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I realized that we’d arrived outside the building that housed the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but I couldn’t remember the last five minutes of our journey as he’d escorted me to work.
When we’d woken up in my bed this morning, Max had promised that he’d stay close until he was sure that I was safe from his cousins.
If you hurt her, I will fucking kill you. Both of you.
My stomach lurched, my body rebelling against the idea that Max was capable of murder. He’d sworn that he would do anything to protect me. Did that really mean he’d go so far as to kill members of his own family? No matter how terrifying his cousins were, I shuddered at the prospect that Max could be a killer.
It was too much. While I was with him, I was able to lose myself in him and forget about all the complications that should separate us: his Mafia family and his vendetta against my dad.
Now that the shadows that usually shrouded my dark protector were dispelled by the morning light, everything was becoming all too real. I couldn’t ignore his sickening accusations anymore.
“Allie?” Max’s brow furrowed, and his fingers danced along my jaw in a soothing caress.
Despite my distress, I leaned into him, craving to throw myself into his strong arms and forget all the awful things that should separate us.
“I should go,” I murmured, unable to lie and say I was fine. If I didn’t get to work and distract myself, I’d be sick.
“I’ll be here when you get off work.” His promise was edged with something like warning.
Max had said that he couldn’t say away from me, and I didn’t want him to. No matter how terrible his accusations against my father were, I wanted him more than I wanted my next breath. The man who held me with such harsh passion and shocking tenderness was my addiction, and nothing could sever our fiery connection.
He pressed a quick, searing kiss against my lips, branding me with his heat. His masculine scent enfolded me, and I tipped my head back to accept his fierce claim. For a few merciful seconds, the churning in my stomach abated, and all I thought about was Max: the beautiful, damaged man who would do anything to keep me safe.
But as soon as I walked away from him and entered the building, the queasy feeling returned. I barely made it out of the elevator before my stomach knotted, and I rushed toward the bathroom. I locked myself in the stall just in time to vomit at the sheer horror of what he’d told me on that night he’d crushed my heart. For weeks, I’d been trying to convince myself that he was wrong, that his family had lied to him.
But after last night, when he’d told me some of the terrible details about his own mother’s brutal murder, I couldn’t avoid thinking about it any longer.
The blood of your mother’s murderers runs in my veins. Max had said that his family killed my mom in retaliation for my father’s indictments against them.
It couldn’t be true. None of it. Not his assertion that my mother had been a victim of Mafia violence, and not his accusation that my father had covered it all up by setting fire to our home.
Because Daddy wasn’t a monster. He was the only family I had left, and he loved me more than anything else in the world. He couldn’t be capable of such a despicable act, just to save his budding political career.
And he definitely couldn’t be complicit in Max’s mother’s murder, no matter what my dark protector said about Daddy’s supposed Russian friends acting on his behalf in retaliation.
But my father was closely allied with the Ivanovs: the billionaire Russian family with potential Bratva ties. They paid him enormous sums of money to fund his campaigns and compensate him for speaking engagements.
My heart hammered against the inside of my ribcage, and I couldn’t draw in enough air, despite my heaving chest.
I had to disprove all of Max’s horrific assertions about my father. I couldn’t go on like this. My research into my dad’s case against the Mafia and my reading about the formation of the modern-day Bratva had already chipped away at the foundations of everything I believed about my own family.
Still, that was all suspicion based on the terrible claims Max had made.
My stomach turned again at the knowledge of what I had to do next: I would pull police records about Mom’s death and see the evidence for myself. I pressed a shaky hand over my mouth to suppress a sob as dread settled in my heart like a lead weight. I wasn’t sure if I could bear the gory details. Dying in a fire was a horrible way to go. For years, I’d been haunted by nightmares about my mother being trapped and alone in our burning house during her final minutes.
