The Marriage (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 3), Bethany-Kris [books for 8th graders txt] 📗

He waited until Claire’s footsteps had faded, and his men slipped out of the room before he turned back to Maxim.

“Where is your son?”

“Likely still on the freeway—we are trying not to draw attention, hmm?”

Maxim’s brow raised high. “My apologies.”

Demyan didn’t really need the remorse—all the cameras were off, his house was swept daily for bugs at this point, and he had noticed the nondescript black car with tinted windows all the way around that Maxim had arrived in. Without a driver. The keys of that car sat on the table, closer to Demyan than the other man.

They had every reason to believe the agents tasked with watching their house couldn’t actually get close enough to see anything worthy.

As long as Maxim left as quietly as he came, Demyan doubted anyone but the people there at that very moment would even know he’d been there to begin with.

“And I wanted to apologize to her for all the trouble I’ve caused,” Maxim said. “If she’d let me, no?”

Well ...

“I don’t think words are going to be enough to cut it,” Demyan replied. “At this point, if you know what I mean.”

Then he pulled up a chair and sat across from the man everyone thought was dead. The two stared at each other, seconds ticking by far too slowly, before Demyan sighed.

“What the fuck were you thinking,” he muttered.

It wasn’t even a question.

Flatly, Maxim replied only, “I wouldn’t go out like that. By Leonid, while they curled like snakes around my legs. I deserved a better death than that.”

Demyan sat a little straighter in the chair. “You realize the position you’ve put me in, and how it—”

“I’m sorry. What can I say, yeah? Who else would have cared, old friend?”

He didn’t glorify that with a response, even if it was true.

Instead, Demyan asked, “How did you do it?”

“Leonid thought he was coming for me that night, but I was really there for him ... It doesn’t matter, I got my answers.”

“Answers?”

Maxim lifted his broad shoulders, and for the first time, Demyan noticed the man wasn’t as well put together as he normally might be. His shirt wasn’t perfectly pressed. His suit jacket had needed a wash a while ago, by the looks of it. And none of it appeared to bother the man at the other end of the table.

“About my daughters, and his son ... I had to know, Demyan,” Maxim explained, glancing down at his clasped hands.

Demyan didn’t ask details, just like he hadn’t with Roman. And he wouldn’t—unless they offered. It didn’t feel like his business.

Why inflict more trauma?

“But in the end, I didn’t really need to ask Leonid anything,” Maxim added after a moment. “It didn’t matter if he knew or not. All that mattered was he knew what his son was capable of, and that he wanted me dead.”

“How long had he worked on this plan?” Demyan asked.

Maxim shrugged, and finally picked up his coffee to take a swig. Smacking his lips, he said, “I suspect it had always been his plan. He played a long game, Demyan. Snakes have the greatest patience.”

Didn’t Demyan know it?

A man was never ready ...

All the talk was nice and everything, but Demyan figured he should move on to what was most important. What he suspected his son was probably racing there to ask himself.

“Where is Karine, Maxim?”

“I heard about the wedding,” the other man said flatly.

Demyan let out a hard breath, eyeing the gun between them, though he had one in a holster at his back. “He does love her.”

“I know. She wasn’t safe there, you see, if I could find her ... Dima would, too, eventually. Better that’s on her terms, I think. If she sees him coming, maybe—.”

“What do you mean?” Demyan interjected fast.

Maxim didn’t answer, asking instead, “Did you tell her what I asked you to say?”

At first Demyan was confused, but then he remembered the end of that fateful conversation before the fire. When Maxim made him promise he would tell Karine that her father loved her.

“I haven’t had the opportunity,” Demyan admitted. “A lot has happened.”

Maxim nodded and looked away.

“But it doesn’t matter now, you can tell her yourself,” he added. “Why didn’t you?”

“Nyet,” came the strong refusal. “I was never worthy of saying it.”

That was a mindset Demyan couldn’t comprehend.

He knew something about unspoken words and lost promises; he’d saw what life looked like when it didn’t turn out exactly how one planned. He remembered that clearly—but also what it was like to feel something real for someone again. To love his children unconditionally.

Except, Demyan suspected Maxim didn’t share the same growth. Somewhere along the lines, the man had been stunted in his grief ... did love start to feel a little dangerous?

Not quite worth the risk?

“I want you to do it for me, Demyan. I want you to promise you’ll tell her someday. Soon,” Maxim pressed as he met Demyan’s gaze. “It’s important ... I just can’t do it.”

Demyan had to nod, although he didn’t understand why. Compelled by the man’s insistence, he agreed.

In the shadows of the kitchen, the two were so quiet that he could hear shuffling of feet somewhere outside the space. The sound gained Maxim’s attention, too, drawing his gaze to the entryway.

“I’ll tell her,” Demyan told Maxim, wanting his stare back on him so that maybe he could get those answers for his son, “but I want you to know that you’ll kill my son if something happens to that girl. Where is she?”

“Exactly where she needs to be.”

Maxim delivered that news with a hollow tone that left Demyan cold right down to his bones. Disbelief washed through him just as fast, but didn’t leave him any warmer.

“What have you done?” Demyan asked.

Because nothing else made sense.

Demyan was still missing something.

Maxim dropped his gaze, saying, “You’ve always been too smart for this business.”

Fuck that.

He wasn’t going in that circle again.

Demyan’s fists hit the table hard. “This is starting to feel like a fucking