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Klive walked over to me, then sat down on the questionable wooden coffee table in front of me. His brown gaze regarded me intently as he asked, “Have you ever seen a desperate person fight for their life?”
“What?”
“As your life flashes before your eyes, you will desperately grab onto anything that you think might be able to save you,” he went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “You don’t care what it is, either. Your panicked hands will reach out for anything that will spare you. You don’t care how ridiculous or impossible it might seem. Even if your mind knows that it cannot save you, you still try. You try to save yourself with whatever is available, and you are what is available to me, milaya devushka. Since I cannot get to Akim or his family without it costing my own life, you are the next best thing. Even if I did believe that Maksim held no affection for you, I would still use you because you are the only thing within my reach right now.”
“So…” I let out a hollow laugh. “So, you’re doing all this to me because I’m convenient? Are you serious right now?”
“I did not come all this way from Russia, then bide my time for five years to fail,” he said, still acting like I knew what he was talking about. “Though intentional or not, the Sartoris and O’Briens have helped thwart my plans over the years, and I am done waiting.”
“I don’t get it,” I bit out, desperation threatening to make an appearance. “Why not just shoot Maksim or Akim dead?”
“I do not want to martyr myself for my revenge,” he stated simply.
I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s the part that I think you don’t understand. The second that you decided to go up against the Kotovs, you were already a dead man. It doesn’t matter if you kill me or not, Klive. As long as you’re alive and a threat to Maksim or Akim, they won’t stop until you’re dead. How can you not see that?”
“They would have to follow me to Russia to accomplish that,” he replied coolly.
“Because you think that they won’t?” I countered. “Maksim Barychev is the second-highest ranking member of the Russian Bratva, and if you think that they won’t follow you into the bowels of Hell to find you, then you’re very mistaken.”
“Well, we will see about that, will we not?” he huffed with misplaced attitude.
“We won’t,” I retorted. “But you definitely will.”
Chapter 33
Maksim~
Avgust was staring at me as I paced my office, waiting for Nero or Morocco to call us back or send a text with Katja’s whereabouts, and he was wise enough not to give me any half-ass platitudes about how everything was going to be okay or how she was going to be fine. After what had happened to his wife, he knew well enough that things weren’t always fine.
There was also the fact that someone was going to have to tell her grandfather what happened if the worst came to be. That was not how I wanted to meet Mr. Antonov for the first time, but I wouldn’t let anyone else tell him. This was my error, and my penance would be looking that man in his eyes and telling him that his granddaughter had been hurt because of me. It also didn’t matter that Nikel had chosen her all on his own. The second that I started feeling something for her, I should have begun taking better care of her.
“If Nikel has not addressed her absence from work, that could also pose a problem,” Avgust said, finally speaking. “It’s a reasonable assumption that her work might conduct a welfare check, depending on her attendance record.”
“A part of me wishes that they’d get involved, but I am also very aware that we do not need the police muddying up the waters more,” I replied, drowning in the irony that my intelligence level was useless in this situation.
Just then, my phone chimed with an incoming text, and when I looked at my phone, I saw that it was an attachment, and I’d never felt such an overwhelming sense of dread in all my life. Even when I’d been fifteen and put in charge of raising Akim.
“It’s an attachment,” I said, my fingers hovering over the screen.
“Do you want me to look at it first?” Avgust offered, knowing exactly what I must be feeling, having been here before.
“No,” I answered.
Two seconds later, I opened the attachment, and regret almost dropped me to my knees as I watched Nikel tell Katja to smile for the cameras. She was about to be violated for an audience again, and it didn’t matter that it was just an audience of one. Once again, all of Katja’s secrets were going to be exposed for entertainment purposes, and I knew in this moment that I was never going to be able to make things right between us. Yeah, I had the power to keep her with me forever, but she was never going to love me, and that was as clear as day now.
I watched the video, not saying anything as Nikel cut her bra open, showing the camera everything, his hands touching her like they had the right to. I watched as she kept her head down, her eyes glued to her lap, Nikel’s face glowing with a fevered sickness. Not only was he touching something exquisite, but he also knew what this would do to me. I was never going to get this image out of my head, and I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that more videos weren’t going to follow.
When the video finally ended, I looked over at Avgust, and he must have seen something in my eyes, because he immediately stood up, asking, “What is it?”
“It’s a video of him and Katja,” I answered, not needing to go into details.
Very calmly, he said, “I need you to look at it again, Maksim. However, this time, I need you to ignore Nikel and Katja, and look at anything in the background that can tell us where they are.”
I gave him a terse nod before doing as he’d instructed. Pulling up the video again, I did my best to ignore the atrocity happening in the center of the room. “It’s an abandoned house, looks small.”
“Like where Louie took Samara?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah…in fact, if we hadn’t burned down the house, I’d think that it was the same place.”
