Chapter 12
MAKSIM
Isit at the window of my apartment, looking at the dome of the Capitol Building, while I think about her message. I’m a savage because it turns me on. But there’s something more there too. A light, like her name, in the darkness of my soul.
She’s attracted to me. She’s flattered. She wants this more than she knows she should.
Maksim: I don’t live in the land of ‘what if’. I deal with the reality in front of me. Whether that’s business or anything else, I can’t waste my time thinking about what I WOULD do. If you’re flattered, if you want me as badly as I want you, then I’ll deal with that.
Lia: Deal with it? What does that even mean?
Maksim: You know what it means. You just stopped me before I could go all the way.
My manhood stirs. It’s a strange thing, being aware of how messed up something is, but wanting it anyway. But there are shades of darkness. I deal in death, in violence, in seriously depraved things politicians have done.
This is something different. This is almost tame in comparison. I’m a man who’s spent too damn long locked away in my routine, my mind, my position, to ever truly understand what it’s like to be with someone.
Lia: Sex wouldn’t have made any of this more acceptable.
Maksim: You’ve already accepted it. Now you’re just trying to convince yourself and me.
Lia: Oh, so you’re a mind reader now too, are you?
Maksim: Sarcasm can save you sometimes, but not here. I felt how badly you wanted it. I felt all the years pouring out of you, all the repression, all the times you’ve stifled your own desires. I felt that the moment you grabbed me and pulled me against you for a kiss.
Just typing the words out takes me back to the moment, just an hour ago. I remember the way her warm breath felt on my skin, the heat between her legs as they wrapped around me, the feeling of her hot, needy core as I drove my bulge against her through our clothes.
Lia: I did that before I knew you STALKED me.
Maksim: Yes, I stalked you. And I’d do it again. My life is one miserable day after another, and you’re the only light in it. Fucking sue me.
Lia: So, you’re going to act like it was all sweet and innocent? Like you were watching me just to see me smile and pat a patient on the back? Is that it?
Maksim: There were moments of sweetness, of admiration.
I stare across the dark city, the land of the free, the home of the brave.
Maksim: And there were other moments too, moments that were the furthest thing from innocent it’s possible to get. There were times I had to stop myself from crossing a line, watching you lean over the counter, the scrubs clinging to your perfect figure.
Lia: My figure is not perfect.
Maksim: It is. Don’t say things like that. Your figure is flawless, curvy in all the right places. Just thinking about how I sunk my hands into you earlier is putting me on the edge.
Lia: What line? You said you never crossed it.
Maksim: You know what I’m talking about.
Lia: Maybe I need you to say it. I don’t want any more secrets, Maksim.
Maksim: I never let myself go all the way when watching you.
Even when my body was hot and harder than I’ve ever been, even when I knew I could stare at that curvy, beautiful body, and stroke my hand up and down my aching cock, starving to explode inside of you, I never did it. Somehow. I don’t know how.
Lia: Am I supposed to be grateful for that?
Maksim: I’m just giving you an answer to your question.
Lia: Why didn’t you do it?
Maksim: I don’t know maybe because part of me still wants to be a good man. Or pretend to be, at least.
There’s a long pause before she sends another message. I call Anton, checking on security and asking if there’s any news about Daniel—there isn’t—and by the time I’m done, she’s texted back.
Lia: Maybe I find it easier for you to be a bad man.
I swallow, my body stirring.
Maksim: What are you saying?
Lia: You know what I’m saying.
My pole grows solid again, hunger gripping me. My mind goes back to the scene in the kitchen, her legs wrapped around me, beautiful breasts crushed against my chest. My balls are pulsing with the need to empty inside her.
Maksim: I wish I’d kept kissing you. I wish I’d torn off your clothes and pushed your perfect tits together, tasted your nipples until they were tight little buds.
I wish I’d ripped away your shorts and your underwear and rubbed my hand up and down your pussy, smearing your wetness until you couldn’t take it anymore.
I wish I’d watched you come for me, all over my hand, your hips twitching like something else had taken control.
