Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance(31)

Felix looks hesitant, but nods slowly as he watches the determination burn bright in my eyes. “You must have a lot of respect for these girls.”

“Far more than they know,” I say, looking at the ominous doors of the apartment building. “I was harsh on them. I had to be. But there’s something special about them that I want to see realized.” About Liv, I want to add especially, but every one of them has untapped passion. “But that’s not the only reason this is my battle to fight,” I say as I reach into the trunk and move a panel aside, revealing a false bottom.

“I thought I’d put a permanent end to the Bratva’s human trafficking days.”

Felix’s eyes widen as I pull a couple of silenced pistols out of the trunk’s false bottom, followed by a set of knives I start strapping to my legs. “I thought that part of my life was gone entirely. If I was mistaken…”

I take out some ammunition and load up the pistols, strapping a pair of spares to my waist under my jacket as Felix looks around the empty street nervously.

“Then things are going to get ugly,” I finish, loading my pistols. “These Russians are Bratva. They’re ruthless, they’re dedicated, and they have no qualms delving into the deepest depravities imaginable to man. If the girls are in their possession, they won’t give them up without a fight, and they’re every bit as vicious as the next mobster. These are men from my past, Felix,” I say in a low tone, looking him dead in the eye.

“You can’t be serious, Max,” he breathes. I give him a silent look that tells him that I am every bit as serious as the weapons on my person are deadly. He swallows.

“Take the car back to my place, Felix,” I say, “then get a cab. I’ll pay you back. You’ve done me a service today. I won’t forget this.”

“No way,” he says, stepping forward, “Max, this is too much. Okay, so yeah, I looked up the whole story on you. The orphanage in Yakutsk, the stint in the Russian Special Forces, the covert operations you did, the retirement to the Bratva here in France, I know it all. I know you’ve been involved with these guys before.”

“Then you know that I know my enemy,” I say calmly.

“I know that for all you know, the guys in there are a whole different breed of killers. They’re slavers, Max, and if they’re starting up again after you shut them down last time, they’ll be expecting a visit from you. I don’t need my spreadsheets and statistics to tell me that, but you sure sound like you need to hear the statistics on your chances of survival if you’re thinking of going in there guns blazing with no plan!”

“The men in there are the reason I divorced myself from the Bratva,” I say. “For them to start up again is a mockery of everything I did to earn my retirement... Do you think I made my career on helping white-collar criminals dodge the law?”

I smile a cold smile that sends a visible chill down Felix’s spine. I was more than just a killer. I was a hitman. One of the most feared hitmen in all of Paris. And to let the monstrous wretches in that building live would be an insult to everything I stood for.

Felix keeps an eye on me for some time before asking, “So there’s no convincing you. What if I don’t hear back from you?”

“If you think that’s a possibility,” I say over my shoulder as I make my way up the steps toward the apartment front doors, “then you don’t know me very well, my friend.”

I hear Felix starting the car behind me as I ready the pistol in my hand, put the other hand on the door handle, and push.





11





Liv





I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here in the dark. It could have been minutes… or hours. It feels like months. I have no idea what time it is or where my grisly prison is located. In my head, without any physical distractions to stimulate my thoughts, I start to go a little crazy. My theories range from the relatively benign to the outlandishly catastrophic.

Maybe this is all an elaborate prank! I’m just in the basement of some building on campus, not far from home. It’s just part of a hazing ritual performed by the members of the gymnastics program or something. Any minute now, one of my coaches will pop out and tell me it’s all over — I passed.

Or then again… I don’t know how much time passed while I was knocked out. I could be halfway across the continent, in some Bulgarian holding cell. Will talked about somebody buying Maggie. What if this really is a sex trafficking ring or something? I watched a documentary once, curled up in my blankets at home in Toast. It had seemed like something that couldn’t possibly happen in my world. It was a far-away thing that happened to far-away people, not me.