I might be dying.
Before I can reach the edge of the dance floor, I’m dizzy. My chest is heaving, I realize.
Breaths slice in and out of my lungs, and I need to get out, need to do something, anything, need to?—
“Marianna,” a deep voice says into my ear, a man, and even with the music, I hear him clearly.
One large hand wraps around my waist and pushes me forward, off the dance floor, down a hall, guiding me through the club as my vision tunnels until we reach a metal door he pushes open.
Cold air stings my skin as soon as we step outside, and I gulp breaths as if I’ve just surfaced from drowning. I think I might have been.
I take a few steps into the now-spinning alley, a dim yellow light above us, and promptly fall to my hands and knees.
“Breathe, Marianna,” the man says from above me, but he doesn't touch me again.
I cough, and heave, my chest so tight, my eyes stinging with unshed tears. I stare at the concrete that is so cold beneath my hands and knees, and then see his expensive dress shoes.
Massive feet, I think, even through the panic that racks my body.
This happens sometimes, the panic attacks. They’ve been happening for years, more since my father’s death. Usually I can manage it, I could now if I could just get my damn breathing normal, but everything is so much, my thoughts spiraling down and down and down, a dozen horrific what-ifs for every self-assurance that I’m alright, I’m okay, I’m alive, I’m fine.
He drops to his knees in front of me wearing dress slacks that cost no less than three hundred dollars. The backs of his hands enter my line of sight, his palms pressing against the concrete, and my eyes trace up large, tattooed forearms, then broad shoulders until I see his eyes on mine. He's mirroring me, hands and knees in an alleyway, with eyes so full of concern I can't look away.
Maxim Orlov.
Part of me wants to feel embarrassed that the head of the Russian mob is seeing me this way, weak and vulnerable, but Ihave only the unbridled panic of inevitabilities coursing through my body.
They will die, they will all die, and if they don't die first, then I will die and then who will protect them?
“Close your mouth. Breathe,” Maxim demands.
I do as he says, shutting my mouth and inhaling fast, shaking breaths through my nose.
"In your nose, out through your mouth. Yes, like that, good. Longer now, slow them down.”
“I can’t—” I hiccup and hot tears fall onto the backs of my hand from my chin.
“It’s okay,” he shushes me, “don’t try to speak, just look here.” His fingers push my chin up and he points to his eyes. “Breathe with me, I know you can.”
I am increasingly certain that I will never feel comfortable nor stable again;thisis the thing that’s going to kill me. I’m going to die on Christmas Eve in front of Maxim Orlov and it’ll probably start a fucking war between our families, and I won’t be there to protect them.
“Marianna,” he says again. I blink, forcing myself to focus on his eyes, forcing myself to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, attempting to match him.
His eyes are blue. I never noticed, never had reason to look at his face for long, and never this close.
It’s uncanny, this blue, almost unnatural. Nothing frosty about them, I think they could be purple in the right light.
My thoughts slow by degrees as I look at him, this along with the racing of my heart beats and breaths. The cold concrete begins to sting my palms, or maybe they’ve been stinging, but I’ve just now begun to feel it.
“Tell me what you need,” he says, voice steady. Has it always been so low? So firm?
My mind flips through all the things I need, a slideshow of the faces I need kept safe. My sisters, my mother, my cousin, the babies—God,two more babies.
How does Vanessa carry the weight of us? How did my father? No wonder his heart gave out, I?—
“Marianna,” Maxim says again, and I blink, forcing myself to focus on his eyes.
The debilitating truth escapes me in a rush. “I can't keep them all safe.”
