23. ANDIE
“Max! Max, let me out!”
I slam my fists against the door, my voice hoarse and tearing in my throat as I do everything in my power to get that bastard to listen to me.
He has been utterly ignoring me since the moment he walked out of here—no food, no water, nothing.
I don’t know exactly what he has in store for me, what he’s planning to now that I’m locked up and entirely under his control, but I’m going to have find some way or another to survive it.
I can’t stop thinking about what he said to me—the way he told me, so harsh, so blunt, that I was going to belong to him.
That this child would be raised as his too.
The thought turns my stomach. I will not—cannot—let that happen.
I know how it feels, to be trapped as a kid by the people who raise you, and even if Max will be able to provide all the luxuries in the world, none of it would come close to making up for the fact that he’s the kind of monster who would steal a child from their father just for…
Just for what? His own ego?
It seems ridiculous that he would put so much on the line just for the sake of sating something so stupid, but then, he has proved himself to be the kind of person willing to act out to get what he wants.
Back in Russia, when we first met, I felt it in him then—the uneasy sensation of knowing that he thought so little of me, and that he saw me as little more than a piece he could move around on the board, the way he thought his brother had too.
Nikolai. Even now, as I slump back against the bed to catch my breath, I don’t know what he’s going to do. After the way we clashed when I revealed the pregnancy, the way he seemed more interested in what this could do for him than what it meant for me.
Our relationship confuses me on such a profound level, I hardly know where to start with it.
Does he really care for me, or is all of this just a game he’s playing where I’m just some unknowing pawn?
He has already shown himself willing to force my hand to get what he wants, and while I can only hope that he has somewhat changed his mind on that matter since we’ve grown closer, there’s no way to tell for sure.
Especially since I’m the one who walked out of that house.
Fuck, if I could turn back time, I would stay there, tucked up in that bed, pretending that the outside world didn’t exist.
And I would make sure that I kept my baby and myself safe, in any way I could.
Even if that place was suffocating, at least I would know for sure that nothing would happen to us. At least I knew that we would be safe.
I can’t stop thinking about what Nikolai makes of all of this. He must know by now, that I got out of that house and am long gone. Did he see me being snatched up, or does he just think I grew tired of it and moved on of my own accord?
As much as things have been tough between us, as much as I have felt suffocated in that place, I would never have turned around and left him behind. Not without at least trying to work things out. Not with the child now in the equation between us.
God knows that nothing about the way we came together has been conventional, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do everything in my power to make certain Nikolai has a chance to know his child.
What kind of person would I be, if I forced him out of his own infant’s life?
No matter what kind of person he is, he deserves a chance to know his child, at the very least, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how crazy things get.
I press the heels of my hands into my face, drawing in a long, deep breath and trying to calm myself. I wait for the tears to fall, but none do. I’m too exhausted for that. Too dehydrated. I just pray that this stress and pain is not reaching the baby.
I’m sorry, little one, I really am. I’ve been talking to them a lot, as much as I know they can’t hear me, couldn’t understand me even if they did. I just need to know that they’re there.
For now, at least.
Suddenly, my ears prick as a strange sound emerges from the other side of the door. I drag myself to my feet once more and press my ear to the wood, straining to make out what’s on the other side. I frown—at first, I can’t hear much at all, maybe a few footsteps, some brief movement. And then?—
And then there comes a crash so deafening that I fall back from the door in shock. Voices overlap each other. One Max, one?—
No. It can’t be. Can it…?
“Nikolai!” I scream out, flattening my palms and banging them against the door.
Is it him? Really him? I can hardly let myself believe it, but if it is, this is as close as I’m going to come to him, maybe ever again in my life.
I have to do everything I can to try and attract his attention.
A glimmer of hope, the first that I’ve felt in a long time, rushes through my system, and I force another cry out from my aching, shredded throat.
A commotion is taking place outside the bedroom, and I wish more than anything that I could see what’s going on out there.
Is he okay? Is he going to be alright? Is Max prepared for him, ready to take on any kind of attack, or is he so overwhelmed with getting me and the child back that he has let himself become sloppy?
Someone slams into the door and it buckles in the frame.
I hear the clatter of something hitting the floor, and then the sickening thud of fists beating down on flesh.
I try to call out Nikolai’s name again, but the words falter on my tongue, and all I can do is pray and pray and pray that he’s the one delivering the blows, not taking them…
Finally, I hear him speak to me.
“Andie!”
“Nikolai, I’m in here!” I tell him urgently. “I—Max has the key?—”
“Stand back,” he orders me, and I leap back from the door, biting down hard on my lip as I wait for him to do what needs to be done.
And he makes no effort to hold back, slamming what sounds like his entire body into the door over and over again.
It buckles, cracks, groans, but holds—until finally, with an enormous splintering sound, it tears off the hinges and falls inward.
“Andie,” Nikolai growls, and he practically lunges toward me, wrapping me in his arms and pulling me against him tightly.
I clutch his shirt, hardly able to believe this is happening, breathing in the scent of him like it’s the only thing that matters. He’s here. He is really, actually here. I dig my nails into his shoulders, clinging to him so tight it feels like we will never be pulled apart again.
This man, my savior, the father of my child—the one who has come for me and found me against all the odds. I don’t know if anyone has ever gone this far before to prove themselves to me, and I am beyond grateful, grateful in a way I doubt I’ll ever be able to express.
