Chapter 9
MAXIM
“Hollie?”
No one answers. My penthouse is completely dark and silent.
Fighting a yawn, I head toward the bedrooms hoping that she chose one and climbed into bed without a second thought, but every room is empty, bathroom included. Even the home gym and balcony are abandoned, leaving me with a rising, uncomfortable worry in my gut.
Where the hell is she?
I’m in the process of putting a call down to the lobby when the elevator doors slide open and I’m face-to-face with a breathless Toto. I glance up briefly, confused why the announcer didn’t tell me the elevator was in motion, then fix Toto with a glare. “Where the hell is Hollie?”
“She’s not here?” he gasps, sagging against the elevator frame. “Shit.”
“What do you mean, shit?”
“Why didn’t you pick up your phone?” Toto waves one hand while still struggling to catch his breath. “I sprinted all the way to the club because you wouldn’t answer, and Stu was there telling me you were already on your way here, so I sprinted all the way back!”
My phone lights up showing twelve missed calls from Toto. “Fuck. I must have slipped it onto silent. What the hell happened?”
“Your dad didn’t leave. I sent Hollie up here as you asked, but when I was down there, I saw that fucker Yannis or whatever his name is. So I followed him and realized your dad was still up here, but by the time I got up here, he was gone and so was Hollie.”
“Motherfucker—” Unlocking my phone, I delve straight into my tracking app. “When he called me to deal with the Italians messing with the warehouse, he told me he was back home. Fucker lied.”
“Sorry, Boss,” Toto gasps, finally managing to catch his breath. “By the time I got back down there, Yannis was gone too, but I got no clue where.”
“It’s alright. If Hollie kept her wedding ring on, I’ll know exactly where she is.”
“And if she didn’t?”
Our eyes meet and the rest goes unspoken.
I’ve spent the last two days doing everything I can to keep Hollie safe from everyone, including my father.
Instead, he orchestrates a fight between us and a rival Italian family to draw me away from her, knowing I would never bring her along to such a violent altercation, and placing her firmly in his crosshairs.
“Got her,” I say, pushing Toto lightly into the elevator with me. “Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, he pulls up on a disaster. My father stands in the middle of the road illuminated by the flickering headlights of one car. Another car, presumably the one he was in, is crashed just down the right-hand bank, resting against a tree with smoke rising from the hood.
“Where is she?” I bellow before I’m even entirely out of the car. “Where the hell is she?”
Toto follows me and Stu, who met us in his own car, flies out of his vehicle with his gun raised as my father’s personal guards, Yannis and Frederick, move to position between my father and me. Several red claw marks streak down Dad’s face and he clasps a bloodied tissue in one hand.
“Son, listen—”
“Don’t!” I bark so loud that even in the dark, several critters squeak and flee in the darkness. “I swear to God if you’ve hurt her, then I’ll do the exact same to you!”
“Watch yourself, Son. I was taking her to dinner,” Dad snaps. “Decided it was time to get to know the woman you married.”
I should be concerned by his tone, but his words don’t hit with even a hint of truth.
“She attacked me out of nowhere. I told you she was suspicious, I told you that we should have killed her the moment she ended up at your penthouse, but—”
“HOLLIE!” I bellow her name at the top of my lungs, striding right past my father and down the embankment toward the trees. “Hollie, where are you?”
Within minutes, Toto, Stu, and I are combing the woods while my father, despite his pathetic tale, joins in the hunt with his men. He delivers weak calls of her name in such a tone that it sounds more like a threat than anything else.
Twigs snap underfoot. Leaves crumple. Branches snap back and forth as they get caught on my clothing while I stride deeper and deeper into the woods calling her name until my throat burns.
I have to find her.
Given my father’s presence here, I have to believe she’s still alive. He wouldn’t linger if he’d killed her.
Reception out here isn’t the strongest and my tracing app constantly flickers in and out of connection while I stride as best I can toward a blinking dot on the map.
The longer we search, the colder the world grows, and my worry spikes.
Hollie wouldn’t survive a night out here in the freezing cold, not after everything she’s been through these last few days.
Around a log, I come face to face with Toto, whose face echoes the worry in my own mind. “What do you wanna do, Boss?” he asks in a low voice.
“Find her.”
“Yeah, I know, but your dad—”
“Let me deal with him.” My tone remains curt.
“Finding Hollie is all that matters right now. But…” I hesitate and glance behind us where Stu is visible through the trees, purposefully keeping my father and his men illuminated with a flashlight.
