Page 136 of Bratva Jewels Box Set

Dread fills the pit of my stomach.

“Is this my last meal? Is that why you have dressed me up, wined and dined me. Flirted with me. Give the dead girl walking her last good night before putting a bullet in my head. Why did you detox me only to kill me? Why didn’t you leave me to die? It would have been a much easier death on your hands. I would have done the job for you if you had asked me to. Your hands would have been clean on this job.”

My body shakes as I scream at Maxim. All the hurt, fear, and uncertainties come to the surface as my tears begin to flow freely.

“I need to go. I can’t … I … need a moment,” I say, sliding back in my chair. The sound echoes through the room as I get up and rush out of the dining room. I can’t breathe. The panic attack is beginning to set in as I frantically try to find a bathroom to lose my shit in.

I try a couple of doors until I find a powder room. Slamming the door behind me, I collapse onto the floor under a waterfall oftears as I curl up into a ball praying that this nightmare will be over soon.

Maxim is an assassin.

I’m never going home.

7

MAXIM

Ilet Grace go. I never thought telling her who I really was would be met with joy, but I wasn’t expecting her to have a mental breakdown over it either.You just told her you kill people for a living. That would freak anyone out, especially one you have kidnapped and are currently holding hostage.I suppose that’s right.

Shit.

I don’t want her to be scared of me.She should be, she’s just a job.This is true, but …then you saw her walk in tonight in a dress you chose for her. You spent too many hours thinking about how she would look in the dress for it to be healthy. Why don’t you just keep her? Do you really need another million dollars? Do you want to give this woman to Dmitri?I shake my head at these questions I shouldn’t be asking myself.

She’s a job.

Just a job nothing more.

Liar.

Pushing myself away from the table, I throw my napkin down on the table as I’m unable to enjoy my steak while Grace is missing. Would she have run again? Wouldn’t blame her if shehad. I stare down at my phone, but there are no alerts on it. Moving away from the dining room table, I walk out into the corridor and stare down the vast lengths on both sides. Where the hell is she?

Then I hear her sobbing in the distance. The sound pulls something in my chest, and I don’t like it. I can’t like it. I head toward the sound and open the powder room’s door. There she lies curled up in a ball shivering against the marble floor.

Shit. I did that to her.

“Go away, Maxim. Unless you’re here to kill me. Give me this moment, please.” She sobs.

“I’m not here to kill you, Grace,” I explain softly to her.

“Yet,” she says, looking up at me through mascara-soaked lashes.

I don’t answer her as I’m not sure what to say.

“Why did you save me? Did you do it as an ode to your sister, the one you couldn’t save?”

Her accusation hits me in the chest like a bullet.

“Do you have a fucked-up hero complex? Can hitmen be heroes? Did you want to make yourself feel good about saving the fucked-up whore? Do a decent thing to balance out all the bad karma you have.”

No amount of goodness could atone for all the bad that I have done in the world.

“To you, I’m a job, not a human. I know when the time comes for me to be offloaded, you’ll do it.”

She looks up at me as mascara runs down her cheeks.

I’m not sure if I’m being honest with myself because the thought of offloading her to Dmitri makes my stomach turn.

“Your silence speaks volumes, Maxim.” She sneers at me. “Do you have a gun on you now? Can you use it? Kill me now because if you’re going to give me to anyone else other than my family then I’m as good as dead. I would rather be dead than livethrough that hell again. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. Just take me out into the vines and shoot me?”