And then he pulls back and holds my face in his hands, studying me as though determined to make sense of the state I’m in. “Are you okay?”
No favorite trope tonight? A random find can be better anyway.
Type Lokepub into Google and see what turns up.
“I’m fine,” I whisper. “I—I need to eat and drink, but other than that…he didn’t hurt me.”
His eyes darken, and he looks back over his shoulder. I sneak a glimpse behind him and see Max slumped against the far wall, blood leaking from his lip, out for the count.
Nikolai moves to block the sight from my view. “He came at me with a knife,” he explains. “I had to deal with him?—”
“Is he dead?” I ask. I hardly dare to whisper the words, the thought of what they might mean almost more than I can take.
He shakes his head. “Not yet,” he replies darkly. “But he will be.”
I’ve never heard that tone in his voice before, the searing, furious anger that sounds like venom on his tongue.
I know he’s only as furious as he is because he knows that I’ve been attacked, but still, it scares me.
Reminds me, all too clearly, of how I felt when I first discovered that my brother had died, when I would have done anything in my power to take revenge and make someone, anyone pay for what I had lost.
“Stay here,” he tells me, and he turns to stalk back out and stand over his brother.
He lifts his foot, kicking him hard in the side, forcing a splutter of blood from Max’s lips as he keels over toward the ground.
Red splatters on the ground below, and his eyes are heavy, distant, as though he’s barely there at all.
“Look at me, Max.”
I rush out to Nikolai’s side. I know I should do as I’m told, not stand in the way of whatever is happening here, but I can’t let him do this. No matter what Max has done, I know what it costs to lose a sibling, and I wouldn’t wish that on him, not a chance in hell.
Max forces himself to look up, staring at his brother through hazy eyes. He doesn’t even glance in my direction, and I realize, in that moment, that it was never anything to do with me.
No, this is between them, it always has been. Two brothers trying to prove themselves, and Max thought the only way he would be able to do so would be to take what Nikolai had.
Nikolai draws the gun from beneath his coat, his knuckles streaked with blood, and he lifts it to plant it against Max’s head.
His brother lets out a whimper of terror—pathetic, like a kicked puppy, a far cry from the sneering confidence that he met me with when he had me all locked up.
Facing off against a man with a gun who is willing to use it and a woman trapped with no help of escape, they’re very different things.
I can’t help but feel a shimmer of satisfaction, seeing him like this, feeling the same way I did when he told me what he planned to do to me.
“You think you could take her from me?” Nikolai murmurs. “That you could take my fucking child from me?”
Max doesn’t reply. He strains his head away from Nikolai, closing his eyes. “Just do it,” he snarls. “Get this over with. I don’t want to hear your fucking speeches. I’ve had enough of those in my life already.”
“With pleasure,” Nikolai replies. He cocks the gun—and in the split second before he pulls the trigger, everything seems to slow.
I know Max has done more than enough to earn this fate, and that I shouldn’t so much as concern myself with an attempt to protect him, but—but the thought of Nikolai losing a brother is more than I can take.
The pain of letting someone you share blood with, someone you share a childhood and a family with, die, it’s a hell I wouldn’t want anyone to go through.
Even if Max is a million miles removed from Chris, and shit, my own brother would probably want to see his brains painting the walls right now.
“Don’t do it,” I plead with him.
Nikolai turns to me, looking utterly shocked. “What?”
“Don’t do it, please,” I beg with him. “I—I know he deserves it. I know he does. But I don’t think you do, Nikolai.”
“What are you talking about?” His voice is laced with frustration, clearly longing for nothing more than to put a bullet in his brother’s brain and be done with this once and for all.
“I don’t want you to have to lose a brother,” I tell him softly. “Trust me, it’s not something you want to live with. No matter what he’s done, he’s still your blood. There’s still a part of you in him. And if you kill him, you have to live with being the one who destroyed that.”
Nikolai looks down at his brother.
I hold my breath. I have no idea if he understands what I’m saying, if he believes me, if it’s enough to cut through the furious rage that’s coursing through him right now.
I have never spoken to him about Chris, and he doesn’t understand that I’m speaking from genuine understanding, not just speaking for the sake of it.
I gaze at him, imploring him to hear me, to understand me, to trust me when I tell him that I mean this.
“For me,” I whisper.
And that, at last, seems to cut through into his good sense.
He lowers the gun slowly, and Max lets out a gasp of relief.
He looks stunned, as though unable to understand why I would do such a thing for him.
I wish I could tell him that he’s not worthy of my mercy—that I’m doing this because of my own brother, a man a million times kinder and more loving than he could ever be, and he’s lucky that his memory lives inside me after all this time.
“Get out of the country by sundown tonight,” Nikolai tells him, slipping his gun back into his pocket.
“And don’t come back. I don’t care where you go, but you’re not a part of this family anymore. I’ll tell our father. Don’t ever set foot in our home again, or in America, or anywhere I might see you. Because if I do…”
He grabs Max’s hair, yanking him back. “I will kill you on sight. You hear?”
Max nods. I can tell from the terror in his eyes that he’s going to play by his rules. He knows he’s lucky to have made it this far without a bullet lodged between his eyes, and he’s not going to waste the chance.
Nikolai turns to me. I can tell that he’s still raging inside, but he puts an arm around my waist, pulling me close. “Come on,” he tells me. “Let’s get out of here.”
And with that, he leads me to the door, and out of that nightmarish apartment to the world beyond.