Page 23 of The Crimson Lily

“Fuck this shit, I’m out!” Alejandro exclaims. He punches the nearest wall. “This is way too fucking dangerous.”

“I don’t have time for you children,” Maksim roars. “You leave, I terminate you.”

Alejandro is about to blow, but when his eyes meet Maksim’s, he lowers his arms. “Fine!” he jerks. “I’ll wait in the fucking lobby.”

I suddenly notice Béatrice next to me. She has traces of blood on her face, but most of it is gone. I wonder how long she’s been here. She paces away and heads after Alejandro.

“Wait!” she calls after him, then she briefly turns to Maksim and me. “You’d better get her to a safe place, or I will fucking kill you. Putain de merde !”

She runs behind Alejandro into the hallway.

I feel my energy slowly return to me. I can breathe again.

I have to cough a few times while I raise myself up.

I look ahead of me and see two dead bodies sprawled out on the floor.

I might scream. I might puke. But I do none of these things.

Maksim has killed these two men. I let him dial a number on his phone and hear a voice on the other end.

“ Da …” he responds to that voice. He says a few sentences in Russian. I understand Opera between words.

Once he’s done, he looks at me with a stern glare. “We need to leave,” he declares again.

I bring a hand to my neck, just to check again that nothing is damaged.

I swallow a few times, then rise to my feet.

I’m in a light state of shock. I realize now that I almost died today.

We need to leave, but I’m petrified. Maksim is just in my reach, and I look at him with begging eyes.

I have to be in his arms right now. I need his comfort.

He notices and comes closer to me. He kneels down by the bed and wraps his arms around me. I just hug him, right there, really tightly. My eyes remain wide open. My hands make their way to his back, and I squeeze. I squeeze so hard I could hurt him if he weren’t so big.

“We need to leave, zaya ,” he whispers in my ear.

I release him just slightly. “Don’t leave me again,” I plead.

“I won’t.”

He escapes my embrace and makes me stand up. I cast another glance at the two bodies—one with a broken neck, and the other, the gunman, with a hole through his face. It’s not pretty. There’s blood everywhere.

“Someone is coming to take care of that,” Maksim declares, possibly to reassure me.

I figure the Bratva has contacts with a body removal service, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. I follow Maksim, who’s packing my suitcase for me in a rush.

Once done, he opens the door and lets me through first. We make our way downstairs, into the lobby, where he says words I don’t hear to my two friends, who stare blankly at a fixed point in space.

When he returns, I’m too weak to ask him anything about what he told them.

We head out of the hotel and into the street.

Maksim picks the first long black taxi he finds and almost shoves me into it.

He gives an address to the driver through the pane, and we take off in the blink of an eye.

I don’t know where I am when Maksim opens the taxi door for me.

I fell asleep and I’m completely woozy—he has to help me with standing on my feet.

I’m not in pain, but my brain acts like everything hurts, dimming my motor functions as a plea for me to sit still.

The taxi driver looks at me with intense worry, probably wondering if he should leave me with this man twice my size.

He’d better. There’s only one place I want to be right now, and that is close to Maksim.

Maksim carries my arm around his shoulder and drags my suitcase behind him. We get to the entrance of a large white building with decorative ridges that catch my eye. The door is made of dark-coated metal and reminds me of a portcullis. He opens it, lets me in, and closes the door behind him.

I turn around, searching his blue eyes, trying to process what just happened. “What did you do with my friends?” I ask.

“They’re with the Bratva,” he answers.

I gasp, feeling panic rising inside me. “Are they going to kill them?” I am so afraid of his answer, of losing my friends. I feel responsible. I almost have tears in my eyes when he lays his hand on my arm.

“They need to be briefed,” he reassures me. “They won’t be touched unless I say so.”

I exhale in short relief, which is replaced by a blank feeling of helplessness. I have no control here, no say in this; I’m just being led by this Russian criminal. I lower my head and follow.

Maksim walks to the end of the large hallway to the stairs. He carries my suitcase up to the third floor, and I simply follow him. We eventually arrive in front of a door that looks like a massive art piece.

“Where are we?” I ask softly as he fiddles with his keys.

He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he opens the door and motions for me to get in and see for myself.

The wooden floor creaks beneath my feet.

We come into a corridor with tall white walls painted with silver patterns of flowers.

Decorative adornments are carved into the walls.

I take a few steps to admire the surrounding décor.

I pass the white marble stairs to my right and head into the second room to my left.

A large living room with windows that look out at?—

I gasp. It’s the Eiffel Tower, and it’s sparkling with a thousand little lights.

Should I be searching for stars in the night sky, I’d find them here, right beyond this window, in the heart of Paris.

It’s astonishing, like a thousand little diamonds eager to show themselves.

This is definitely a place for the wealthy.

I am so captured by the sight of the shimmering tower that I notice only now how all the furniture is covered by big white sheets.

Maksim has begun to uncover the sofa, the chairs, and the large coffee table, which all look like they’re pulled from the Renaissance.

He walks by the arch that splits the room in two and reveals a large dining table with six more museum-like chairs.

This house isn’t a hotel, nor does it look like it belongs to the Bratva or something.

It looks like it hasn’t seen any visitor in a long, long time, and judging from Maksim’s attitude, he knows this place.

“Is this your house?” I ask.

He gives me a nod. “More or less.”

I amble to the wooden sideboard that harbors little trinkets and even some framed pictures.

I take one in my hands and look at it pensively.

It’s a little boy with black hair and blue eyes, one with Maksim’s nose.

I check if he minds me snooping, but he simply sits on the sofa and observes me.

