks easily—but she’s hollow. Like she used everything she had today, and there's nothing left to argue with.
"Okay," she says so softly I almost don’t hear the word.
"Okay." I get to my feet. “Let’s get you back to your room. Cinder is getting you something to drink.”
I move toward the door.
"Maksim."
I stop.
She's not looking at me.
"Thank you," she says.
“You’re welcome, Lila."