He’s on me in two steps. His hand grips my shoulder and shoves me back against the chair. Pain explodes through my middle.
I cry out, louder this time, unable to stop it.
“Stop fighting,” he says. His voice is too close to my ear.
I twist away from him on instinct, one hand slipping free and flying up toward his face. My nails catch the fabric near his neck. He grabs my wrist, but not fast enough. I rake my fingers upward with everything I have, and the cloth tears loose.
For one stunned second, the world narrows to the mask coming away in my hand.
Then I see his face, and all the breath leaves my body.
“Maksim?”
He stands over me, breathing hard, the torn cloth hanging from one side of his face, his hair disheveled, eyes bright with something that scares the crap out of me.
Bare. Furious. Almost broken.
I stare at him, unable to make the pieces fit.
“No,” I whisper.
Because it can’t be him.
It can’t.
He was there. He helped me. He held the room together when my body was falling apart.
“Maksim,” I say again, because maybe saying his name will turn him back into the man I thought he was. “What are you doing?”
His jaw tightens. For one moment, something like regret crosses his face.
Then it’s gone.
He bends, picks up the torn mask from my lap, and lets it drop to the floor.
“You weren’t supposed to wake up yet,” he says.
My stomach turns as he ties up my hand again, tighter this time. I pull at the restraints, but my body is shaking too hard now to make the movement useful.
“You took me from the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looks away.
“Maksim.”
He turns back to me, and the man I know is there for half a second, buried under something darker.
I stare at him. None of this makes sense.
My head is still foggy, but one thing is becoming clear with horrible speed. This isn’t only about the shooting. It isn’t only about Viktor’s enemies or Mikhail or Camille or the wedding.
This is personal.
“You called him,” I say slowly. “You wanted him to come alone.”
