Page 35 of Lust and Honor

He talks so casually, eating breakfast like we’ve been married for years. I snatch the plate from him with a glare. He leans back in his chair, wiping the corner of his mouth with a napkin while chewing his bite.

“We’re not staying here, Maxim.”

He rests his forearm on the table, his expression unreadable. “Don’t you like the house? I can get another one.”

“I don’t like living with you. I don’t want you in my daughter’s life.”

His hand curls slightly into a fist, but he keeps his cool. “Why?”

“Why? What makes you any different from my father? He exploits women, and so do you.”

“Your father kidnaps helpless teenage girls and sells them to psychos for top dollar. I hire grown women who apply for the job and pay them good money. How are we anything alike?”

I scoff. “You think I’m stupid? You expect me to believe those women are selling themselves in your club by choice?”

The corner of his mouth twitches, his tone mocking. “Poor little Ava Wilson. If you’d spent less time in the sugarcoated, religious world of some nun and more in the real one, you’d know prostitution’s been a job for women forever. In some countries, it’s even legal.”

“Why would any woman do that?” I ask, genuinely curious. Sister Maria always said a woman would rather die than let her body be used for a man’s lust.

“Poverty, ambition, desire, desperation. I don’t know, and I don’t give a fuck why they do it. I’m their boss, not their daddy.”

I flinch at his crude words in front of Aurora and glance at her. She’s still lost in her own world. I shoot Maxim a skeptical look, and he reads my thoughts immediately. “You can walk into the club anytime you want, talk to any girl you like. I don’t force anyone to get under me or under any other man. But let’s be real, I don’t need to. Half the women in this city would sell their souls to the devil for a night with me.”

A chill crawls over my skin. He’s unbelievably full of himself, but he’s not wrong. The man’s a walking bundle of charm, money, and raw testosterone, strutting around like he owns the place.

I try a different approach. “In your world, Aurora’s always in danger.”

To my surprise, he bursts out laughing and mocks me. “Look who’s talking. Tell me, Ava, where would you and Aurora be right now if it weren’t for me?”

My breath catches and I drop my gaze. He’s got a point. I hear him again. “Care to share your brilliant plan for keeping the little carrot safe?”

I look at him in confusion. He reaches out and gently touches Aurora’s bright orange curls. She flinches a bit, her eyes widening as she pulls back slightly, mouth full of pancake, but doesn’t protest. Maxim draws his hand back and turns to me again.

“Tell me. How’re you going to keep her safe?”

The seriousness in his tone keeps me from dwelling on the nickname he’s given her. I lace my fingers together on the table.

“We’ll go to England. No one knows us there, and no one’s got a grudge against you. We’ll start over.”

He nods slowly like he’s processing it. “I have enemies everywhere. That’s lesson one. Second, moving to another country isn’t a bad idea, but don’t forget where your father snatched your mom from. Tracking you down in England would be easier for him than here in Italy. Now, let’s say you pull some ninja-level disappearing act and dodge every crook out there. What happens if you go out one day and don’t come back? Who’s going to look after Aurora? You got family over there?”

His words hit hard, and I shake my head. He doesn’t miss a beat. “So our poor little girl ends up in an orphanage. While her father’s a rich man in Italy, she grows up in poverty because of her mother’s stupidity, cut off from everything she’s entitled to—father, family, wealth, everything. And that’s if she’s lucky. If luck’s not on her side, some sick bastard takes her in, not to give her a happy life, but to sell her to traffickers. The same fate as her grandmother, your mom, Ava.”

I cover my mouth with both hands, eyes stinging with tears. My mom never spoke about her past. And now, learning this truth shatters my heart into a thousand pieces. She went into a family full of hope, and they sold her like cattle?

Maxim notices my stunned expression. He shuts his eyes, mutters a curse under his breath, shifts in his chair, then says more gently, “I thought you knew.”

“Are you sure?”

He only nods. Aurora notices a tear rolling down my cheek, and her voice trembles. “Mama, are you crying?”

I reach for her without thinking and lift her from the chair, pulling her into my arms. I breathe in her scent like I need it to stay upright. “No, baby. I’m not.”

I slide the straw of her milk glass to her lips and wipe my tear. Maxim stays quiet for a few seconds before speaking again.

“When you and Aurora were taken, Carlo wasn’t even fully sure she was mine. Still, he didn’t think twice about arming his men to the hilt to save you both. If something happens to you, Aurora has me. If I go out and don’t come back, she has you. And if something happens to both of us, Carlo, Emily, and Brando will guard her with their lives. This girl has roots here, she has Luca and Gabriel. And you want to take all that away because some women choose to work at the club I manage? Because you’re too damn narrow-minded?”

He gets more heated, finally pounding a fist against the table.