Chapter 4 – Maxim
Eleanor’s words echoed in my head as I walked away from the basement room. “He won’t come. My father doesn’t give a shit about me.”
The conviction in her voice had been absolute, backed by a bitterness that spoke of years of disappointment. That kind of pain couldn’t be faked, which meant my carefully constructed plan might have a fundamental fucking flaw.
I’d kept my sentences short during our conversation.
Cold. Strategic. Tactical. But keeping that edge wasn’t easy.
She was wearing too little, a tank top barely covering her cleavage, and shorts barely covering her ass.
My eyes kept catching where they shouldn’t.
Her skin seemed spellbound to me, pulling my focus no matter how much I fought it.
My body reacted before my mind could stop it. My jaw clenched. My gaze dipped. I told myself to keep control, to keep my head in the game, but every second felt like my grip was slipping.
I cut the conversation short before it could slip completely and walked out fast.
I reached the top of the basement stairs and nearly collided with Anya. My sister stood in the hallway with her arms crossed, those sharp hazel eyes boring into me like she could see straight through to my soul.
“We need to talk,” she said, her voice carrying the kind of authority that reminded me she wasn’t the scared little girl I’d pulled from our burning house years ago.
“Later. I have calls to make.”
“Now, Maxim.” She blocked my path, all five feet seven inches of controlled fury. “You don’t get to bring your war into my home and expect me to just accept it.”
Anya had always hated the Bratva, blamed our criminal life for everything that had gone wrong. She wasn’t entirely wrong about that either. Our parents were dead because of this world, because of choices I’d made and debts that had come due in blood.
“This is temporary,” I said, trying to move past her.
“Bullshit.” She stepped sideways, still blocking me. “You kidnapped an innocent woman and brought her here. You made me complicit in whatever sick revenge fantasy you’re playing out.”
“She’s not innocent. She’s William Beaumont’s daughter.”
“She’s twenty-one years old, Maxim. She designs fucking clothes for a living. Whatever sins her father committed, they’re not hers to pay for.”
The worst part was that Anya was right. Eleanor had nothing to do with Prague, nothing to do with the ambush that had left good men dead and my partner bleeding. But William Beaumont’s sins were about to become his daughter’s problem, whether she deserved it or not.
“I need you to bring her food,” I said, changing the subject. “No one else goes down there. No outside eyes in the basement.”
“So now I’m your jailer?”
“You’re my sister. And this house is the safest place I could think of for her.”
Anya’s laugh was as bitter as winter wind. “Safe? You don’t get to put blood under my roof and call it safety, brother.”
But she would do it anyway. Anya loved me, had always loved me, even when my choices made her hate everything I represented. Family was family, and blood was thicker than morality in our world.
“Two days,” I said. “Maybe three. Then this is over.”
“And then what? You kill her father and let her go? You think she’ll just forget what you did, go back to her fashion shows, and pretend none of this happened?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Hadn’t thought that far ahead, if I was being honest. The plan had always ended with William Beaumont on his knees, begging for mercy he wouldn’t receive. What happened to Eleanor afterward was a problem for future Maxim to solve.
I left Anya in the hallway and made my way to the office I maintained in the house. Lev and Cassandra were waiting for me, both wearing expressions that told me they’d been watching the basement feed.
“Interesting conversation,” Lev said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Girl’s got fire. Most people would be pissing themselves by now.”
“She called you a monster,” Cassandra added, her dark eyes dancing with barely suppressed laughter. “To your face. And you just…walked away.”
“What was I supposed to do? Beat her unconscious?”
“We’ve seen you kill men for less,” Lev pointed out. “Remember that asshole in Detroit who called you a Russian dog? You put two bullets in his head before he finished the sentence.”
I flipped them both off and moved to my desk. “This is different.”
“How?”
“She’s leverage. Dead leverage is useless.”
But even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. I’d killed people for disrespect before, turned minor slights into capital offenses. The fact that Eleanor’s words hadn’t triggered that same response was…noteworthy.
“Right,” Lev said, drawing the word out like he was talking to a particularly slow child. “Leverage. That’s why you’re making excuses.”
“I’m not making excuses.”
“Then why do you keep checking the basement feed?” Cassandra gestured toward the monitor on my desk, where Eleanor’s room was displayed in high definition. “You’ve looked at that screen six times since you walked in here.”
“Security check.”
They both burst out laughing at that, the sound filling the office like gunfire. Lev actually doubled over, wheezing with the effort of containing his mirth.
“Security check,” he gasped. “That’s good. I’ll have to remember that one.”
“Fuck you, both of you.”
But I couldn’t deny their point entirely. I had been checking the feed more often than necessary, telling myself it was tactical awareness when it was probably something else entirely. Eleanor was an unknown variable in my carefully ordered world, and unknown variables made me nervous.
At least that was what I told myself.
***
The next two days passed in a blur of phone calls and planning. William Beaumont hadn’t responded to my initial message, which could mean several things. Either he was planning his response, didn’t care enough to negotiate, or hadn’t received it yet due to his various security protocols.
I found myself checking the basement feed more frequently, always with some excuse about security or tactical assessment.
Eleanor spent most of her time reading magazines that Anya brought her, occasionally pacing the room like a caged animal.
She’d adapted to her situation with remarkable composure, accepting her circumstances without the hysterics I’d expected.
It was past midnight when I finally allowed myself a moment to breathe. The office was empty, Lev and Cassandra having gone home hours ago. I leaned back in my chair and looked at the monitor, telling myself it was just a final security check before bed.
Eleanor was lying on the bed, reading what looked like a fashion magazine.
She’d changed into a hoodie that was too big for her, probably one of Anya’s, with bare legs stretched out across the expensive sheets.
She looked younger like this, more vulnerable, less like the defiant woman who’d called me a monster to my face.
I watched her turn a page, completely absorbed in whatever article had caught her attention. For a moment, she looked almost peaceful, like she was reading in her own bed instead of in a basement prison.
The realization hit me like a cold slap: I was already in deeper than I’d planned.
This was supposed to be simple. Take the daughter, use her as leverage, make William Beaumont pay for his crimes. Clean, efficient, surgical. But somewhere between Eleanor’s bitter laugh and her absolute conviction that her father wouldn’t come for her, the plan had become complicated.
She was more than just a tool now. More than just leverage in a game of revenge.
That was dangerous thinking. The kind that got people killed in my line of work.
I forced myself to look away from the monitor, to focus on the files spread across my desk. Plans within plans, contingencies for every possible outcome. This was what mattered. Not Eleanor’s laugh or her defiance or the way she looked curled up with a magazine.
William Beaumont was going to pay for Prague. That was the only thing that mattered.
Everything else was just noise.
But as I tried to focus on the paperwork, my eyes kept drifting back to the monitor. To the woman who was supposed to be nothing more than a means to an end, but who was rapidly becoming something much more complicated.
I was fucked, and I knew it.
The question was whether I cared enough to do anything about it.