He finally nodded. “You’re better at this than me anyway. Make it hurt,” he said as he brushed past Maxim and down the hall.
Maxim couldn’t really argue with Santo’s words. He was better, but he wasn’t a mad dog like Santo and he didn’t relish the idea of making someone suffer, wouldn’t simply because Santo had demanded it.
Once Santo was out of the house, Maxim began moving down the hallway, only barely listening to the others who had entered to clean the living room, instead focused on the hallway.
Three doors, all ajar, darkness spilling out from them.
Two bedrooms and a bathroom, Maxim assumed based on the layout common for houses in this area. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in a place like this, hunting for a person who’d had the misfortune of crossing the Syndicate’s, or Santo’s, path.
A shame, but a part of the job.
Maxim dismissed the door at the far end of the hall. If Maxim was right, and he’d been in this scenario far too many times to be anything else, the person Santo was chasing had planned to slip out behind him as he thrashed through the other rooms. So going to the far door wouldn’t give them the opportunity to get past him.
Which left the second bedroom or the bathroom.
Both had merits.
The bedroom offered more places to hide, like the closets people were so fond of. But the bathroom had its own benefits. A window that might serve as an alternate escape, and all kinds of chemicals and cleaners that could do some damage if it came to that.
The scratches on Santo’s arms, the fact that she had gotten away, proved Santo’s prey was a fighter, so Maxim turned into the bathroom and pulled the floral shower curtain aside.
The girl was younger than him, twenty-one, twenty-two, maybe, and as he’d suspected, clutching a spray bottle of bleach so tightly her brown fingers were turning white at the knuckles.
Her grip was so tight, it took a moment for her to react, but she did, loosening her hold and then squeezing the trigger on the spray bottle. Her movements were jerky, panicked, and her aim was off, so the spray flew over Maxim’s shoulder and landed harmlessly behind him.
He glared at her, and her eyes widened but the rest of her body went stiff as she froze in place, staring back at him. Maxim watched her for a moment as she debated whether to try to spray him again, then saw her fingers twitch around the trigger as she considered it.
Saw when she tightened her grip on the bottle.
She met his eyes, and Maxim stared back at her, curious as to what she would do. It felt like the longest time, but in reality it was only seconds. Long enough for Maxim to see that his perception of her as a fighter was true, and long enough for him to tire of their little standoff.
He pried the bottle from her hand and dropped it to the floor, staring at her, still considering.
Her eyes were glassy and wet with unshed tears, but tears had long lost the power to sway him. Maxim couldn’t say for sure if they ever really had.
Everything he knew said he should reach for his knife.
He didn’t.
Instead he grabbed the hand that had been holding the bleach and pulled her out of the shower.
She stared up at him, blinking rapidly, and Maxim could see the beat of her pulse at the base of her throat.
“Are you going to k-kill me?” she asked in a low whisper.
No witnesses. No loose ends. She was both.
The answer was easy.
Yes.
Maxim looked at her again and then shook his head.
“No.”
One
Today
Senna
The plane touched down, the bounce smoothing out immediately and then transitioning to a glide as it rolled down the runway.
My muscles clenched with tension and I turned my gaze to Maxim, who sat across from me. He’d folded his large frame into the plane’s seat, his broad shoulders and thick, heavily muscled torso filling the chair. I kept my eyes on him as the plane rolled to a stop, let my gaze caress his strong jaw, which had started to stubble after so many hours in flight. Then I looked up and over a cheek that tended toward gaunt, almost hollow, though the rest of him was solid and filled out.
And as I watched him, the tension that held my stomach tight loosened, becoming less and less until it was nothing.
I’d long ago stopped wondering why he had that effect on me. Maybe there was no answer, but whatever the reason, it always worked. Looking at Maxim always calmed me.
When the plane finished moving and came to a stop, he turned his eyes to meet mine, blue orbs ice-cold, lacking all emotion. My calm increased.
“You’re still not used to landing,” he said, his voice rolling out of his chest in a deep rumble.
I smiled faintly and then nodded. “Not yet,” I said.
Maxim didn’t say anything else and instead looked out of the window again. I wondered—not for the first time—what he must think of me.