34. Maxim
MAXIM
I drive to Sokolov’s estate knowing it’s a trap.
Lev was bait. I knew it in the corridor with the photograph still lit on my screen. Alexei did not kill my sovetnik in the field by accident. He did not display his mangled corpse for shits and giggles.
He sewed his lips shut while he was alive to make it harder to scream when he was ripped open. He tortured Lev to torture me, and he did that so that I would come.
A visceral invitation he knew I would not turn down.
Alexei knows me. The years taught him the one lever that moves me without fail. He saw what happened when I lost Irina. He knows how I am when I lose the people I love.
He’s pulled that lever tonight. Many times.
Whether Lev betrayed me, I will likely never know now.
That’s the cruelty inside the cruelty. Alexei has always been fond of his games.
That’s where his daughter gets it from. The hankering to toy with people like a cat with a mouse.
The Sokolovs’ most shared trait is not their hair color or skin tone or taste in wines. It’s ruthlessness.
It does not matter. I’m ending this today.
Thea’s safe with two of my best and a promise sworn on my child. My men have their instructions for her. The accounts, the papers, and the standing watch.
Lawyers will guide the rest.
Niklaus is beyond my help now, in the hands of machines and a hospital of experts, and there’s nothing a father can do for a son on a ventilator except make the man that shot him pay in full.
It might have been Kirill’s bullet, but he was Alexei’s pet monster, which makes him the man who shot my son.
Whatever becomes of me past this hour is immaterial. The newest heir is provided for. The woman is provided for. She’ll see to it that Niklaus is taken care of, should he live. She’ll take care of everyone.
If anyone can, it is Thea.
That’s why I came alone. Not grief, though there’s grief. Not pride. Simple mechanics. One man slips where six men are seen, and I don’t need to survive this. I only need to finish it.
I park the car half a mile away from the road, under a cluster of trees. I then proceed on foot, walking slowly along the tree line, staying within the shadows as much as possible.
I’ve known Alexei’s estate for years. Long ago, I sent occasional scouts to spy on it.
The last time was six months ago. I memorized Sokolov’s estate floor plans and land maps.
The wall heights, sensor gaps, guard schedules, and the soft northeast corner where the old drainage runs beneath the fence.
I learned everything, but I swore never to act on this knowledge because doing so would mean war.
I understand now that I was already in one. Have been for a month.
The war didn’t wait for my declaration, nor did it seek my permission or make any announcement. It started suddenly in my blind spot while I was congratulating myself on restraint, thinking I was maintaining peace.
Lev always pointed out my naivety. And he died for it.
Alexei was already at war with me even as I hesitated to permit it. As if he sought my permission to be at war. Call it ego, call it foolishness, it does not matter now. That’s the lesson of this night, and I’m learning it too late to count.
The first guard is at the tree line, bored, warm in his coat, certain the trouble will arrive by the front gate like a gentleman.
I’m many things, but not a gentleman.
He doesn’t have time to learn how wrong he is before my blade is across his throat, and I’m carefully lowering him into the leaves without a sound.
I take his radio and his sidearm as he bleeds out, eyes wide, face surprised.
He could use the radio to signal someone or fire a shot in his last moments.
That kind of thing will cut this war short.
Can’t have that.
The second is by the boathouse, watching the black water. He walks around the small building, likely expecting a view of the trees. His neck is broken instead.
The third leans against the garden wall with a cigarette he should not be smoking.
Cigarettes offer a smoke trail to anyone looking for targets.
I climb the low end of the garden wall, and belly-crawl my way through low tree branches until I reach him.
My blade is sharp enough to plunge straight into his skull from above.
As ways to die go, at least this is quick. Hired hands should not suffer a long death. They are not the cause of my problems, and I’m saving my creativity for their boss.
I pass through them like floodwaters infiltrate a house, searching for gaps, navigating angles. Silent, relentless. I feel nothing as I do it. This emptiness is what Alexei invited into his home by attacking me and mine.
This is what he wanted, and I’ll give it to him.
All that remains within me now is coldness. I enter the house through a service door I’ve known for six years. Inside, the space is dark, vast, and smells of cigars and old money. I start the slow process that works. Clear a room, close a room. Next.
The study. The dining hall, long as a bowling lane. A sitting room full of ugly gold furniture, a library that insults the name. Some have men. Some don’t.
None do after I’ve cleared it.
But it’s odd. Most rooms are empty. Empty and dark and waiting.
Where are his people? A house of this size easily employs thirty staff members. Either they’re absent because he does not wish witnesses or because he is fully aware of who is arriving and has prepared the premises accordingly.
Either reason should turn me around. But that’ll never happen, and we both know it.
A part of me senses the wrongness. Despite this, I climb the stairs because what I’m seeking isn’t on this floor. I’ve emptied it out. Another six men on my red ledger.
Ascend the grand staircase, proceed down the long, carpeted corridor, and reach the double doors at the end that lead into Alexei Sokolov’s bedroom.
I gently open one door. Inside, the room is dark, with curtains blocking out the daylight.
The air feels quiet and close, filled with the smell of him, cigars, and cologne.
Against the far wall, on the massive bed, there’s a shape—a person-shaped lump under the heavy covers, still and breathing calmly.
Sleeping like a baby.
The man who barged into my house, threatened the woman I love with a gun, shot my son, and tortured my oldest friend. He sleeps like a man who believes he has already won.
My gun rises, finger on trigger. It would be easy and fast—three rounds through the blanket—to end what ruined my night, my son, and my oldest friend. But I stop myself.
Fast is not what I drove here for. Fast is a mercy. Alexei Sokolov will receive no mercy from me. Not ever.
I need him awake. I want to see the fear in his eyes, the moment he realizes all his men are dead, and that the bait was useless. I want him to see that the man he should have buried first has walked through his entire house unscathed to stand at the foot of his bed.
I want him to realize I didn’t kill him in his sleep for a reason. I’ve earned his terror across this ruinous night, paid for it in blood not mine to spend. I will have it before anything else.
My footsteps remain silent in the dark room. Thick carpet helps. With my gun leveled steady at the shape in the bed, I take the edge of the heavy covers, and I fling them back, hard, to wake him into his own death and let him see my face while it arrives.
Perfume wafts through the air, and in the dark, my eyes make out the wrong shape.
Anya Sokolov, in a pale silk nightgown, propped on the pillows, wide awake, and not startled in the least. Pistol already up, aimed at the center of my chest. Smiling.
“Maxim,” she purrs. “I always knew I’d get you in my bed.”