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She chortled again, a noise like a parrot, until Maksim caught her with a dark, dangerous glare.
He leaned onto the table, looked across from her, slammed his fist hard enough to make the glassware and cutlery rattle, and said, “You don’t talk about my father. You haven’t earned the right to speak about my father.”
I tried not to let fear grip me, but it was difficult not to give in. Maksim, above all else, was unpredictable and mercurial. It wasn’t anything I was used to.
“I’m sorry, babe,” Avery whispered, her eyes dropping to the smooth marble surface of the small rectangular table. I looked down as well, longing to snatch up more of the indulgent food laid out before us, but I suspected my insides wouldn’t appreciate it. Then again, the pang I felt in my guts might be sympathy for Avery again, so I ignored it until it disappeared. “I forget about that when I’m trying to support you.”
Maksim didn’t respond, his cruel and beautiful face unreadable. I noted a twitch under his left eye, a pinch of skin over and over as the nerves contracted and released. His tell. Now I just had to wait and see if it was predicting him hurting Avery or pulling back.
He smiled suddenly, his face brightening and becoming human again. At times like that, I could see how women might find him appealing. He was handsome from an aesthetic standpoint and charming when he wanted to be.
“It’s okay, my love,” he said, taking her hand in his. “I know you don’t mean to be a stupid little bitch. It’s in your DNA. Your father’s side, not my side.”
He looked at me when he said that, making his meaning clear. Any flaws he saw in Avery were not to be blamed on his family but rested solely on the Popolovs, not the Kostins.
I wouldn’t take the bait. I didn’t respond. It took every effort I had to keep my face devoid of any reaction. He was pleased by this, and for a moment, I thought he saw through the facade and could sense the contempt beneath my cool exterior. I thought he was deep enough to get off on controlling me, manipulating me into behaving no matter how.
But he wasn’t that sophisticated. He was, as Amara had observed, a spoiled child raised by a sociopath.
And he was my sister’s cousin. That was one of the strangest things of all. That we were linked through marriage or Ivan’s affair, or however he’d managed to get Avery’s mother pregnant. That one stupid decision on his part had bonded us with these crazy people, and we wouldn’t be able to scrape them off the bottom of our shoes any time soon.
It put into focus how convoluted life could be, how one small decision could change not only your destiny but the destinies of everyone connected to you. I just hoped that Ivan fathering Avery didn’t lead to my Kings getting hurt or—
I cut off my train of thought. I couldn’t let my thinking go that dark. I couldn’t fall into that cycle of thinking, getting swallowed by inky black fantasies of desperation and despair.
“Well, then,” Maksim said, at last, a charming smile replacing the reptilian one of earlier. “What shall we have for dessert?”
“Strawberries and chocolate?” Avery asked as Maksim leaned back in his chair and flung his arm across the high back of mine. I couldn’t help it, I winced and pulled away, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“How about whipped cream and Everly’s sweet cunt?” Maksim asked slowly, raising his perfectly sculpted eyebrows as he spoke. “What do you think?”
He wouldn’t let Avery off the hook, and he waited for her answer to his disgusting proposal. My stomach churned at the thought. I didn’t know if he meant that he would go down on me or he would force my newly found sister. Either way, I wanted to vomit the food I’d finally eaten.
“I think it’s a,” she stammered, and her eyes flitted from him to me and back again. Avery swallowed, her dry throat catching as she processed what he’d said. I was glad to see she was at least disgusted by it. She might have some morals, after all. “It’s a great idea if that’s what you want.”
Her voice was wooden, and she couldn’t meet my eyes.
“I was just testing the waters, you little freak,” Maksim laughed out loud. He was so pleased with himself over whatever this was, a test or a prank. “I like seeing how far you’ll go for my love, Ave, my love.”
He looked over at me and leaned in as if telling me a secret. “She’ll do anything I tell her. That’s what I’ve found. She has no limits. What will you be like when you’re my wife? I can’t wait to find out.”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, my fists clenched so tightly that my nails were digging into my flesh, and I thought about Avery doing the same thing back at our place. I’d thought she was disgusting for being so out of control, but now I understood why she’d been driven to near insanity. Spending any time with Maksim was enough to drive me to harm myself, but having to spend my life with him would end up destroying me.
“Of course you do,” he grinned and reached down for my hand. He pulled his other off the back of my chair and folded it over top of mine, encasing it in his damp, cold grip. He was repulsive to me. The more I got to know him, the less I liked him. “Think about it, Everly. Think hard, princess, use those two brain cells God gave you to formulate an opinion.”
Avery laughed and said, “She’s an idiot.”
“That she is,” Maksim said. “But she’s going to be my wife, so mocking her will be off limits, do you understand?”
“I do,” Avery gulped.
“Of course, I will obey you,” I said with a dead tone. “I will obey everything you ask.”
“That’s what I like,” he said and pulled his hand off mine to smack the table. “I’m giving you one night to recover from the stress of your captivity so far, and then we go to work testing those limits.”
He stood up suddenly, almost knocking his chair over. “You may sleep here, but I will be gone. Avery will stay with you to make sure you don’t do anything stupid like try to escape.”
He strode across the floor without looking back, his mercurial energy streaming out behind him as he moved effortlessly through his surroundings. He was the lord of his realm here, and he knew it.
