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Siena: Your dad is SCARY AS HELL.
Maxim: What did you do??
Siena: I went to the library to get a book and he was there waiting for me like a freaking stalker.
Maxim: Did you speak?
Siena: He basically interrogated me! And said that anyone who hurts the family will be killed!!!
Maxim: I told you to stay in the room.
Siena: Yeah! Well! I wish I did!!!!
Maxim: Listen to me next time.
I groan and toss the phone away. Now Maxim’s even more angry with me, and his dad thinks I’m some kind of spy or traitor—which, to be fair, I guess I am a traitor, just not to this family—and I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.
I’m a mess. A total wreck. Whatever I touch crumbles and is so much worse.
I’m like the opposite of Midas—I turn things from gold to shit.
Chapter 16
Maxim
I pull into a quiet residential neighborhood about fifteen minutes away from The Velvet Rope. Siena sits in the car beside me, frowning out the window. We haven’t spoken much in the past three days. She’s kept to herself, mostly poring over a stack of books my father sent as if she’ll be quizzed in their contents.
Knowing my father, she will be.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with her. I need to punish her for disobeying me and leaving the rooms, and for the way she spoke to me in the car at The Velvet Rope—but I’ve been too wrapped up in my work. There will be punishment, but I wanted to make sure we do this first. I want her to see what I can do for her if only she’ll listen.
The neighborhood isn’t bad. It’s not nice by any stretch, but not bad. Most homes are ranch-style and relatively small, but the yards are maintained and there are at least a couple cars in most driveways. People have money here, but they’re not rich.
I park out in front of a house with brown roof tiles and a bright red door. A blue sedan sits idle next to the mailbox, and I wonder if Siena recognizes it.
But she’s too busy squinting at the house. “What are we doing here?”
“We’re here on business.”
“Business?” She frowns and shakes her head. “So you’re like, going to kill someone in there, or what?”
“Is that what you think I do?”
“Isn’t it? You’re a bratva guy. You hurt people for a living. So we’re here to hurt someone, right?”
I laugh softly. Her idea of my world is so tiny. There are many, many ways to hurt a person, and I’ve found that violence tends to be the least effective.
“You’re on the right track.”
Her face pales. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
I give her a long look. I’m not kidding, but I don’t want her to panic.
“Before we go any further, I need to ask you about Tianna.”
That name makes her jolt like she got struck with lightning. Her eyes widen and she sits back in her seat. I watch her carefully, noting the arch of her back and the way she bites down on her cheek.
She does not want to talk about Tianna.
I waited until this moment on purpose. I want her off-balance and surprised and wondering if she’s safe or not. I need her to open up and be honest with me, because that’s the only way we can truly move forward.
“Why are you asking about her? What are we doing right now?”
I lean closer to her and breathe in deep enough to catch a hint of her smell. Rosewater and lilac. Where did she get that perfume? She’s intoxicating, and I don’t know why.
“Are you going to do something like that again with another of the girls? Like with Mira?”
Her jaw works. She turns away and stares out the front windshield. She collapses into herself and I can see her wondering whether she wants to have this discussion or not, but there is no option. If she wants to keep playing this game—hell, if she wants to survive long enough for any of this to matter—she needs me to trust her.
Right now, I don’t. But I want to. Desperately.
“Tianna was a mistake,” she says, her voice a strained grunt.
“In what way?”
Silence stretches. I want to reach across the car and shake her until she speaks. This is your chance! Come clean! But I hold my tongue. I need her to make this decision. I need her to decide to tell me the truth about what happened with that girl on her own.
Why did she betray her family for a whore?
She closes her eyes and lets out a long breath. “I thought I could save her, but I was wrong. I can’t save any of them.” Another short silence. I sit in it and wait. The air is thick with tension. Outside, a lawnmower starts, a low grating buzz. Sometimes, the best interrogation method is to do nothing at all. “I liked Tianna. She was small and feisty and funny. I’d go with my brother Enzo sometimes while he did his rounds, and whenever we went to Tianna’s place, I’d sit with her and we’d talk. I felt like we were friends, you know? She told me about her family back in Mexico, and how she snuck across the border to be with her uncle, but it turned out her uncle was a skeeve and a perv and he tried to fuck her, so she ran away and ended up on the streets. That’s how my father and his men found her and gave her a job. They gave her food, and clothes, and a place to live, and that put her in debt to them. So she started whoring. All she wanted was a life, but no matter what she did, it was taken from her.”
