36. Maxim
MAXIM
“What the fuck is this, Anya?”
She leans against the pillows without lowering the gun, relaxed and comfortable in her moment.
The silk of her nightgown glimmers faintly in the dim light.
Her pistol remains steady. Whatever this situation is, she can shoot, and she’s not afraid of me.
“This is the conversation my father was too much of a chickenshit to let us have.”
“Where is Alexei?”
“We’ll get to my father soon.” She tilts her head, her gaze warm and curious, like someone exploring a painting they feel a connection to.
“First, I want you to listen, because you’ve been avoiding me for too long, and I’ve put a lot of effort into making this meeting happen.
If you truly wanted this on your own terms, Maxim, you wouldn’t have told security to keep me out of your office.
So, you have no right to complain about the venue. ”
A man learns more from a talker with a gun than from a corpse, and she wants to talk, so I let her.
“My father’s too old-fashioned, but he’s also incredibly talented and determined. I love him dearly. But I worry he jeopardizes everything he’s worked for because he struggles to see a future that’s any different from the past. Do you want to know what he envisioned for me?” Her mouth curls.
“What?”
“Marry me to Klaus.” She laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
“Marry me to your foolish son like a broodmare to a stallion, uniting the houses through my womb. While men continue to rule, I’m to bear the next generation of men to rule.
A doomed princess in a tower, handed over like property. ”
“How… insulting.”
She nods once. “That’s not the path I see for myself, Maxim. I believe I won’t be just a prize in someone else’s plans. My purpose is to lead the Sokolov empire on my own terms, and to select the man who will stand by my side as I do it.”
“And you have chosen?”
She nods again.
“Congratulations.” I keep my voice flat. “Is this my wedding invitation? I’m flattered you would ask me personally. Where is your father, Anya?”
She smiles, and it is a happy smile, truly happy, which is the most frightening thing her face has done yet.
“He’s currently tied up in the basement—alive, for the moment, gagged, furious, and feeling just as helpless as he’s made me feel throughout my life.
” The smile widens, showing too many perfect teeth.
“Right next to Lev’s body. Consider it a wedding present, my love. ”
Well, fuck. That answers that question.
Her voice goes soft, pleased with itself.
“I laid them side by side for you, the man who wronged Lev and what is left of Lev, so that you can take your revenge with your own hands, and I watch you do it. Is that not romantic? I thought it was romantic. Revenge is better than a dozen roses, don’t you think? ”
The girl is not playing a part. The fact settles coldly into me as I look at her radiant, expectant face. She isn’t bluffing. This isn’t a game to her. This is Anya Sokolov at her most honest. And it’s terrifying.
I’m not sure where to begin. “You have romantic feelings for me?”
“I fell in love with you the day you defied him.” She says it plain, like reciting a fact of geography. “Do you understand how rare that is? Grown men go pale when my father looks at them. Pakhans, killers, senators. They all kneel.”
“The respect comes with the territory.”
“It does.” Her eyes shine. “But you sat across a table from him and told him no, right to his face, and you walked out with your back to him like he was nothing, and you lived. No one does that and lives, Maxim. You did both, and I thought, ‘That’s the only man in this world fit to stand next to me.’ Everything since has been me clearing the road to you. ”
“The men in my house? Was that you?”
“Daddy’s stupid stunt. That’s why I’m handing him over to you.”
“I’m promised to another.” I watch the words hit like shrapnel. I’ve wounded her. But I’m not going to lie about any of this. “You know I’m with someone. We have a child coming, Anya.”
“I know.” The shine in her eyes goes dead in a flash, the lover gone, replaced by a monster. “Why do you think I sent Kirill for her?”
“You said that was your father’s stunt.”
“Most of it was, yes. But I gave the kill order on the girl. Messy, I know, but it should’ve aligned with Daddy’s plans.” She shrugs one silk shoulder. “It’s a real disappointment that she lived. The little bitch is luckier than I counted on.”
“She will not be an easy person to kill, Anya. She’s survived more than you know.”
The smile comes back. “But that’s a solvable problem, my love, and here’s the wonderful part—you have the power to fix it for me. Bring me her head, as your first gift as my husband. Show me and the world that the old life is behind us, and let’s start anew with a fresh, clean slate.”
She’s out of her mind, and she has a gun pointed at me. I’m what stands between Thea and a terrible fate at Anya’s hands. If I’m dead, she won’t hesitate to take cold vengeance on Thea.
I have to survive this… whatever this is.