I take another one of these pictures in my hands.

This time, it’s a couple—a beautiful blond woman and a tall man with a beard and a suit.

The back of the frame has something written on it:

Minsk, 1993.

“Are you from Belarus?” I wonder, my lips parted in surprise. All this time, I thought he was Russian. I’m also pleased with myself that I remember the capital city of Belarus.

“I was born there,” he answers.

“When did you come to America?”

I turn around and notice a glass of whiskey has magically appeared in his hands. I see the bottle on the coffee table, probably one he took with him.

“We moved in 1994,” he replies.

I take a guess and estimate Maksim’s age to be between thirty-three and thirty-six years old. I feel a spark of glee igniting in my veins. Slowly, I’m getting to know Maksim a little more. The man who’s like a beautiful riddle to me.

“So…?what is this place?” I ask, way too curious.

He takes a sip and exhales deeply, enjoying this moment of calm. “This is our vacation home.”

“Wow!” I exclaim. “You must come from a rich family. How did you end up with the Bratva?” I have so many more questions, but I decide to leave them unasked after seeing an aggravated look appear on his face.

When he’s done with his whiskey, he goes to grab my suitcase in the hallway and heads upstairs.

I follow him, stopping at each painting, each trinket that hangs along the way.

He takes me to the largest bedroom, in which there is a king-size bed with emerald pillows underneath the protective sheets he removes.

There’s a huge oak closet, and a carpet that looks more expensive than that closet.

The walls are painted with a light shade of pink.

The view beyond the two large windows facing the bed simply takes my breath away.

I stand there, speechless, awed by Paris, the Eiffel Tower, and its million lights.

“You should sleep,” Maksim says from behind me.

It isn’t dark yet; the sun has just begun its descent. I deduce that from the golden color of the sky.

“It’s still too early to sleep,” I murmur, amazed by the view.

“You were attacked, Liliana. You need to get some rest.”

I was attacked. Those words send cold shivers down my spine. I almost lost my life today, but Maksim saved me. That’s the only thing I care about right now.

I turn around, wanting nothing more than to be in his arms again. “You killed two men,” I say.

He approaches me, cautiously, as if he doesn’t want to touch me. But I want him to, so I take a step closer to him. My lips come within his reach—he just has to lean forward. His eyes spark with a silver glimmer when he lays his gaze on me.

“You should really sleep,” he says in a hungry grunt. His lips are open, and I can hear him breathe.

I don’t wait anymore; I go in for a kiss.

I stand on my toes, wrap my arms around his neck, and press my lips against his.

Within seconds, his hands pull up my shirt and settle on the arch of my back.

He hauls me in against him, returning my kiss like never before.

However, as he leaves my lips to dive into my neck, he abruptly looks away and emits a low, longing growl.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, worried.

“You’re in a weak state, Liliana,” he replies. “If you let me fuck you, I might do even more damage.”

I shake my head and frown a little. “Just go slow…”

He grunts. “I don’t go slow.”

Maksim turns his back to me, but I don’t want him to go.

“I can take it,” I assert, nodding furtively, as if I’m trying to convince myself in the process. “Just do it how you want it.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, his back to me.

“Yes.”

His shoulders relax, and he walks to the door. “Follow me.”

Maksim takes me to a different, smaller room, one with pastel-blue walls and a smaller bed.

By the nightstand is a little figurine of a plane.

A Concorde, the supersonic plane that stopped flying almost twenty years ago.

This must have been his room in a different life.

The furniture looks modern and much more suited to the needs of…

?a teenager. When was the last time Maksim has set foot in this place?

Before I can ask the question, he catches my shoulders and pulls me in for a passionate kiss.

He bites my lower lip, then releases my mouth for a second so he can slide my shirt along my arms. I undo my bra in a flurry while he takes off his shirt and exposes his athletic chest to me.

I immediately seek refuge back in his arms. He kisses me again for a minute, venturing down my neck, returning to my lips.

He pushes me slightly so I fall onto his bed.

I look up, expecting him to crawl on top of me next, but a little anxious to know how bad this could get—because he warned me.

He could damage me even more. My head started to spin the minute I landed on the bed.

And it’s not a gentle spin. My eyes begin to roll out of their orbit.

His hand catches my face and forces me to look at him. He’s clenching my cheeks with a firm grip; I don’t know why. His blue eyes flash silver.

“You’re being irresponsible,” he says and releases me.

He’s right. We have to stop. I let myself collapse to the side of his bed, my head spinning like a hamster wheel now. His posture relaxes, and he crawls by my side. I turn around to meet his eyes. I still need his comfort. I still need him.

“Can you hold me?” I request, though it’s more of a plea.

He does as I ask. He wraps his strong arms around me and pulls me close to his chest. I can hear his heartbeat.

I let it rock me close to sleep. As I explore his skin with my index finger, I see the little line of a scar.

I kiss it, spontaneously, unsure of what I’m even doing.

That’s when I hear his breathing has changed, slowed down. Maksim has fallen asleep.

I want to leave him there and go to the room that has been assigned to me, but his embrace feels so soothing.

Hence, I stand up, amble to my suitcase, and grab another oversized T-shirt I can sleep in.

I find my phone Maksim slipped into my purse and send a message to Béatrice to tell her I’m fine.

I also check if she’s fine too. I make it to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, brush my teeth, do all the things I have to do, then slink back next to Maksim.

He doesn’t wake up from me squeezing through his arms and curling back up to him.

I close my eyes, focusing on the rhythm of his heart again.

It just feels right to be here. I feel safe. There’s nowhere else I want to be.