My mouth opens, but no words come out. My brain is screaming at me to say something,anything, but all I manage is a strangled half-breath.
“I–I didn’t… know anyone would be here.”
“Clearly.”
His gaze shifts past me, sweeping over the wreckage of the kitchen and out toward the main lobby of the cafe where I was just standing, cataloging every overturned chair and table, every glittering shard of glass that still litters the floor.
His eyes pause, lingering on the dark, dried swath across the tile. He doesn’t flinch, hardly even blinks at it, clearly unfazed by the macabre sight like it’s just another day to him. Hell, maybe it is considering he’s part of the fucking Mob. This kind of thing probably doesn’t even register on his radar anymore.
His focus snaps back to me, pinning me in place. “Looking for something in particular, Ivy?”
The sound of my name on his lips makes my stomach dip. It’s too casual, too personal. Like we’re old friends meeting over drinks, not two people standing in the middle of a goddamn crime scene.
I swallow against the dryness in my throat. My hand moves before I even realize it, fingers brushing the edge of the strap slung across my body, slipping lower. It’s instinct, or maybe stupidity. At this point, I’m not sure there’s a difference between the two anymore.
Maksim’s eyes track the motion, watching the movement without a single shift in posture, like a predator watching a smaller animal twitch in the grass as it lay dying at its feet. He doesn’t bother stopping me because he doesn’t need to. Even if I had a gun tucked in my bag, I wouldn’t stand a chance defending myself against someone like him.
I doubt he thinks I’m stupid enough to pull one on him anyway, even out of desperation. If I did try something out of desperation, he’d have me face-down, disarmed, and bleeding out before I even found the safety.
While I don’t have a weapon, I do have my phone with the recording app ready to go the moment I click the side button a few times. It’s pathetic, really, the way I’m banking on it being my smoking gun. Some tiny little insurance policy that might catch him saying something I could use to send to Miss Dori to get me out of this contract with my money.
Maybe even over to the police to actually pay retribution for the lives lost during the shootout.
“What do you have there?” he asks, nodding to my bag.
“Nothing,” I say far too quickly.
His brows rise, just slightly, one dark arch of amusement.
It’s the look a professor gives a student who didn’t bother showing up to class and then tries to bullshit their way through the final exam. That quiet, patient cruelty of someone who enjoys watching me squirm because he already knows how the story ends.
“Try again.”
“Just my phone.”Fuck, I really need to get out of here. “I came back because I dropped it when we were leaving. That’s all.”
His mouth curls, not into a smile but into something worse. A humorless smirk that doesn’t touch his eyes. “You really expect me to believe that?”
No. No, I don’t. But I’m running out of lies to tell him in order to buy myself time that I’ve already clearly run out of.
So, instead of continuing this pathetic game where I pretend I still have the upper hand while we both know that’s the furthest thing from the truth, I grip the strap of my bag tighter. The cord digs into my palm, grounding me for one last second before I do something incredibly, impossibly stupid.
I bolt.
The move is desperate and impulsive. My shoes scrape against the floor, slipping over bits of broken glass I hadn’t seen until they’re slicing through the rubber soles and nearly sending me sprawling. I catch myself on the counter and push forward, my eyes locking on the exit ten, maybe fewer, feet away.
I get maybe three steps before a hand closes around my arm like a clamp of steel and yanks me back.
Hard.
“Wait!” I choke out, but I barely get the word out before my body collides with his.
He spins me effortlessly, like I weigh nothing, and suddenly, my back slams into the wall. My bag crashes into my hip and swings wildly before falling off my arm. One of his hands grabs my wrist and pins it above my head, fingers curled tightly around bone. His other arm braces behind my head, forearm against the wall, caging me in.
I freeze.
Every instinct in my body screams to move, to fight or kick or scratch him until he bleeds, but there’s nowhere to go. I’m locked down tight beneath him, caught in the space between the wall and something infinitely more dangerous.
He’s so close, I can smell the leather of his coat and the faint metallic tang of gun residue that clings to his skin.
