Page 24 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MARY

The car ride home isn’t quiet, on account of Sasha never really being quiet, but Maxim has a tense, brooding sort of energy about him—more than usual, and that’s impressive since quiet brooding is kind of his whole thing.

We swap cars at my sister’s house before driving back to the apartment to clean up. I expect that Maxim and Sasha will just leave me there, but I’m surprised when Maxim follows me inside and up the elevator in silence.

He won’t even look at me, and that guy is always fucking looking at me.

“What’s your deal?” I ask when we step inside the penthouse. Greta pads down the stairs and stretches at my feet until I scratch her head.

“Nothing,” Maxim says, but his shoulders are stiff and he looks pissed so obviously it’s not nothing .

I’m mentally rewinding through the day to see if I said anything egregious to him, but come up blank.

Until I remember this morning, him acting like Vanessa asking me to do a hit was the same level as asking me to dispose of a body or something.

And that just rubs me the wrong way.

I stalk into the kitchen behind him. “You know, as far as hits go, that was as clean as I possibly could have made it. Thought you’d be pleased.”

He scoffs. “Yeah, a real master class.”

“Oh, come on, Maxim,” I say though it comes out more like a taunt. “You knew about me.”

“I did,” he says. He pulls open the fridge door and retrieves a glass water bottle. “I just didn’t know you were still doing grunt work.”

“Well someone has to do it, and if it’s me, at least we know it’ll be done right.” Maxim looks pained as he takes a swig of his bottle. “Can you really not stand that I might be good at my job?”

“No one should be good at that job.”

“What, you’d rather I be sloppy? An emotional mess? Do you hear yourself? That man was a bad apple, one that would’ve gotten to others if left to rot. He thought Cillian should’ve killed my sister, you think he should live?”

“No,” he snaps, too loud, and we’re both surprised by the volume of his usually level voice. He takes a steadying breath. “Of course not, but you?—”

He looks away from me while searching for the right words, like he can’t even meet my eye.

The realization that big bad Maxim Orlov might be disgusted by me is more of a kick to the stomach than I could’ve anticipated.

“It shouldn’t have to be you who does it,” he says, quiet and level once again.

I press my lips together tight and count to fifteen in my head before stepping around the kitchen island until I’m directly in front of him. I move my head until he can’t look away from me, and force his eyes to mine.

What I see there surprises me into silence momentarily—not disgust, but something else.

Something hot and familiar, the same thing I saw on our wedding night, when we consummated this loveless legal entity.

It’s hunger and guilt and a fire that smolders behind the storm gray of his eyes.

Seeing them now, I don’t know how I ever thought they were just blue.

I laugh, an ungenerous sound, and grab Maxim’s jaw so he can’t look away from me.

“Oh baby, you’re as sick as me. I just don’t feel bad about it,” I say, the endearment mocking even to my ears. “You liked watching me kill him, and you hate that, don’t you?”

“I don’t want you doing hits,” he says, disregarding my words.

I lick my lips before I step closer, pushing our bodies flush together. Sure enough there’s a stiff length between us, pressing into my stomach. I smile before I push away from him.

He doesn’t like me doing hits, or he doesn’t like how seeing me doing hits makes him feel? Either way, his indignation pisses me off.

“Where are you going?” he asks, voice still strained.

“My sister’s. I don’t want to see you until dinner tomorrow.”

Maxim curses behind me and calls my name, but I ignore him. When I get into the elevator, he doesn’t follow, though his eyes stay locked on mine. Before the door closes, I wink, and swear I hear him curse again.

I drive around for a long while before going to my sister’s, and by the time I get there, everyone is already in bed. I walk barefoot through the house, looking at every room with new eyes. It hasn’t even been a full week, and yet the house already feels different.

I hover my hand over my doorknob, but am overwhelmed with a sense that it doesn’t feel right to sleep there. I can’t shake it, so I crawl into bed with my mom, waking her gently to not startle her into cardiac arrest when seeing me.

She doesn’t ask questions, maybe too tired, only tucks the comforter in at my sides like when I was a kid. She rests her head back on her pillow and smiles slightly.

“Making your escape already?” she asks sleepily.

“Maybe,” I whisper, but she’s already fallen back to sleep.

Sleep doesn’t come for me, and I stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn.

Two weeks. Not even a month of sleeping in the same bed as Maxim, and I’m already noticing the lack of him—the way he smells, his shins warm against my cold feet, the soft puffs of his breath.

After an hour with no luck, I determine a snack might help. Maybe some tea.

When I pad down the stairs, I find a light on in the kitchen. It’s almost enough to make me want to turn around and go somewhere I can do my own brooding in peace, but I skipped dinner and my stomach wins out as I venture into the kitchen.

