Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“Night, Maks.”
“That’s SIMSSSSS to you,” I tease, “You know, my super sexy intense alter ego that’s most definitely going to toss you against the wall soon and have my way with you.”
“I’m never letting you read Cosmo ever again,” she says, hiding a smile. “What’s with you and role-playing these days?”
“I find it fascinating.” I joke. “Okay, MakSIM out.”
She laughs and throws a pillow at me while I escape out of her room and down the hall. I’m still smiling when I stumble to a stop in the middle of the hallway right in front of the kitchen.
Chase, her dad, is sitting at the table, tie off, expression ruthless, body relaxed as he sips his whiskey. “Sit.”
“Shit.”
“No, I said sit,” he says in a clear voice. “Not like you can make a clean getaway anyway, may as well own it.”
“Great,” I mutter and sit across from him, immediately reaching for the whiskey. I know he has no choice but to share if we’re both about to have this uncomfortable conversation.
I pour a bit into one of the crystal glasses and wait.
“You want in this Family?” he asks.
I frown. “I’m in the Family.”
“Do you want my daughter?”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “I always have. I always will.”
“Do you think it’s really that easy?”
“No.” I tilt back the amber liquid. “In fact, I’m surprised my head is still attached to my body right now.”
He’s quiet. “I can’t ask Ash to do it; it wouldn’t be fair. Junior would spill, and King… well King would do it for me, but I have another job for him… So, if you want her, if you need her, if you care for her… there’s one thing you can do.”
I gulp. “What’s that?”
“Work for me.” Chase pours me another glass. “Work for me for a few months, and I’ll give you my blessing.”
“Something tells me you don’t mean as an assistant.”
“No.” He laughs. “Not even close. We have… enemies that people don’t know about, ones that have finally gotten too close. I don’t want to bring everyone into it until I know for certain, but the leak came from only one possible source.”
“Who?”
He leans forward. “Nobody rats out or leaves this Family without either fighting to the death or dying, and she broke our number one rule.”
My stomach drops. “She?”
He slides something toward me. It’s flipped over. I flip it right side up and stare at the face in the picture and, as if from a distance, feel myself start to shake as cold fills my bones.
“I need you to kill Claire,” Chase whispers.
“And Nikolai? Her very powerful uncle?” I counter sliding the photo back.
Chase stands and shoves his hands into his pockets. “His jet is already here to take you to Washington.”
I move to my feet. “His jet? With him on it?”
“No,” a voice says from behind me, lurking in the shadows. “He is here.” He walks out and grabs the picture, tears in his eyes. “No loose ends. I love her. She betrayed us. There is no simple way to do this calculation, Maksim. It simply is.”
“But I thought we let her go,” I whisper, the words almost catching in my throat.
“Because you were supposed to. Because it would have traumatized Ash more,” Chase says in a low voice. “Because I love my son so much that I gave her one more chance, one more choice, and she chose this. She chose to talk to the Russian mafia, she shared secrets for protection from us—just in case. It reached Valerian’s ears—she’s lucky she still has hers.”
I gulp. “She was my friend.”
Chase puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Then I suggest you make it humane… and quick.”
Chapter Eighteen
“You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill, and away the stone goes, starting others…” —Robert Louis Stevenson
Maksim
Six months ago…
I don’t remember boarding the plane, but I do remember landing.
I shake my head as the memories slaughter my sanity over and over again until I want to scream. “No.” I shake. “No!”
“You’ll stay with me tonight,” Nikolai says, tossing my shit onto the bed in the guest room. “I have work still.”
I’m nervous.
A bit freaked out.
And for the first time in my life, I have lied to the woman I love.
“Can I come with you?”
“Suit yourself.” He walks out.
I blindly follow.
Hours later, I’m less bored, more fascinated as I watch Nikolai treat different patients. It’s fascinating how his bedside manner can be so cold and calculating and yet warm when it needs to be. The guy was scary brilliant, and while I never wanted to go into medicine, science was my thing, so it’s like a playroom when I go into his lab and read through his medications.
Most of them not approved by the FDA. Some are his own formulated concoctions.