Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Maksim appears unsurprised by her admission. I learn why when he says, “They were poisoning members of the community through food banks, then plucking a handful of unsuspecting victims from the pile to succumb to the latest gastroenteritis outbreak ravishing the city. Their families had no clue.”
“Then how did your mother end up on that list?” I’m not meaning to sound rude. I am genuinely curious because the Ivanovs are incredibly wealthy, beyond anything you could imagine, so there’s no way she would be eating produce from a food bank.
Thankfully, Maksim understands my question is more inquisitive than an interrogative. “The man she came to see was a chef. With his business not doing well, he substituted some of his produce with supplies a charity worker was skimming from the food banks.”
“The tainted food is why there were so many outbreaks over the past several months.”
“And also why there was an increase in surgeries,” I add to Zoya’s statement, my heart sinking. With my heart in the vicinity of my shoes, my brain finally turns back on. “I saw bananas. They were being carried out of the hospital. Does that mean…?” My breath catches in my throat when the flood of information I’ve been overwhelmed with the past few days starts clicking together. “Yulia’s father lost his job. He couldn’t afford food. He was supplementing his lost wages with produce that was donated to him. That could be what is making Yulia sick.”
I barely get two steps away from Maksim when he snatches up my wrist, halting my exit.
“Let me go, Maksim. I need to help her. There are ways we can reverse the damage of the poison.”
The remorse in Maksim’s eyes cuts me to pieces, let alone what he says next. “It’s too late.”
“No.” Yulia isn’t my sister, but you wouldn’t know that from the devastation in my tone. “She can get better. I can help her.”
The reason for Maksim’s many quests to keep the truth from me is unearthed when he proves I’m not strong enough to learn just how cruel the world can be.
“My men found her this morning.” A sob rips from my throat when he pulls me into his chest before he murmurs into my hair, “She was in a room at the back of the loading dock. Her organs had been harvested. There was nothing we could do.” My sob almost drowns out a promise I had no clue I’d ever need until now. “We took down the people directly responsible for her death. We made them pay.” Honesty rings true in his tone. “And I won’t stop until every person who hurt her has paid.”
“Promise me,” I murmur, either too heartbroken to understand the depth of my demand or finally realizing if you don’t fight fire with fire, you will never win.
Maksim inches me back before he lifts my tear-drenched face. “I promise. No one will ever hurt you like this again.”
I believe every word he speaks.
It isn’t hard since they are gospel.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Maksim’s eyes lift to my reflection in the vanity mirror when I say, “I should probably return to work soon. The wards are still overrun with poison victims, and I didn’t take this much time off when my mother passed, so it seems silly to take this much bereavement leave for a patient.”
He knows the real reason I don’t want to return—I’m ashamed I didn’t work out what was happening sooner since it was occurring under my nose—but he will never call me out on it. “If that’s what you want, Doc, I won’t stop you.”
Smiling, I join him in the bathroom before assisting him in placing on the tie he’s been fiddling with the past few minutes. It is black and pinstriped like his suit—the perfect ensemble for the funeral we will be attending this afternoon for a little girl whose life was taken too soon.
Once it’s tied, I flatten it down like it wasn’t starched to within an inch of its life by the dry cleaners, and then float my hand over Maksim’s heart that should be too large to fit in his chest.
He will never admit it, but I know he paid for Yulia’s funeral. The funeral home is usually reserved for the wealthy half of Myasnikov; her casket is the most expensive available, and her plot sits under a big old oak tree that will protect her from the elements no matter the season.
There’s no way Mr. and Mrs. Petrovitch could afford such an elaborate farewell. I just refuse to call Maksim out on his generosity purely because I know he too is struggling with an immense amount of guilt.
From the rumblings of his crew, it wasn’t Maksim’s men who found Yulia. It was Maksim.
He tried to get Dr. Sidorov to reverse the procedure he had conducted in an unsterile training OR at the back of the loading dock, but with Yulia’s organs already in transport to the new owners’ hometowns, nothing could be done to save her.