Maksim: A Dark Mafia Romance (Akimov Bratva), Nicole Fox [love letters to the dead txt] 📗

When I get back to the library, twelve people are waiting to hear from me. Avgar is there, easily identified by his rigid posture and the semiautomatic rifle. I give them a summary of what has happened. “I need every single one of you to save him,” I say. “But if I’m going alone, I need to know now.”

Nearly a minute passes by without anyone saying anything. I look at each of them, my gaze steady. I know if they all refuse to help me, my actions will remain the same. I will track down Maksim. I will do what it takes to save him. I am certain it is the right choice. It would simply have a higher chance of success if I had help.

Katia steps forward. “What do you need us to do?”

“Anyone who knows how to shoot will need a gun.”

Katia smirks at me. “Cassandra, we’re in the Bratva. We all know how to shoot a gun.”

She indicates toward the other employees. Several of them go up the stairs to get guns. The rest wait for me to give another command. They’re waiting for me to tell them where we’re heading, but I haven’t figured out where my father and Maksim are. They wouldn’t stay in the restaurant. My father would want to torture or kill Maksim and that wouldn’t be done in his restaurant.

I have to get in my father’s head.

My father is driven by malice. One of my first memories is when I was five or six. We had some young new neighbors and my father didn’t think they gave him a proper amount of respect. After the husband died—in hindsight, suspiciously, in a robbery—my father slowly tore apart the wife’s mental health with a constant barrage of reminders of her husband. He mentioned her husband every time he passed her, about how sad it was that he died alone. He found out what their wedding song was and played it constantly in the front yard. I remember the wife confronting him about his harassment and accusing him of leaving photos of her husband’s dead body in her mailbox. He claimed he didn’t know what she was talking about.

I have no idea what happened to her, other than the fact that she left her house shortly after that.

As Maksim’s employees gather weapons, that memory plays over and over in my head. My father won’t just torture or kill Maksim anywhere. He’ll want to cause maximum damage. He’ll want to kill Maksim in a place that will trigger Maksim’s worst memory.

“Let’s head to the cars,” I say. “We need to go to Natalie’s grave.”

Katia gives me the first selection for a gun. I choose the S&W 9mm. We drive to the cemetery in six separate cars with Katia joining me in my car. As we approach the cemetery, I see my father’s black SUV.

I park my car. The line of cars behind Katia and me stops as well. I open my car door, getting out slowly. I indicate to the others, gesturing for quiet and caution. I creep closer to the cemetery, the incline feeling annoyingly steep while I’m trying to remain low. At first, all that’s visible is the top of the gravestones.

Then, the top of my father’s head.

Then, the gun in his hand aimed downward.

Then, a gravestone engraved with chamomile flowers.

And, as if the gun is an arrow, it points to Maksim’s head as he kneels in front of the headstone.

As I’m about to lunge forward, Katia’s fingertips dig into my shoulder, pushing me back as she lurches up in my place. The sound of a gunshot echoes in the cemetery as she shoots to our left. The man she shot sounds like a broken snare drum as he collapses. In my tunnel vision, I hadn’t noticed my father’s men—his five lieutenants, I assume—but they all notice us as Katia shifts her aim and I hear Maksim’s other employees running to join us.

Growing up in my household, I regarded violence as uncontrollable chaos, but as the sound of gunfire breaks out and Maksim’s employees crowd around me, their shots are as precise as Katia boasted they would be. We approach closer and closer to my father and Maksim, dodging behind headstones as the shots go off. It’s the opposite of chaos. We’re a single unit with a single-minded objective.

When I peek over the headstone, Maksim and my father have vanished. Scenarios unfold in my head like one of those origami fortune tellers.

Scenario 1: My father is simply hiding him behind one of the headstones. He’s still at gunpoint.

Scenario 2: Maksim was shot by my father or one of his men. They dragged him away as a bargaining chip.

Scenario 3: Maksim was shot by friendly fire. He’s fallen behind one of the other bodies.

He wouldn’t have run away. It’s not who he is. But he could be injured. I need to find him.

“Cover me!” I tell Katia. She nods once before I sprint over to a long headstone, marking the resting place of Daniel and Katherine Chalus. A dead body bleeds out onto the grass a couple of feet in front of me. Not him. I still don’t see Maksim. Frustrated, I shift away from the headstone, shooting at one of my father’s men. It hits him in the abdomen. He jerks backward, falling onto his back.

I check back on Maksim’s staff before looking forward again.

My brain registers the sight of a gun pointed at me like it would register any other inevitable occurrence—oh, my foot missed the step, I’m going to fall; oh, I said something to my partner that I can never take back; oh, I wasn’t careful enough staying behind a headstone, I’m going to die. My life doesn’t flash before my eyes, but I get a jolting realization that there are things I never told Lily or Maksim that I need to tell them.

I love you.