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Chapter Three
Maksim.
Present Day
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my little ray of fucking sunshine fiancé wear anything but pink.
Not even her gloves are pink… it’snice. She looks normal - as normal as one could be considering a fucking funeral at the start of the year. What a fucking waste of time, but I needed to show I was behind my future wife. Mostly, I’m here to meet new-to-me Syndicate members, the few that showed up, anyway.
I knew this dead fucker was sick after how Simon left one of our girls almost bruised from her chest down at Pandemonium, our Chicago club, the one my cousin Kallum runs. The sick fuck left bite marks all over her. But sick like this? Murdering young girls? I didn't think he had it in him. Although he did give me the fucking creeps, so there’s that.
Sabrina doesn’t cry… doesn’t weep once, but there is tension around her eyes, a sort of vitriol that surrounds her. Or maybe it’s simply disgust. Raven is the first to nonchalantly throw her red rose into Simon’s grave as he’s lowered to the ground. My little Syndicate princess then throws her white one with the same aloofness and follows her to stand behind a tree. I watch as Sabrina does something out of character -again- and reaches for her best friend, her soon-to-be maid of honor, and threads their gloved fingers together. There’s a small smirk on her spooky friend’s face, and it reminds me of those old dolls that would smile when you tip them.
I stare out into the white abyss. Snippets of memories crowd my mind, but there was rain, not snow, and calla lilies instead of roses. I can still smell the wet soil of that day, my father’s hand in mine as they lowered the coffin into the grave, over fifty of my father’s men stood around, the wives sniffling into their handkerchiefs, and my owntears begging to fall.
“Take this as a lesson, son,” My father faces me just as the gravediggers begin to shovel the wet earth over my mother’s casket.“Women… will either make you more powerful... or they’ll make you weaker, Maksim. I want you to remember this day. This moment. How you’re feeling right now. Because if a woman makes you stronger and more powerful… they will become a target. Never fall for a woman. It’s not worth it.” He sighs with a slight shake of his head. “You focus on everything else, Maksim. School, moving forward, gaining power and money - anything but love. It’ll cause nothing but devastation and ruin you… inside and out.”
My father was a prophet.
He was never the same man again.
I stare at Sabrina, dressed in black, as dark thoughts swirl in my mind and my mood blackens. No, I could never love her. I won’t allow myself to. If she becomes a victim of my way of life, so be it. I’ve worked too hard to get to where I am, to ever allow myself to fall for her or any other woman. Which is why I’ve remained abstinent and stayed away from women since the day we laid my mother to rest.
Being seen with women - fine. Letting them kiss me, sure. But sex? No. I couldn’t allow myself to get attached to or distracted by pussy. I had other means of taking care ofthoseneeds and urges, including a rigorous training schedule, fighting, and above all, puttingallof my efforts into what my father, my grandfather, his father before him built from the ground up. I only change the rules if they fit me and the modern way of this life.
I’d also seen too many men lose themselves after heartache.
I can’t allow that to happen to me.
However bleak it may seem, this lifeworksfor me.
That kid Jonas joins them, as they all stare off into the distance. Seeing now that this was truly a waste of time, since none of the important Syndicate members are around. Barely a handful showed up for the piece of shit. I turn to David, Sabrina’s poor excuse of a father, who proceeds to introduce me to some Elliot prick that looks like he just stepped off a plane from some sunny place.
I shake his hand, then turn to David - and excuse myself to be with Sabrina.
I need to see what she finds so goddamn interesting about the white abyss. She’s hardly spoken to me since the night I proposed with her pink ring, and it seems the closer we get to our nuptials, the more she’s determined to stay away from me.
“So, did you pick a date for the wedding?” Jonas asks, making light conversation once I reach them as if trying to change the subject a little too quickly.
“April sixteenth.” Sabrina replies, (news to me) forcing that smile back on her face. She sounds excited. All that eloquence in the cadence of her mezzo-soprano voice, irks me. So much sunshine. I wonder if she ever grows weary of continually slapping it on? But is that the real Sabrina? Is she actually all sunshine and unicorn farts, or is there a deeper reason she froze on me at Monroe's holiday party?
I can’t imagine anyone getting close enough to hurt her, much less even putting their hands on her.
Every camera feed I tune into is just her, singing terribly to some old alternative rock songs while she bakes. There’s sometimes a string of intricately used curse words. I wonder if she’ll use my kitchen to bake and sing terribly? The other cameras Niko installed in her home don’t usually have a show for me. No, the woman reads in her library, works in her office, her bedroom is void of visitors and she’s so routine, it’s almost robotic. If she didn’t scream-sing while baking, I would think she was an AI generation on my screen.
“She’s a good girl, my Sabrina.”
We part ways from the Syndicate members, leaving the snow-covered burial sites behind. She and I are in her Escalade that Parker is driving, facing opposite directions, looking out the window. It’s almost too quiet in here. Nothing but the rumbling of the engine and the tires crunching over the snow on the paved pathway out to the two-lane road. Her perfume is soft and delicate, like wildflowers and a berry I can't name and it's all I think about as we drive back to the city.
I want to smell it up close and personal, let it settle into my lungs while I shove her skirt up her lush thighs and dig myself so deep into her that her scent clings to my clothes when we part. I’m clutching my fists so tightly to prevent myself from reaching over and hauling her into my lap. When Parker drops me off first, I leave with a grunt when she says ‘goodbye,’ knowing I'll begin to receive future texts for more tedious things we must do together and where to be sighted. We're up to once a week now since the proposal.
I open the door to find Niko sitting in my living room, TV on as if this is his home. I make sure to sigh extra loudly at the sight of him. Which is when he stands and joins me in the den. I grab the decanter that holds my Johnnie Walker, pour it into two crystal tumblers and then grab two ice spheres and drop them in.
“Everything okay?” Niko asks, obviously notating I’m drinking well before two in the afternoon, I hand the handsome fucker a tumblerbefore I take a seat in my grandfather’s favorite leather chair. It’s old and has been reupholstered so many times, but it’s been in the family for decades.
“Apparently I’m to be married on April sixteenth.” I sigh, taking a sip of the amber liquid and letting it warm my throat.
“Don’t sound so happy boss, you might break something.”