I wish I’d fallen to my knees and tasted you.
I wish I’d taken you right there in the kitchen, spread your legs and fucked you deep and hard and relentlessly.
I’m throbbing, my shaft burning with desire, my heart pounding almost painfully in my chest.
A minute passes, then she replies.
Lia: That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.
Fuck. Did I go too far?
Maksim: I lost control. When I was typing that message, it was like I was there.
Lia: It did its job. I know I’m sending mixed messages.
Maksim: Send me any kind of messages you want, as long as you keep sending them.
Maksim: What do you mean, it did its job?
Another pause.
Lia: Use your imagination… I’m sure you can figure it out.
I clench my jaw so hard it’s a miracle I don’t break something. Oh, fuck.
Maksim: Are you telling me you slipped your hand between your legs and rubbed your soaked pussy after reading that message?
I’m breathing like an unhinged lunatic, my cock harder than it’s ever been before.
Lia: I need you to promise you won’t watch me anymore.
She ignores my question. I picture it anyway, Lia with her hands buried in her shorts, moving furiously, her eyes fixed on her phone. I imagine her breaking for me, soaking her own hand. I hear the filthy, delicious noises.
Maksim: I promise.
Lia: This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you, but thank you. I’m going to try and settle down for the night. I’m exhausted. Please tell me if there’s any news about Daniel.
Maksim: I will. But you still haven’t answered my question.
Another pause, then.
Lia: Yes. I’m only human.
I close my eyes, the image coming to life in my mind. Her hand working away, her hips chasing the movement. I imagine walking in and finding her like that, then stopping her before she can orgasm. Finishing the job for her.
Before I know it, I’m standing in my bathroom, over the sink, my cock in my hand. I close my eyes and pump fast and hard, thinking of her, dreaming of her, almost feeling like it’s the real thing in the final, blissful moments.
The next morning, Nikolai and I are driving to a restaurant owned by Conrad Vale. He hasn’t tried anything since pulling the stunts with our businesses. Now, we’re going to show him how unafraid we are of him.
Nikolai glances over from the driver’s seat. When it’s just us, he always drives. It’s a sign of my position. And a callback to childhood, when I taught him how. Driving is one of the only times we feel like regular people, who do regular things, and not the devils this work has made us.
“Wrong side of the bed?” he asks.
“What?” I snap.
“We’ll find him,” he replies. He must think I’m stressed about losing Daniel before we had a chance to question him. “Or, if we don’t, we’ll find another way.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel.
“What’s up with you?” I say.
“Huh? Nothing.”
“You’ve been skittish for weeks.”
“Rachael and her boy have had some trouble at school. I’m handling it.”
Rachael is a woman Nikolai saved from a trafficker a couple of years ago. He’s still in contact with them. He’s a good guy, my brother, when we’re not being bad.
“Is this the woman troubles you’ve been referring to?”
He looks at me for a moment, then lets his eyes drop. “Nah, that’s something different.”
Did he just lie to me?
I entertain the thought for a second before I push it out of my mind. I can’t think of a single time Nikolai has lied to me. I can’t even imagine it, honestly. We’ve been through too much together.
“Anyway, you’re one to talk,” Nikolai says.
“The fuck you talking about?”
He snorts, smirking at me. “You’re smitten with that girl, brother. I don’t know what’s going on with you two.”
“It’s… a lot,” I mutter.
“Oh, damn. I was just ribbing you. Come on, spill it. I can drive us by a therapist’s office if it would be easier.”
“I’ve done a pretty fucked-up thing,” I say.
He says nothing, just waits me out.
“I’ve spent months watching her on the CCTV system linked to her hospital.
We own the company. For a few minutes at a time, here and there, I’ve been logging in so that I can watch her.
It all started after that attack. The gunshot.
I saw her and… I don’t know. I felt something.
She was confident. She didn’t make herself smaller just because of who I am.
That’s why I insisted on going to the hospital when this first started. ”
Nikolai glances at me, then back at the road. “Holy shit,” he mutters.
