Possess(The Syndicate: Crime and Passion 1)(8)

Like many things between us, this pattern was unspoken but expected, and I welcomed the calm of the process. It gave me something to do, and gave me some fulfillment. I treasured being able to care for Maxim, loved the chance to coddle him in this small way.

If I’d ever said so out loud, he would have put a stop to it, so I kept my mouth closed and just did the little things that brought me such joy.

This morning I was getting his office in order and had lined up supplies neatly. At first glance, this space could have been any CEO’s office. It was only with a second look that the differences would become apparent.

There was no phone, no computer. Though I always kept his office stocked with fresh notepads, he seldom wrote and never anything of consequence. Too risky, he’d told me once. Maxim kept his business entirely in his head.

Still, despite his quirks, the peculiarities that had taken time to get used to, with him, in these places, was where I was comfortable. My home, such as it was.

In the early afternoon, I stopped and turned at the sound of a deep-voiced, “Hello.”

I dropped the stack of blank stationery I had been arranging atop Maxim’s desk and rushed over to where the visitor stood.

“Sergei!” I said.

“Senna!” he said, reaching out to hug me. He then swooped me off the ground and swung me around as I laughed.

“What’s it been? Two years?” he asked.

“Three,” I replied.

“Too long,” he said, setting me down, though he kept his arm around my waist.

“Looks like this warm weather agrees with you,” I said.

“We all go where the boss sends us,” he said calmly, though I could see the humor in his eyes.

One could look at Sergei and assume he was some easygoing, slick playboy and nothing more. They would be mistaken.

Sergei, like Adrian—like Maxim, who had taught them all—was very good at what he did, despite what his outward appearance would have suggested.

He wouldn’t have survived this long if he wasn’t. Nor would he have garnered Maxim’s personal attention, but he had, moving up from a low position to an increasing amount of standing in the Syndicate.

Or at least I assumed so. None of them ever discussed specifics with me, but I’d been around long enough to piece it together.

There had been others like Sergei, those Maxim had seen potential in. Most of whom hadn’t lived up to that potential for some reason or another. Those men would come, then go again just as quickly, and I’d never see them again. I liked Sergei, though, was glad he was still around.

I patted his shoulder. “I don’t know if what you’re wearing is protocol,” I said, looking down at Sergei’s tight T-shirt and cargo pants.

“Shh. It will be our little secret,” he said, eyes twinkling at me mischievously.

“What is this about keeping secrets?” Maxim said as he entered, his gaze lingering on me before he looked at Sergei.

I stepped away from Sergei quickly, for some reason feeling like I had been caught doing something I shouldn’t have been. Sergei stood a little taller too, though he still maintained his calm, easy demeanor.

Maxim look at me again and then walked to his desk.

Sergei followed and stood in front of the desk.

I stayed exactly where I was.

Maxim did this sometimes, most often when he was displeased for one reason or another. He’d get even more distant, cold, and would try to use that silence and coldness to send me messages. Sometimes, I’d accept his silence, but other times I didn’t, feigned ignorance until he said out loud what he wanted.

Petty victories, perhaps, but victories nonetheless, and I was in the mood for one of those victories today, so I continued to stay put.

He glanced at me after a long minute, a flash of annoyance in his eyes.

“Leave, Senna,” he said.

“We’ll catch up, Se,” Sergei said.

Maxim’s scowl deepened for the briefest moment, but he soon cleared it, and after a few additional seconds, I left.

His command hadn’t been friendly, probably shouldn’t have been tolerated, but I knew what that meant to him. Maxim was accustomed to having people follow his every order, even the unspoken ones, so that he’d said the words was a victory in itself.

I went upstairs, smiled as I moved, thinking of this. My relationship with Maxim was a mystery to me. It was never warm, sometimes bordered on hostile, little skirmishes sometimes a part of the silent and sometimes very cold war.

And yet…

There was tenderness too, something like affection between us, comfort that had grown over the years. Perhaps I was reading things into it, examining Maxim’s so-often-distant behavior and trying to put borders around it, but there was something.