“Put your gun down,” she says gently. “I’m not an unreasonable woman, Maxim. I only want to be heard.”
I need time to plan an escape, so I have to drag this out. “First, tell me one thing. Did Lev betray me? Was any of that true?”
She rolls her eyes, a girl irritated by a tedious question.
“No, absolutely not. Your Lev was incredibly loyal all the way through, perhaps a bit obsessively so. My father made that part up during a phone call to throw you off, aiming to leave you feeling unprepared and confused instead of calm and careful.” She gestures with the gun, impatient.
“I told him it was beneath us, but he never listens to me.”
At least I have that.
Her patience thins. “It worked, though, after a fashion, didn’t it? Look at you now. Anyway, the gun. Down. You first, and then we talk like civilized people.”
I believe her regarding Lev, which stings in a different manner, because it means that my oldest friend has died a loyal death.
The grief for that will arrive later, if there is a later.
At present, there’s only the gun on my person and the cold assessment of the room, and the assessment says a man cannot cross fifteen feet more quickly than a steady finger moves.
So I crouch, slow, and I set my gun on the carpet, and I do not take my eyes off her.
“Good.” She beams, and pats the mattress beside her, girlish and delighted. “Now, I want to hear everything about the man who defied my father and lived. Tell me who you truly are.”
I’m profoundly disturbed as I position myself on the edge of the bed.
The plan, as it stands, necessitates her composure, and her calmness relies on my cooperation.
I’m halfway down, with my weight shifting and my hand a foot away from the gun on the floor, when the sound of engine rumblings approaches.
There are not just one or two, but many—a rising tide of motorcycles, producing a continuous, flat buzzing sound. There must be dozens. Beneath this, the deeper tone of heavy vehicles as they motor down the long driveway of the Sokolov estate.
Anya quickly leaves the bed, keeping her weapon pointed at me, as she moves toward the window and delicately twitches the curtain with two fingers. “What the fuck,” she breathes. “What is this, what—”
I look past her through the gap, and my heart stutters.
Three dozen sportbikes, pouring onto the grounds in a river of bright colors and black leather. I know those colors. They belong to Sensei. Rolling in among them, a pair of armored SUVs the exact gunmetal gray of my own fleet.
My men. My men and the Yakuza, together, come for me.
I don’t know how they knew or who organized our two organizations into one assault in the space of an hour, and in this moment I do not care.
The cavalry is mine, and the balance of the room has tipped over.
Anya is one gun. What’s coming through that door in the next sixty seconds is an army that answers to me.
Anya glances back and sees it in my face. The girlish glee is gone, and the killer is all that’s left.
I lunge.
The gun goes off. Fire opens along my cheekbone, a hot, bright line. The round punches into the wall behind me.
“I didn’t miss, Maxim,” she hisses, smiling even now. “Don’t worry, my love. I’ll still want you when that scars over. It will suit you. All the best men are a little ruined—“
“This is over Anya—”
“The fuck it is! I have their pakhan. They’ll bow to me before they let me hurt you.”
“My men have strict orders to take down anyone who takes me. They will follow that order. You have no cards to play. Surrender yourself, and I will show mercy.”
She cackles. “You know better than to negotiate from a position of weakness, Maxim.”
“You’re going to lose.”
“You’re going to marry me. Those men are mine. They just don’t know it yet. And I’m going to kill that pregnant bitch—”
The door bursts open.
And Anya wheels toward it and opens fire, the entire magazine without looking, emptying the gun into the shape filling the doorway on pure animal reflex.
The shape is Alexei.
He was pushed through the door, a human shield stumbling into the room. He drops where he stood.
For a half-second, Anya stares at what she has done. “Daddy?”
The men behind him fire past his crumpled body. Anya Sokolov is thrown back against the window, her head ricocheting off the cracked glass, before she falls, too.
It’s over so fast that my mind struggles to catch up.
The room fills. My men, clearing corners in the way I trained, before the others pour in. Yakuza beside them, quiet and precise. A stillness drops over everything as the last echo dies.
Then Chaucer. Then Sergei. And then comes Thea.
My mind just can’t quite make it all fit, can’t make sense of her being here, and it stops trying.
She’s already pushing past the men to reach me.
She rushes across the room, hitting my chest, and I catch her, my face in her hair.
I hold her close, her hands gripping my coat tightly. In that moment, nothing else matters.
“You were supposed to stay,” I rasp. “I told you to stay.”
“Yeah, that was stupid,” she says against my chest. “I don’t work for you anymore. I’m family. We save each other.”