It’s Vanessa sitting at the counter looking at something on her phone while eating cake directly from a Tupperware.

“Mary,” she says, her mouth still full of icing and chocolate cake.

She wears little blue gel patches under her eyes and her reading glasses.

The sight makes my heart ache for home again, which makes little sense because first of all, I am already here and, second, I haven’t been away for very long.

“Grab a fork.” I do as she says, taking a big bite of cake before pouring us both glasses of water. “Why is this stuff so good?”

“I think Leo puts something in it. In no world is this just a regular cake, I don’t care what he says. It’s sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, and a mystery ingredient that’s probably illegal.”

“And chocolate,” Vanessa points out. “Cinnamon too.”

“Cream cheese and vanilla,” I add about the frosting.

“He’s probably not spiking cake children are going to eat, right?”

“Well, he might.”

Vanessa laughs and pats the stool next to her. I finish chewing my bite before rounding the counter to sit next to her. As soon as I do, I drop my head on her shoulder.

Her arm comes up to my back for a squeeze.

Sitting with her like this reminds me of being a child and having a bad day at school.

Another fight, another argument with a teacher, another call home to Mom and Dad; I was never good at controlling my emotions, and it was so frustrating then.

It still is, but at least now I’m better at hiding it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Vanessa asks, and I know that if I say no she will drop it. Willa is less that way, she loves to pry and weasel answers out of us.

Instead of explaining what happened, I start with a question. “Does Nate ever try to stop you from doing your job?”

Vanessa laughs, and the sound startles me to sit up straight.

“All the time!” She licks her fork clean. “More since I got pregnant. To him, the perfect world scenario is me working from home in a secure fortress. He offered that we spend this summer in Connecticut, can you imagine?”

“Doesn’t it annoy you?” I ask. “You’re more than capable.”

“Of course I’m capable, and he knows that. But it’s not annoying to be cared for.”

“Sure, but you can take care of yourself—you don’t need him telling you what you can or can’t do.”

“Yes, but—” Vanessa looks away as if trying to find the right words. Like when she tries to explain a big topic to one of the kids. “In the same way, it feels nice to know you’ve helped someone, it feels good to be taken care of sometimes.”

“You’ve gotten sappy,” I murmur. She smiles before stretching her arms above her head. Her stomach is rounder now that she’s five months pregnant. A girl.

“Is Maxim being cruel?” she asks instead of justifying her softheartedness.

I scrape my fork over the last of the frosting while I consider the question. I’ve seen cruel, and Maxim is not it.

“He’s being unreasonable.”

“Hm.” Vanessa pulls her lips down into a frown to hide a smile. I hate her amusement, mostly because she sees something that I do not and it makes me feel obtuse. “That sounds unlike him.”

I will admit that maybe a core tenant of Maxim’s personality is his level headed surety and ability to think through problems rationally. It’s why everyone I’ve met loves working for him and with him. It’s very antithetical to his role, and the complete opposite of his father.

“You heard him this morning, he doesn’t like when I do my job,” I explain. Once again, her face shows no sympathy.

“He can join the club,” she says. I’ve heard the argument from her before, the pleas that I choose anything else, but that’s different.

She’s family. He’s just—well, my husband.

“You are very good at what you do Mary, and I respect that you want to do it, but you know I’d rather you work in an office like Willa.

Or on job sites with Sean. Dad felt the same. ”

“Who would do all the illegal stuff, then?” I ask, though the answer is still all of us. We all are doing illegal stuff, Willa and Vanessa just don’t have bruises to show for their work.

“Lackeys?” Vanessa offers. I can tell she’s not actually pushing the argument, just talking about it casually.

Lackeys are fine, but none of them are that scary.

It’s not all that hard, what I do, beating on people.

I’ve always said I do it because I’m the best, but I don’t say what’s harder to admit; I don’t believe what I do is particularly difficult, only that I don’t know if I’d be good at anything else.

Vanessa yawns. “It’s time to sleep again.”

When she stands, the metal jangle of Ranger’s collar tells that he’s ready to follow her upstairs. She takes the container and drops it in the sink before squeezing my shoulders in a tight hug.

“Is Maxim coming to dinner tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll go back with him after.”

“Okey dokey,” she says. It took no time at all for her to be infected by Nate’s dorky ass way of speaking.

She kisses the side of my face, loud and a little slobbery and laughs when I tell her that’s gross and try to push her off. Vanessa smiles, lingers at the doorway. “There are worse things than having someone worry after you.”

“Goodnight, Ness.”

Vanessa nods and trudges sleepy toward the stairs, Ranger’s collar jingling behind her as he follows.