“It was. For her, at least. For a while.”
“You keep making this easier for me, little Mary,” the man says and closes the gap between us in three quick strides of his long, scrawny legs. He lifts the toe of his leather loafer and presses it into my bad shoulder until I fall back on my heels, nearly collapsing to my ass. Maxim thrashes fruitlessly against the handcuffs, yelling, but Colton’s movements are slow and deliberate. He smiles and pulls a gun from his waist before raising it to Maxim’s head.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but Colton Tenneson looks unfazed.
Maxim closes his eyes in grief and agony before opening them again to look at me.
“Stop,” I cry, my voice breaking.
If I could hold out my hands, I would do so in surrender to get him to stop. I am not above begging; I think I would do anything to see Maxim live through this night, anything. I’d kill, forfeit a finger, a hand, anything.
“The codes to the safes, Maxim, or your little wife watches you die.”
“I won’t,” Maxim says, and I whimper.
“What codes? Maxim, please just?—”
“Marianna,” he says, his tone an apology.
“Wait, wait,” Nikolai shouts from behind me. “You didn’t say anything about shooting him. You said he lives.”
Colton looks over my head at Nikolai. “Well, Niko, plans change.”
“You need him,” Samuel shouts, desperation evident in his voice. “If you kill him, he’ll never be able to tell you.”
Tenneson pauses, considering this, before he clicks his tongue and changes his plan, holding the gun to the next nearest skull: mine.
“No,” Maxim roars, and Tenneson cocks the gun.
A chorus of “Woah, woah”s and “Hold on”s sing from the group behind me, but Tenneson is unyielding.
“Tell me, or I’ll kill your wife.”
“And don’t forget the baby,” Elise says, an obvious smile in her voice. I glance at her with as much derision as I can hold, which is a lot.
Maxim’s face washes with shock at this news, and I wish my eyes could explain everything, how I was going to tell him, tonight even, if only he’d come home.
“A baby?” he asks, and I nod just barely.
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell you,” Maxim says, and the room falls silent.
After a moment so tense and silent, a dozen breaths held, Tenneson smiles.
38
MAXIM
I’ve feltmy share of grief in my life: grief for the life my mother could’ve had, grief for lost family members, even grief for myself. My sister Vera got a degree in psychology and another in social work just to tell us that life is about grieving. I believe that she’s right about this.
Never, though, did I know that my very soul could experience agony like this. There’s a sense of grief so intense that I’m drowning in it. Regaining consciousness to find myself in the same dire circumstance, only now, my wife here with me, I felt something in me shatter. It was the thing that kept me strong, firm in my decision to not give in to corrupt men and their horrific dealings. It was her.
I believed I would die, and even still, my body is telling me that I will, but I lost any chance of it being a noble death the moment I saw her, tears staining her cheeks as she rattled me awake.
I would do anything, give anything, to keep her alive. They found the one person who, above all else, I need to survive.
And then they told me she’s pregnant. I don’t know how Elise knew, but really I don’t know how I didn’t realize it sooner. Hersickness, the fatigue, I didn’t dare believe we’d actually done it. Now, the life I craved for us is dissolving rapidly in front of me.