“Stay closer to them. If he’s hurt her or scared her, then I don’t want him close when I find her. ”
After a glance at my phone in my hand, Toto nods and redirects his search to loop back and meet with Stu. I continue, stomping through the woods toward the dot while my heart races faster and faster as if I’ve been sprinting the whole time.
“Hollie?”
Suddenly, a soft gasp rises from the darkness to my right. As I turn, twigs and leaves crunch and crackle as someone moves. Lifting my flashlight, I glimpse her crimson hair as she takes off sprinting and relief surges through me.
“Hollie, wait!”
“No!” She stumbles, but it doesn’t slow her down. Branches and tree roots rise out of the ground to cut at my ankles and grab my clothes as I chase after her. It’s like nature itself is mistaking me for the threat.
To her, though, I probably am.
It doesn’t take long for me to catch her but when I do, she spins and throws a handful of dirt in my face.
Blinded, I throw myself forward and catch her by the waist, then pull her backward as I stumble to regain my balance.
She hoarsely yelps until both my arms are around her, then I trip and we both hit the ground with a grunt.
“Please,” she gasps. “Don’t hurt me again, don’t hurt me!”
“Hollie, it’s me. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise!”
Despite her trembling, something in her stills and she slowly peers through her unkempt hair to meet my eyes. “Maxim?”
“It’s me.”
“Your dad—”
“I know.” Cutting her off gently, I slacken my grip around her waist. “I’m sorry. I’m here now.”
“He t–tried to—” She chokes suddenly, and through the reflection of my flashlight, I glimpse her tears. “He tried to kill me.”
“I know.”
“He said I was protected, then he tried to kill me! What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck? I want to go home. I want my parents. I want to go home.”
Something unexpectedly heavy settles in my chest as I sit up, the freezing ground soaking its icy fingers through my jeans. “I can’t take you home, but I can take you back to the penthouse. You’re safe now with me. I promise.”
“Safe?” She scoffs and rolls away from me, then slowly climbs to her feet while dusting leaves and dirt from her clothes. “Nothing about you is safe.”
I climb up at a slower pace and step back so I’m not towering over her as much. “I married you to keep you safe.”
“Does this look safe?” She gestures around us but freezes when my father’s voice drifts closer. “You married me so I wouldn’t go to the cops about what I saw, didn’t you? You didn’t do this to keep me safe, you did it to keep you safe, and your dad’s trying to do the same thing by killing me!”
“Hollie, if I wanted you dead, then you would be.”
“How is this any better?” A tear leaks down her cheek. “Please let me go home. Please.”
“I can’t. It’s not safe.”
Her face crumples. “I hate you.”
“Hollie…” I step forward, and she doesn’t move. “Marrying you is the only way to keep you safe, don’t you see?”
“I don’t feel protected. Your father dragged me into that car and tried to kill me. What about that is keeping me safe?”
“I made a mistake. I’m not asking you to trust me because you have all the reasons not to, but when you’re with me, and from now on, you will be protected. It’s how we work. It’s how our entire world works.”
“Because you’re Mafia?”
Even with only a flashlight to illuminate us, her eyes sparkle like stars and that strange weight in my chest increases. “Yes. I am.”
Her eyes close and the other voices grow closer. Toto is doing a great job of talking loudly so I can track them easier in the dark while I wait for Hollie to say something. Just as I grow impatient, she finally opens her eyes.
“Whatever. Killing me here or at your penthouse. What’s the difference?” The defeat in her voice carries through the air like smoke.
“So you’ll come back with me?”
She steps forward and hastily wipes away a tear.
“Whatever,” is her last response, and she remains silent all the way back to the road.
Once we’re back at my car, I call Toto and tell him she’s with me.
Less than five minutes later, Dad climbs the embankment with his goons in tow, followed by Stu and Toto.
“I found her, Dad.” Our eyes meet and to my surprise, he doesn’t say a word.
He strides silently toward his second car and gets inside.
Fredrick follows while Yannis moves more slowly.
He fixes Hollie with an odd look, drags his tongue over his teeth, and slips into the driver’s seat. They leave thirty seconds later.
“The fuck?” Toto stops near us, panting softly. “That’s it? He just fucks off?”
Moving around Hollie, I open the door for her and help her into the car. After closing it, I face my men.
“I want eyes on him. This isn’t over.”