Chapter 19 Hollie #2
It’s like I’m back at school watching people gossip about me thinking I can’t hear while trying to make it obvious.
“Does she know?” Nancy looks up at Xena, who shrugs.
“Dunno.”
“Did you tell her?”
Xena rolls her eyes. “Like I’d make it that easy for her after the shit she pulled.” She glances at me. “Maybe she doesn’t deserve to know.”
“Know what?” I glance between them both.
Nancy sighs and turns in her stool until her back is against the bar and she’s staring out into the dance floor. “You’ve no idea what you’ve fallen into, have you?”
“If everyone stopped being so damn cryptic, then maybe I’d know.”
“A few weeks ago, there were three other women at this club. Ana, Bea, and Zoe.”
Nancy speaks slowly, almost lazily, but there’s something else in her tone that I can’t pinpoint.
“You know Maxim is in the Mafia. He’s a good man.
A kind man. And he takes things very seriously.
Those three women were my friends. They were good people.
Ana was going to join the military soon, and Bea was saving up to open her own boutique store.
Zoe’s got a kid with the brightest smile you ever saw.
So when men came in flashing the cash and promising the big bucks, why would they refuse?
It’s pretty common here, actually. Nothing makes a man show off more than a pretty woman. ”
Nancy speaks casually as if she’s reciting something that happened at the grocery store, but Xena’s silence makes me uneasy.
“So they took those two men for a private showing. And those two men kidnapped our three friends. They beat them and dragged them out the back, killed one of our security guards, and got away into the night.” Nancy rubs her jaw slowly.
“I’ve never seen Maxim so focused. He tore the city apart looking for them.
No one else would do that. His father wouldn’t care about three missing women.
No other family in this city would give a damn.
But Maxim does. He cares. So he searched. ”
Xena’s hand lands briefly on Nancy’s shoulder and squeezes.
“Those bastards took their time. Two fucking weeks. They carved Bea up so I couldn’t even recognize her.
They beat them, tortured them, raped them, and then when it was all over, they drowned them in a water tank.
It’s a sheer miracle that Zoe survived. But Bea and Ana?
” Her voice quavers. “They’re gone. But Maxim hasn’t stopped looking.
” She turns to me, and her eyes shine with tears.
“That man you saw Maxim kill? That bastard was one of the men who took our girls. Maxim found him, and I don’t know what he did to him.
I don’t care. All I know is that he didn’t stop until he’d torn the identity of the second bastard out of him.
And then he killed him, and the only peace of mind we get is knowing that he suffered until his last, worthless breath. ”
Nancy’s hand covers her mouth and she winces.
I’m frozen.
Not even my heart seems to beat.
I can’t think.
The story laid out to me is so horrific that I can barely comprehend it. Not once did I see anything about missing women on the news, nor did Maxim give me any indication that the man he killed deserved it.
“So you see,” Xena says softly, rubbing Nancy’s shoulder, “Maxim is a good man. I’ve known him for fifteen years and he’s never killed without cause.
What you saw was him delivering justice to a monster who robbed us of our friends.
He’s the kind of man who knew what would happen to you in the hands of his family, so he got you the best protection he could by marrying you.
Your yelling that he kidnapped you? We all knew there had to be a good reason.
Maxim doesn’t hurt people. Not intentionally. ”
There’s still an urge to defend myself, to deny this and claim that he should have let me go to the cops or something, but if I’ve learned anything these past weeks, it’s that his father’s reach is long.
“But he’s Mafia.” It sounds as lame out loud as it does in my head.
Xena’s smile softens. “And we’re strippers. Didn’t anything I say teach you not to judge someone by what they do?”
I can’t think of anything to say and my head is reeling. Overwhelming sadness and sympathy for those three women clashes with disgust at what those men were capable of. No wonder that man looked beaten to within an inch of his life, and no wonder no one flinched at his death.
He deserved it.
That whole scene takes on a new light in my mind and I remain silent, staring at my unopened soda. Nancy eventually slips away and Xena returns to work, leaving me to sort through my turbulent thoughts until Maxim returns.
“Ready to go?”
His voice makes me jump. I look up at him, and it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time, like when I saw him in the bar and he was just that kind, hot man with amazing muscles that made my body tremble.
Why wouldn’t he tell me the truth himself?
I nod slowly and wave goodbye to Xena, then follow Maxim out of the club.
In the hours that have passed, the line outside has shrunk and a fresh layer of snow coats the nearby parked cars.
Toto and Stu return from wherever they vanished to, but as we reach the car and Maxim holds open the door, I stop walking.
He faces me, his brows knit in concern. “Hollie?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That the man you killed was a monster?”