32. Maksim
Maksim
I lie in the dark, listening to her breathe.
Watching the way the morning light falls across her naked body.
The sheets have fallen around her waist. I think about last night.
It was different. I knew it when it was happening, and I know it now, lying here with her hair across my arm and her hand tucked under her chin.
She looked so innocent and peaceful. I knew she hasn’t had a lot of peace in her life.
I want to give her that now.
I ease out from under her carefully, the way I’ve gotten good at doing, and she stirs but doesn’t wake. I stand at the edge of the bed for a second, just looking. The nightmares hit her hard last night. She came back from them and directly into my arms.
She’s so much stronger than she gives herself credit for. I hope someday she realizes it. I’m so fucking proud of her. I carefully pull the sheet over her and resist the urge to kiss her. She needs to rest.
I get dressed in the closet and find Damien downstairs with coffee. He’s got a look on his face that promises I’m going to have a very bad day. I could tell him to hold off. Give me a second to process.
But that doesn’t make it go away.
“Tell me.” I pour my own cup.
“Briar.”
I set the carafe down. “What about her?”
“I’ve gone through the last few weeks of security footage.
She never went back to the house after starting the fire here.
” He turns his laptop so I can see the screen.
Footage from one of the exterior cameras.
A timestamp from three in the morning. A figure moving along the eastern fence line with a bag over one shoulder.
“She didn’t use a car. She went on foot. ”
I drink my coffee and look at the grainy figure on the screen. Briar has been with my operation for fourteen months. I’d trusted her. She had a good backstory, and I wanted to help.
“Who else?” I ask. “Did he get to anyone else?”
Damien looks at me. “I don’t know.”
“I want everyone who’s had contact with Arlind’s people in the last six months pulled and reviewed.
I want everything — communications, financials, dates.
All of it.” I set my cup down. “Someone in my operation has been feeding him information. Briar didn’t do this alone, and she didn’t start doing it last month.
The fire, the parking garage ambush… the timing on all of it is too convenient. ”
“That’s a long list to go through.”
“Then start now.”
He nods, pulling up another screen. “What do you want to do about Briar?”
“Find her. Not to punish her.” I think about what I said to Cinder about Haylie. Same answer. “I want to know she’s not in a ditch somewhere because she outlived her usefulness to them. And I want to know what she gave them.”
“That second part might be harder to get if she’s gone to ground.”
“Try anyway.”
He closes the laptop and picks up his coffee. “How’s Lila?”
The question surprises me. I look at him, trying to understand why he’s asking. But I see nothing that would suggest the question was anything more than a polite inquiry about my wife.
“She’s fine.”
He nods. “She’s young. Been through a lot.”
“She’s working through things,” I say. “She’ll be okay.”
He nods. “Good.” He slides off the stool and closes the laptop. “I’ll start on the audit. You need anything before I go?”
“No. Keep me posted on Briar’s location.”
He leaves through the side door. I stand in the kitchen alone for a few minutes, finishing my coffee, looking out at the back property.
The security rotation just changed. Everything looks normal, but I feel a charge in the air.
It’s not normal. The enemy is inside the same gates that are meant to protect Lila.
Something is coming.
Lila pads into the kitchen in bare feet and one of my shirts, her hair loose and her eyes still puffy from sleep. She sees me and looks surprised.
“You’re still here,” she says.
“For a little while.”
She goes for the coffee, and I watch her move around the kitchen. She belongs here. This is her home. Where she’ll hopefully raise our children one day.
Shit. I’m thinking about children. Where the hell did that come from?
“How’d you sleep?” I ask.
“Good.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “Thank you. For last night.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
She brings her cup to the island and sits across from me.
There are dark circles under her eyes that the sleep didn’t fully fix.
She needs more than one good night. I look at her and see a version of her that I think few people have.
A vulnerable young woman who has been knocked down by life too many times.
A woman who has never known what “safe” is.
No security. Even when she thought she was safe in Texas, she was dealing with a mother who was a disaster.
