“Tell me what happened to your daughter,” she says.
I take a deep breath. “My father took her. She was living in a foster home. He … he took her when she was born. Maksim tracked her down a few months ago. I’d started getting to know her. My father just took her again. He wants to use her to get to Maksim because he knows Maksim cares about her. It’s insane, I know, but I also think Maksim will protect her.”
The summary tumbles out of me more easily than I thought it would. Looking at everything that happened from a factual perspective is a lot easier than living out the details and it’s significantly easier when the stakes are so high.
“Why do you care what happens to Maksim?” she asks. “It seems clear from your article that you intended to destroy him. I doubt your father would hurt his own grandchild. You can get everything you wanted.”
“I’m not as confident in my father’s love,” I admit. “And … I care about Maksim. I thought it was the right thing to publish that article. I’m not so sure now. And I can’t keep hurting Maksim. I thought getting back at him would make me feel better, but I just feel like shit.”
She nods. She sinks her fingers into her greasy hair, deep in thought.
“I get it,” she says, looking at me with the faintest smile. “More than you know. Ravil—my husband … when I found out his involvement with the Bratva, I was furious. I thought he’d lured me into a relationship—made me fall in love with him—under false pretenses. I was so angry that I refused to speak to him for two months. It was Maksim who intervened for Ravil. He told me that he’d told Ravil to hide the truth from me. I’m still not sure if that’s true, but he told me to meet Ravil at his hotel’s restaurant. I didn’t think it was smart to refuse to go along with a Bratva boss, so I did. I thought I’d be terrified the whole time, thinking about how the Bratva was going to kill me, but … Ravil was still Ravil. The same man I fell in love with. I wanted to stay angry at him too, but all it did was make me miserable. So, I took the jump. And we had an amazing time until …”
Her bottom lip pushes up and she looks away from me.
“Until my father killed him,” I finish for her. “I know it would be nearly impossible for me to hate him as much as you do, but he’s taken my daughter twice now, so I promise you that our hearts are in the same place. I have no desire to defend him or excuse his behavior. He’s a monster.”
She glances at me. Leaning against the armrest of her couch, she cups her chin in her hand. “You love him, don’t you?”
“He’s my father,” I say, frowning. “I hate him for what he’s done. I don’t know about love. It’s complicated and—”
“No,” she interrupts. “Not your father. Maksim.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I … I care about him a lot.”
“You love him,” she repeats. “I felt the exact same way about Ravil. Loving a dangerous man is always painful. Even when everything is good, you always have to be afraid that they’re going to get hurt. You have to be afraid of who he will hurt to protect you. I was so confident when Ravil was around because he made me believe that I was worth more than anyone else. I knew he’d kill a hundred men to protect me. It was flattering and terrifying. Now … I have no one like that. And there will never be anyone like that again.”
She stands, going over to a small desk in the corner, where a laptop is set up. She plucks a piece of paper off the corkboard beside it.
“I’m certain you can find someone new,” I say, but the words come out hollow. She forces a smile as she sits back down.
“That’s kind of you to say, but I had my great love story. One day, I’ll pick myself back up, but it just won’t be the same. I thought of taking down our photos, so I don’t have to remember him every second, but I’m happy with the memories. I’m happy with our children. He left pieces of himself with me and I’m going to cherish them.” She hands me the piece of paper. “That’s the number that Maksim gave me in case I wanted to contact him. He gave it to me right after Ravil was killed, so I can’t be completely certain it’s the same one he’s using now, but I’m confident that if he changed his number, he would have told me. He and Ravil were like brothers. He felt obligated to take care of me, for Ravil’s sake.”
I take the number from her and dial. I bring my phone up to my ear as I look at Lynna. She’s right about loving a dangerous man, but it’s not just that they make you feel worthy. They push you farther than you ever thought you could go. They turn you into someone worthy.
22
Maksim
Dr. Lisov owns two houses in NYC. One is a Tribeca penthouse. The other is a brownstone on Ninth Avenue. Cassie left him out of her article—I find it highly unlikely she forgot his name, so I assume she decided he did more good than bad, therefore his anonymity was worth keeping. For all the mass destruction her article
