One corner of his lips lifts for a moment then quickly fades. “I’ll bet you were something to see.”
I hip-bump him, interrupting our casual pace when he has to side step to recover. “What does that mean?” I demand with a laugh. I’m fishing now—I can’t help it. I’ve always been starved for attention, and here, I’m finally getting some.
“I liked seeing you with your friends.” He lifts our joined hands to his lips and kisses my fingers. “I got to see the real you.”
I’m embarrassed at how clammy my hand gets. How hard my pathetic heart starts pounding.
“I don’t even know the real me,” I find myself saying. It’s the truth although I don’t know where it came from.
“That was the real you,” Maxim says, like he knows for sure. Like he’s seen into my broken soul that quickly. That easily.
“What was?”
“Fun. Lively. The life of the party. But also generous. You’re a good friend—I can tell. You guys support each other. You want the best for each other.”
I think of my jealousy over Kayla’s career and feel a pang of guilt.
As if Maxim reads my mind, he says, “You wish you were still here. Living with them.”
The words are unexpected, and they bring up buried emotion. My eyes get hot and wet. I blink rapidly, tossing my hair in the breeze and pretending a little sand got in them. “Staying here was never an option.” My voice only chokes a little. “I knew I was on borrowed time the entire four years I was here. I was lucky Igor let me come at all.”
“He loved you,” Maxim says simply.
This time the unexpected hot tears come as a flood. Two streak down my face before I can catch them. “Gospodi,” I mutter, swiping at them with the back of my free hand. “I don’t know about that.”
“He did. He was a shitty father in many ways, but you were his only child, and he did love you very much.”
“His form of love sucked, then,” I say bitterly, but guilt fills my chest. It’s not entirely true. I have memories of him swooping me up into his arms as a little girl. Tossing me into the air. Making me laugh. Bringing over presents and sweets. I used to look forward to his visits like he was freaking Santa Claus. But that’s fucked up. He should have been my dad, not some magical godfather who showed up when he wanted and bought my love. I lived for his attention because I didn’t have it often enough.
Maxim shrugs. “I’m sure it could’ve been better. Could’ve been worse, too. He was who he was. My mother was a lying cunt who tricked me into waiting for her for years. She should’ve done better, but she didn’t. Igor gave me more in comparison. So he had my loyalty.”
I’m awash in cold at Maxim’s words. Honored that he shared this sliver of his true self with me. His broken self. I knew there had to be a story about why he served my father so loyally. Everyone seemed to have one.
“Your mother tricked you?” I ask softly.
Maxim looks past me to the ocean as he takes easy steps, our feet sinking into the softer sand. “When she brought me to the orphanage, she told me she’d be back. To be good. And so I waited. I waited for years. Until I finally got smart enough to figure out she’d suckered me. Ruined by women’s lies seems to be a theme with me.” He throws me a meaningful glance, and my insides tumble. My body goes hot and cold wishing I’d never ruined his life the way I did.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” He cuts me off with the harsh syllable. Like he just showed me too much and regrets it.
I don’t dare speak even though my breath hangs in my chest, suspended. Needing to come out in a rush.
After an excruciating moment, Maxim saves me by going on. “I ran away from the orphanage at fourteen and tried to make it on my own. I did all right. Learned to pickpocket and slept in an empty building I broke into.
“Igor saw me on the streets. He had a habit of recruiting down-on-their-luck boys from the street. The bratva headquarters had warm beds and food. Plenty of cash to go around if we proved ourselves. Every member needed an errand boy. Hell, they loved training us up in their own images. Violent and ruthless but with rules.”
“Were you my father’s errand boy?”
Maxim nods. “I learned from the best.” His smile is sad, like he doesn’t love the man he was. Or perhaps still is. “I paid attention. I listened and watched. Igor figured out I was smart when I started fixing the problems some of the other brigadiers got into. That’s how I got my title as fixer. I was too young for leadership, so he kept me by his side as strategist. Sent me out when problems arose to fix them.”
“You’re grateful to him.”
Maxim nods. “I will forever be grateful. The life he gave me was so much better than the one I had. I was nothing, and he made me into a powerful man.”
“And I ruined that.”
“No.” Maxim stops and looks out at the ocean. “I thought so at the time—but no.” He turns to look at me, and it takes all my courage not to flinch away. “You did me a favor. My life is ten times better here than it was in Russia. Ravil has Chicago at his feet, and he shares the wealth generously. I’m happy here.”
I work to swallow, but I can’t. I want to ask if he forgives me, but the words get clogged in my throat.
“Did you know? That he knew it wasn’t true?”
“No.” Maxim removes his hand from mine, and I register the loss for a second until I realize it was to brush my hair out of my face. My belly flutters when his knuckles make the whisper contact. “But I wondered. It explains why I’m alive. I figured he wasn’t sure, and that’s why he hedged by sending me out of the country.” He loops a hand around my throat, his thumb lightly stroking the column of my neck. “But he knew for sure. Which I guess is proof of his love for you.”
I scrunch up my forehead. “How, exactly?”
“He didn’t call your bullshit. He respected you enough to get rid of me since you wanted me gone. And I may be mistaken, but I believe he was pretty fucking fond of me. I was his protégé. Made in his image and all that.”
My face flushes. I’d wanted to hurt him, but I hadn’t actually wanted him gone. My father had kept me away from people and business most of the time, but when he took us on vacation the next year and Maxim wasn’t there, I’d felt the loss acutely.
“I-I was stupid and spiteful. If he’d killed you, I never would have forgiven myself.”
Maxim brushes my lower lip with the pad of his thumb. “Igor probably knew that, too.”
“I think you give him more credit than he deserves.”
Maxim shakes his head. “No. I learned at his side. He considered every angle before he made a move. He must’ve decided removing me was the best solution for both of us. Same as he decided unifying us now would complete the circle.”
Something huge rocks inside me. I’m not sure I buy that Maxim and I were meant to be married. That our marriage is closure or a completion. I still suspect it was my father punishing me. But hearing the other possibility blows open the roof on my current thinking. Those thoughts are dangerous, though.
Especially after my conversation with my mother.