Page 4 of Maxim

I walk down a hallway that looks like it’s straight from a horror film. Flickering light and all. At the end a man dressed in all black stands, hands crossed in front of him.

“Name,” he demands.

“Maxim Boyko.”

The surname feels both wrong and right rolling off my tongue. It was my grandmother’s maiden name, so while it’s familiar, it’s not the one I’ve been saying for over three decades.

The man scans the guest list and nods when he sees I was in fact invited.

Two men step out of the shadows and approach.

“We need to search you,” the one on the right says.

Stepping back, I widen my stance as I raise my arms out. One man takes the front while the other checks my back. When they find that I’m clean, they step away.

“Clear,” the one on the left says before they step back into the shadows.

I take the time and readjust my sports coat. I fucking hate this thing. I never realized how uncomfortable I was every time I dressed up until recently.

Fuck, I wish I could wear my leather jacket like I usually do, but this place has to have a fucking dress code.

You’re playing a role.

I keep reminding myself that I shouldn’t be comfortable. This isn’t my life. It’s one fabricated to end the human trafficking across our country.

The main guard hits a button on his stand, and the vault door slides open. Thumping music assaults my ears as I cross the threshold. It’s almost so loud it drowns out the sound of the door. There are women and men dancing in cages in nothing but scraps of fabric that leave nothing to the imagination, while others move through the crowd, serving drinks and whatever else the guests have ordered.

The room is full of some of the biggest players in the skin game.

I see Han Ma, a married Chinese billionaire who has multiple concubines to please him. It’s rumored that he hasa choking fetish, which would make sense with the way he’s constantly in the market for new women.

Amon Hassan, an Egyptian businessman, is next to Han. It doesn’t escape my notice that a naked man kneels at Amon’s feet or the way Amon pets the man’s head.

Familiar face after familiar face appears as I run through the dossier Alexei gave me to study before I left, but the one man I want to see, Jan, doesn’t appear. I know he’s here somewhere, though. A man like him doesn’t let others run the show. No, he’s the type to like the attention.

“Would you like a drink, sir?” a woman asks as she comes up next to me.

I play the part that’s expected of me and scan the woman. She bites her lip in what I’m sure she thinks is a sultry look but does absolutely nothing for me. She has on red sheer lingerie that matches her hair. Objectively, she’s beautiful but not my type. Besides, the last thing I’m here to do is get my dick wet, no matter how long it’s been.

I shake my head and offer her a regretful look. “I’m good.”

The girl nods before turning and making her way through the room. I watch as a man grabs her ass as she hands another man in his circle a drink.

Fucking pigs.

Shaking my head, I move across the room to the bar. While I wait my turn, I keep scanning the room.

“Can I help you?” a woman asks softly.

Turning, I freeze when I see it’s Olena Norwak. My mark’s daughter. I know from her file that she’s just turned eighteen, and if I didn’t know better, I would say she was younger. Somehow, despite the fact of who her father is, she looks innocent.

Like a lamb in a room full of wolves.

She asks again, her voice shaking slightly as she wipes down the bar.

“What do you have for horilka?” I ask, using the Ukrainian word for vodka.

“We have Staritsky Levitsky, it’s a private cellar vodka. If you don’t mind Russian, I have Beluga Noble. Then, of course, I have several different American brands.”