“Yeah.”
“You might be even crazier than I am. I always thought you were the level-headed one.”
“I was until relatively recently,” I mutter.
“Are you sure you didn’t get poisoned by that gunshot or something?” he jokes.
I laugh gruffly. “I don’t need a bullet to make me insane.”
“Just a nurse, apparently.”
“I told her last night,” I go on.
His phone vibrates. He snatches it out of his jacket and rejects the call, then replaces it. It’s done that twice since we’ve been in the car already. I’m not going to pry, but something’s going on. Maybe he’s losing his head to a woman too.
“Did she kick your ass to the curb?”
“Sort of,” I mutter, remembering the flurry of texts, the heat we shared, the ache in my chest and in other places. “But she didn’t outright reject me. She made me promise not to watch her anymore. It just got out of hand so fast. I don’t know what it is.”
“I already told you—smitten.”
“Men like us don’t get smitten.”
“Apparently, we do,” Nikolai says, chuckling. “Maksim Volkov, the scariest man in DC—and that’s saying a lot—obsessed with a random woman.”
“Don’t call her that,” I snap. “And don’t make light of it.”
He flinches, then nods. “Sorry, brother. Damn. I didn’t mean it. You care about her a lot, then.”
“She… interests me,” I say. “Everything about her. For months, those stolen minutes made me feel more… hell, I don’t know.”
“No, go on.”
“More human,” I grunt. “More real. Like I might have a chance at a real life. Fuck, I sound like a goddamn stalker. I know that.”
“Newsflash… you don’t sound like a stalker. You are one. But fuck it, we’ve done worse than that.”
“Not to women,” I say.
“Yeah, no shit, but still. You didn’t do anything that bad. What did you mean by sort of when I asked if she kicked your ass to the curb?”
“She knows it’s wrong, but I think there are some feelings there. Or maybe I hope there are, somewhere in this big mess.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen you like this,” Nikolai says. “You should try to make it work.”
We park, then walk into the restaurant. The security guard stares in disbelief as we swagger in. This is a power play, letting Conrad Vale know we can waltz into his businesses any damn time we want and there’s nothing he can do about it.
He can make moves from the dark, but he can’t challenge us openly.
We sit and eat and stare at the security cameras. Ironic. Now, I’m the one being watched.
Later, I check my texts as we wait for Anton to meet us at my office. Lia hasn’t sent anything else since yesterday.
Anton joins us a minute later, a grim look on his face.
“We vetted everyone,” he says. “There are no leaks at the data center.”
“How did Daniel look in the security footage, like someone was pulling his strings?”
Anton nods. “A Vale hand up his ass.”
Nikolai laughs. “We know this already.”
“How did he get access to the building?” I snap, glaring at my brother.
“That phone had an automatic data wipe on it. If the GPS registered it left the building, it was supposed to wipe itself. Considering the trouble that Vale is going to, I’m assuming they somehow disabled that.
How did he know where it was, even? Somebody must’ve leaked something. ”
Anton nods. “I agree, boss.”
“Then find them,” I growl. “There are millions of dollars at stake. The integrity of our organization. Our whole fucking world. And you’re telling me we know nothing?”
“Relax,” Nikolai says quietly. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Somebody must know something.”
“What about Eli?” I demand, referring to the lowlife who tried to attack Lia in the parking lot.
“In bad shape,” Anton grunts. “But still with his mouth shut.” He says this with a note of respect. There’s no question we’d all do the same in these circumstances.
“So, we have nothing,” I say.
“For now,” Nikolai says. “Take a breath. We’ll work this out. We’re clearly missing something important.”
“Clearly,” I grunt.
“We’ve got this, brother,” Nikolai says. “This is bad, sure. But we’ve been through bad before and come out the other side.”
I nod. He’s right.
Moping won’t get us anywhere.
I wave a hand at Anton. “Check again. I don’t doubt your work, but something isn’t right.”
“Yes, boss.”