So, what the hell am I supposed to do with my life now?
The Volkovs are finished. Kirill is gone, and his uncle had been recalled by the Bratva to face punishment for his failures in New York. Vengeance, that fire that’s consumed me since the night my father and the restaurant he built burned down, was finally mine.
And yet, beneath my skin, deep inside me, something new has started.
The doctor’s words from the hospital echo in my mind:early days of pregnancy.
I press a hand low over my stomach, flat and unchanged, but no less heavy with the possibility looming before me. Should I tell Maximo now? Should I wait until another doctor confirms it? My mind spins between both answers like a coinrefusing to land on one side. Does he even want to be a father?
Maximo’s phone buzzes on the bedside table, interrupting our peaceful moment. He snorts and shifts at the sudden interruption, propping himself up on one elbow. His dark eyes open and study me, as if he can read every doubt written across my face. Instead of reaching for his phone he asks me, “What are you thinking about, firefly?”
I give him a partial truth to deflect the question. “That I’m falling in love with a man I don’t know how to be with.”
His brow arches. “What do you mean?”
“You live in a world of rules and blood debts. I… I grew up in a restaurant buried in textbooks learning about running a legitimate business. I was getting my master’s in business administration before the fire. I dropped out to deal with the aftermath, and now I don’t know how to go back…back to the woman that I used to be. I don’t know how to go back, but I also don’t know how to be yours,Maximo. I don’t know how to live in your world. Not the way the people you surround yourself with do.”
He brushes his knuckles down my jaw, his voice low and steady. “You don’t need to be like them, Constance. I can barely trust most of the people I deal with day-to-day. I don’t have that problem with you. You are all I want, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
His words should be a balm to my troubled mind. Instead, it makes the secret I hold burn hotter. When his phone dings again a moment later, he stretches over to the table and retrieves it.
I can’t help but glance at the screen as he opens his messages and a wall of text appears. It’s hard to read from where I’m lying on his chest, but I’m immediately alarmed by the firstfew lines:
Maximo, this is Sergei Ivankov. A problem has arisen. Kirill’s mother, Irina Volkov, refuses to accept our ceasefire after her son’s death…
Maximo tilts the phone screen away from me so that I can’t read the rest of the text, then slides his arm out from under me and gets out of bed. I can see his eyes narrow and his jaw clenches as he reads the rest of the message.
“What is it? More trouble?”
“It’s nothing you need to worry about.” He gives me a reassuring smile and then drops his phone back on the nightstand. “Just a loose end that might have to be tied up.”
He slides back into bed beside me and wraps his arms around me, hugging me close to his chest. I still feel exhausted, emotionally more than physically, so I don’t press him any further for answers. I’m not sure, right at this moment, that I want to know what “tying up this loose end” might entail. I try to put it out of my mind and just enjoy the serenity of the two of us alone together.
Sleep drags me straight into a nightmare: I’m back in the junkyard, standing over Kirill with my pistol. I pull the trigger and a thick cloud of smoke pours from the barrel, choking me. When it clears, it’s not him on the ground, it’s me, broken and bloody, clutching a swollen belly. A scream rises up in my throat that jerks me straight up in the bed.
“Whoa, Constance, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Maximo grasps my arm and nearly sends me tumbling out of the bed. “You’re all right. You must have been having a bad dream. Come on, breathe, you’re fine now.”
I take a gasping breath and slide my back up against the headboard, letting the sweaty sheets fall away from me. “It was just a nightmare,” I choke out as I try to get my breathing under control. “I was back in the junkyard, but when I shot Kirill, it wasn’t him. I was the one lying in the dirt,” I try to explain.That’s when I glance over and notice that Maximo has his laptop open, and I see what he’s watching.
What looks like surveillance footage from the junkyard is divided up into four different streams on the screen. Each of them has a different angle of the meeting with Salvatore and the Bratva leaders. Maximo has it paused on a shot of me, raising my pistol as I stand above Kirill Volkov, right before executing him.
The grainy images make my stomach roll with nausea. “Why do you have that?” I whisper past the bile rising in my throat. I slide out of bed and start to make my way towards the bathroom.
Maximo looks up at me in concern, then smiles faintly. “Because you were fierce. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you more beautiful. Watching you in that moment, as you get your revenge, let me know that we did the right thing.”
I hear the admiration and pride in his voice as I go and close the bathroom door behind me, but it doesn’t help the chill crawling up my spine. Maximo told me about the files he keeps on his computer on all of his associates. He told me that they were blackmail, leverage, and insurance. Is that why he’s keeping it? Another file to keep me in line if he ever needs leverage?
I use the toilet and then wash up, splashing some water on my face. When I come out of the bathroom Maximo is still sitting on the bed looking at his laptop. I don’t try to see what he’s doing. Instead, I pick up my phone from where it was charging and make a phone call.
“Everything all right?” Maximo asks me with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, I’m just scheduling a follow-up with my primary care doctor. My arm is doing better, but it’s still bothering me.”
“That’s a good idea. My leg still twinges whenever I put weight on it, and my ribs have been a real bastard. We’ve been through a lot the last couple of weeks. Things will be better from here on out,” he says confidently, but I find that hard to believe. “Maybe you could think about going back to school now. You need a new goal…”
“Maybe,” I agree absently.
I schedule the appointment for four-thirty tomorrow afternoon, giving a vague reason for the visit. Once that’s done, I remember what the Bratva leader, the man named Sergei, had said about making a deposit into the business account for Monroe’s. I pull up my father’s banking information and sure enough, five hundred thousand dollars of blood money has been transferred to the account. Just the sight of it almost makes me run back to the toilet.