“What’s going on?” she asks quietly. “You’ve got bad news.”
I smile, because she can read me well.
“We can’t find Briar.”
She snorts. “If she’s smart, she left town. You know for sure she started the fire, right?”
“I don’t have video of her lighting the match, but we are confident it was her.”
She’s quiet. Not scared, just processing.
“Is she dangerous if she’s out there?” Lila asks.
“She knows things about my operation. She’s a liability.”
“But you won’t hurt her.”
“No,” I say. “I want to find her and make sure she’s not being used against me. Beyond that, she can go wherever she wants.”
“Okay.”
“I need you to stay close today. Don’t go past the paddock without telling someone. I know you know that.”
“I know.”
“I mean it more than usual today.”
She meets my eyes. “Maksim, I understand. I’ll stay close.”
She lifts her cup and takes a slow drink, watching me over the rim with eyes that see too much. I’m waiting for her to ask why.
She doesn’t.
I don’t have much longer to make a move. Either I leave Miami, or I end it. Leaving doesn’t solve the problem. It simply allows it to fester.
She deserves to enroll in that program. She deserves a life that isn’t lived inside a perimeter.
“I have to go,” I finally say.
“I know.”
I come around the island. She tips her face up when I lean down, and I kiss her forehead, then her temple, then the corner of her mouth. She reaches up and catches my jaw with one hand, holding me there for an extra second.
“Be careful,” she says.
“Always.”
I spend the morning at the club doing business stuff. Invoices, payroll, and all the mundane things that keep my business legal. I take a call from one of my attorneys about a licensing issue. I had hoped to get home for a late lunch with Lila, but it’s not going to happen.
I’m in my usual perch in the VIP section, surveying the floor below. I can’t explain it, but I feel like the other shoe is about to drop. I hate that I can’t figure out when and where it’s coming.
Damien appears beside me. His jaw is clenched, and I think he actually looks sad.
“Fuck,” I groan. “Now what?”
He leans in close, so the music covers it. “They found Briar. Couple of fishermen pulled her out of the bay about an hour ago.”
I inhale, exhale slowly, and process the information.
“How long?” I ask.
“Don’t know. She didn’t drown, Maksim.”
She wouldn’t have. They wouldn’t have given her that.
I set the glass on the railing and stare at the dance floor below. Briar wasn’t a good person by anyone’s measure. She betrayed me. She tried to kill Lila. I won’t pretend she was innocent.
But she was young and afraid of something bad enough that she made terrible choices to protect herself. She thought she had to kill Lila to save herself. She could have come to me. I would have saved her.
She did what they wanted but failed to kill Lila, and they killed Briar for that failure. They would have killed her anyway.
That’s what Arlind does. That’s who he is.
“Who else knows?” I ask.
“Police will have her ID by morning.” He straightens. “She’s connected to us.”
“Nothing illegal,” I remind him. “I’ll be questioned. I’ll call Baker and let him know to have his phone handy.”
Baker is the criminal defense attorney I keep on a retainer. I rarely need him, but this situation could easily spiral. I don’t know who the Albanians are manipulating. There could be “evidence” to point the police in my direction. I have to be ready.
I turn away from the railing. “Double everything. Every house, every club, every car. Nobody moves alone. Nobody goes anywhere without checking in. I want two-man minimums on every rotation, starting tonight. I’ll talk to Cinder. No new clients.”
“Already calling it in.”
“The women in the houses need to know the protocols have changed, effective immediately. I want every person in every house questioned.”
“Cinder’s probably better at that,” Damien says. “Less intimidating than me or one of the guys.”
I give him a look. “Have you met a pissed-off Cinder?”
He laughs. “Right. I’ll get on it.”
“This will never be over,” I mutter.
“We’ll handle it,” he says with zero confidence.
“Or they will,” I add.
“They’ll try,” he corrects.
He’s right. Love makes monsters out of men. And I love my wife.