AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maxim fell silent for a long moment, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to say in response to that. It wasn’t fair for me to just drop this on him like this, but I had to get it off my chest. I had to be honest.
Finally, he spoke again.
"I know," he replied. I pulled back, staring him, confused.
"What do you mean, you know?"
He sighed.
"Damyan wanted to find out what had happened to you," he explained. "He went to the auction place, where those guys were holding you, and he … he managed to get the information out of them. About your father, about his debts. About how he used you to pay them off."
My eyes widened.
"How long have you known?" I whispered.
"A couple of days," he replied, gazing at me, not breaking my gaze for a second.
"You must think I’m crazy," I replied, my voice dropping again. "Caring about him, after what he did to me …"
His jaw tensed. I could see the anger in his face, not aimed at me, but at my father. Hardly a surprise. Nobody could let what he had done slip past that easily, not a chance in hell.
"I know how complicated things can be," he replied. "When it comes to your parents. It’s not black and white."
"You do?" I replied, wiping the tears away from my face. He nodded, glancing away from me, tightening his grip on me slightly, like he was worried I might slip through his fingers at any moment.
"Yeah," he muttered. "When I was … When I was a teenager, my mother was …"
He trailed off and swallowed hard. I reached over to squeeze his hand, silently telling him it was okay to go on. I could tell what a hard time he was having, but he was doing his level best to contain it. I hadn’t seen him this open in all the time I had known him; he’d always put up some kind of a front, making sure nobody got too close to him. I couldn’t exactly say it surprised me—in his line of work, strength and fortitude were the most important skills you could have. He clearly wasn’t used to being open with anyone like this.
"She was kidnapped by some of my father’s enemies," he explained. "They held her for ransom. My father didn’t want to pay, said he didn’t want to give them a reason to do this again, and he sent his men in to get her out, but they …"
He rolled his shoulders back, cleared his throat.
"They killed her."
I could tell how much it hurt him to say that out loud, even now, even after all these decades. It made my chest ache to see the pain on his face.
"Jesus, Maxim, I’m so sorry—"
He shook his head.
"It’s okay," he replied quickly, as though he didn’t want to linger on it any longer than he already had. "It was a long time ago."
"That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt," I told him firmly. "You were young. You should never have lost your mother like that."
Something eased in his face, like he was relieved he didn’t have to keep up that front with me anymore.
"I was angry at my father for a long time after that," he admitted. "Furious. I thought he was responsible, thought if he’d just given them the money they would have given her back to us, but …"
He sighed.
"I don’t think it would have mattered," he continued. "They just wanted to make a point. Use her to hurt us."
"That’s horrible," I whispered.
"It’s one of the reasons I wanted to help you," he told me, squeezing me a little closer still. "I … I can’t fucking stand when people in this business use women like that, as pawns, as pieces on a board. I don’t care how the rest of the world sees us; we should still have standards for ourselves. The reason I sent my daughter away for a while, actually."
"Your daughter?" I replied, surprised. He nodded.
