Nate’s frantic reminder that I could’ve died slides around my brain, bumping into the “what if’s” that are once again raging there. I could’ve died, a shot through the brain or neck or chest that would have resulted in a quick death. After all these years of fighting, that would’ve been it.
This is the thought that keeps me so on edge, this reminder of my mortality.
My sisters would mourn me, my mother would weep over my casket like she did over my father’s. They’d miss me and yet, life would move on. They’d each deliver two perfect babies and I wouldn’t be there to protect them.
Maxim would find another bride, maybe a nicer one, and have no obligation to the Morelli family.
I grip the stone counter and squeeze my eyes shut, breathing slowly in through my nose and then out through my mouth.
A knock sounds at my bedroom door, distracting me from my impending spiral and I flex my hands at my sides before I go to answer it. I’m taken aback to see Maxim waiting on the other side, still in the same shirt from earlier, but the sleeves now rolled up over dense forearms crossed over his chest. I raise my eyes to meet his. Water drips from the ends of my hair onto my bare shoulders and tank top.
“You’re still here,” I observe. I thought he’d left hours ago, off to run his own investigations.
“I came back,” he says. His voice is impressively deep. Nate always mentions it, and he’s right. “I wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me to go to hell.”
My face twists into displeased confusion and I take a large step backward, granting him access into my room. He stalks past me, his huge frame foreign in my space. I’m suddenly self-conscious of what he sees; the basket of dirty clothes, the weapons on my desk, the journal on my nightstand that I’m supposed to write in when I feel myself slipping.
“Your shoes,” I say before he can step on my green rug. He peers over his shoulder, then down at his leather shoes that are probably twice the size of mine. Christ, why is he built like that?
Maxim kneels to untie them and my mind supplies that this is how he might have looked if he was proposing to someone he actually liked in a different world—one less fucked up than this one.
He stands and leaves the leather shoes side by side on the wood floor.
“I’ll understand if you’re done here,” Maxim says. His face is entirely impassive. I have no idea if he wants me to bedone hereor what he’s saying, but it’s making my stomach churn. If I’m getting shot at in public, what’s to say my sisters won’t be next? I need him more than he needs me at this moment.
I step past him, pulling out my desk chair and setting it down facing the bench at the foot of my bed. I drop down on the bench and grip the cushion beside my thighs to hide the way my fingers are still trembling. After an unsure moment, Maxim sinks into the chair opposite me.
“Did you find out who it was?” I ask.
“No, but I have my suspicions.”
He won’t look me in the eye. His shirt is unbuttoned more than it was this morning, and I see the top of a tattoo peeking from his chest that I donotlet myself wonder about. Now is not the time.
“I told you I need to have a child,” Maxim continues after another quiet minute. “If I don’t, my cousin is next in line and, to some, he is the preferred choice.”
Maxim always speaks of his legacy like he’s part of the royal family—heirs and a line of succession—like Boston is his hard-won kingdom and the slightest misstep will put it in the hands of the wrong king.
“Who is he?”
“Nikolai Orlov.”
I recoil, recognizing immediately the spineless Orlov that’s not much older than me. He was a senior in high school when I was a freshman—same grade as Vanessa, and he hated our fucking guts. Said it was unnatural to let girls get into what we were getting into. Leo beat his ass once—I’m still surprised it didn’t start a war. I guess Nikolai was too embarrassed to snitch about a Morelli beating him in a fight.
“You know him?” Maxim eyes me warily, as if I might favor Nikolai as well.
“He’s an idiot. Not to mention a prick,” I say. “I knew he was an Orlov, but I didn’t realize how closely he was related.”
“He is,” Maxim agrees, “and his morals are nonexistent in the shadow of his desire for respect and power.”
I blink at Maxim’s intensity and the disgust on his face. He has the slightest Russian accent, but it’s more pronounced when he’s angry. “Why would anyone choose him?”
“He’s easy to sway. A compliment, a bribe, it doesn’t take much. He’s a simple man.”
“And you think he tried to kill us?”
“No. He’s stupid, not suicidal.” Maxim rests his elbows on his knees, which brings him fractionally closer to me. He twists the signet ring on his pinky, then flexes his hands when he catches me watching the movement. “I believe it was someone with direct interest in Nikolai taking over.”
“Why kill me then? My sisters would retaliate if I died. It would be a mess.”
