“I love you, Maxim,” I say, because every time a bullet hits the car, I am more certain it will be the one to slice through my brain or his and I can’t die not having said these words. “I’ve loved you for longer than I could admit to myself, and I tried so hard not to, I really did. But you are the most perfect man, frustratingly loyal, and intensely forgiving.”
More shots hit the front of the car, and Samuel shouts as one breaks through the window and hits him.
I lean closer to Maxim in the chaos, needing to say this. “You’re impossible not to love, and I was a fool to think I could fight you off.”
“Marianna,” he tries.
“I love you,” I say again, and press my mouth to his in a desperate kiss.
“Bridge ahead,” Samuel says with a pained voice, his foot slamming on the gas as he tries to pass the other car. Half of it is closed for construction tonight.
I sit up and scan the area for Colton’s car, missing it entirely when it races in front of us. Samuel brakes, but the other car istoo busy shooting at us and when they try to stop, it’s too late. Their car slams into the side of the SUV, crunching the first half of their vehicle and flipping the larger one onto the bridge’s entrance, sending it over lanes of traffic while our car spins out from the sudden stop.
When things finally stop moving, and the incredible noise quiets, I catch my breath and look first to Maxim. He’s slumped in his seat, but when I put my face in front of his, he blinks awake. Alive.
A sigh of relief slices out of me and I press my lips hard against his forehead, undoing his seatbelt and mine before kicking with both legs on my bent door until it creaks open.
I get out of the car and tug Maxim out with me, using all my strength to hold him up and shuffle him across the street, far enough from the car that if it were to explode, I think he’d be safe. I help him get on the ground, his shallow breaths panting against my head. I put Nikolai’s gun in his palm and close his fingers around it.
“Stay with me,” he says.
I smile and shake my head. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without help from everyone and I refuse to stumble at the finish line and let Colton Tenneson walk free.
“I love you,” I say again.
“Marianna, please don’t,” he starts, but the sirens are near and I’m running out of time. I spin around, Samuel’s gun in hand and jog the short distance to the bridge.
Tenneson’s car is upside down, and as I sneak toward it, someone emerges from the open passenger window. It’s Elise. She bleeds from her forehead and looks crazed as she stumbles to standing in front of me.
“You,” she yells, already charging in her unbalanced way. A gunshot goes off behind me, and I duck to avoid another, butit’s the only one. I glance back to see Maxim’s arm still raised, pointed at the SUV.
He meets my eyes, and then nods.
When I turn to continue, Elise no longer charges for me, instead she lies unmoving on the asphalt. I see as I get closer that her eyes are now vacant, the life drained out of her body.
On the far side of the car, I hear the crunching of glass against the road and when I peer around it, I find Tenneson crawling away from the car using his arms and one leg, the other obviously broken, pulled behind him.
He looks like the weak, miserable man he is, someone who would sell children and people, robbing them of their lives.
“Tenneson,” I yell, and he halts before looking over his shoulder with a sneer.
It’s unceremonious, the lifting of my arm, shooting the final bullet into him. He falls dead before he can speak any of his nonsense at me, choking on his own blood as it pools beneath him.
He deserves worse.
Sound finally reaches me, shouts from behind me, a helicopter spotlight pointing down on the bridge. I squint up at it and let the gun clatter to the ground before putting my arms above my head.
40
MAXIM
When I wokeup in the hospital to find that Marianna was sitting in a jail cell, Willa doing everything in her power to get her in front of a judge, I was inconsolable, trying to free myself from the various cables and IV to get to her. I wasn’t conscious of the pain, the broken ribs, the hole in my foot where a bullet had been lodged, only consumed with getting to her and getting her out of there.
They had to sedate me.
When I wake again, the spare light through the window tells me that it’s evening and I’m in my bed, still hooked up to machines but in my own room this time. I must’ve been out of it for a long time, because Marianna is asleep next to me, her body pressed against the side of mine over the covers. Greta sleeps between our legs.
My relief is palpable and I exhale before pressing a kiss against her head, inhaling the scent of her hair until I believe she’s real and alive and I didn’t slip into death while I slept.
