Page 16 of Surrender: XXX Maxim
“I’m saying that there is no point in a wedding,” he hisses. “No point in a ring. No point in a fucking engagement. Everything my name could give you means nothing now. Anatoli has won. The only thing I can do now is keep you from being killed.”
He stalks toward the door, creating a noise comparable to thunder. The force of his rage strains the entire room at its seams, too wild to be contained. A part of me fears the windows might explode beneath the pressure.
Or I might.
“Is that the only reason why?” My voice echoes back to me before I realize I’ve spoken at all. My words play amid an eerie backdrop of silence as Maxim freezes.
“What did you say?” he demands.
“I…” Instinct warns me to run. Back down. I lick my lips tentatively, but something won’t keep me silent. I break. “Is that why you wanted to marry me? Power?”
“No. Forsecurity. Why else?” he counters, driving that point home. “With my name, no one could touch you. Is there any value in a ring more than that certainty? Tell me you’re not so sentimental.”
His steps reverberate through the floor, advancing toward me. I couldn’t escape him, even if I tried. My body jolts as he touches me. One brush of his finger feels comparable to a hot poker jabbing against the chilled flesh of my throat.
But it’s not the sort of pain I’ve come to associate him with. Whippings, biting, and beatings feel nothing like this—emotions utilized more ruthlessly than any knife.Is there any value in a ring?
“You would always be protected as my wife,” he says, tightening his grip so that I’m forced to face him. “But now, a few vows will change nothing. As much as I loathe the motherfucker, I can’t go against Anatoli on my own—and married to me or not, nothing would change as far as my family is concerned. If anything, they will make a game out of trying to use you against me. And Sevastyn… He was the tamest among them.”
I cringe at what that implies. A family of people more evil than a child abuser. People so ruthless even Maxim seems shaken at the prospect of them coming for me. And yet a family he seems desperate to make me a part of. A name he cherishes above all else.
“So, the ring means nothing?” I reiterate.
He inhales as his fingers twitch against my throat. “You’re upset.” He sounds more confused than alarmed by that realization. “I don’t understand why...”
“I’m not upset,” I clarify. I’ve been touching my ring finger as I spoke, something I only realize as I look down and observe the pale naked flesh. “It’s just a lot to take in.” My ragged laugh proves that I’m not lying. I sound fucking insane. Manic. “First, you want to marry me. Then you don’t—”
“And you ask why?” He starts for the door again. “What use is a fucking worthless token without the power it conveys?”
I don’t know why I follow him, no match for his ruthless pace.
“So, what happens now?” I ask, watching the muscles in his body coil as his hands curl in and out of fists.
“Now? I need to get you somewhere safe.” The callous phrasing conveys a million different meanings. Somewhere safe. Away. Out of his hair. Like a nuisance fly, he has to trap in a jar just to keep it from getting smashed.
“Where?” My brain spins with the possibilities. Somewhere out of the city? The country? “What about my family—”
“They’ll be fine. I’m already moving them to a new location. But I… I need to think this through. Alone.”
I flinch at the barely concealed warning. Everything about him broadcasts a blazing, ominous warning.Run. Retreat. Let him brood and rage in peace.
“I want you to tell me something,” I croak instead, still frozen in place. “If this never happened. If what you think your ring means was still the same, what would change?”
“What?” He scoffs. “You would be protected.”
“But nothing else?” I don’t know why I’m probing him at all. Where I’m going with this line of questioning. What drives me to ask next, “So you would continue to make decisions for me without including me?”
Despite all the appearance of power and security, as his wife, I would be powerless. An animal in a cage like the one depicted in Lucius’ story.
“I don’t know what you expected from me.” He sounds so damn tired. If the threads of his control were visible chains, I can imagine them straining. Cracking. Breaking.
“Our first contract was always prefaced on the understanding that I could always walk away,” I say. It sounds so strange to recall that fact after weeks of being at his virtual beck and call, under his mercy always. But Lucius was right. “You laid out the risks and the benefits. You gave me a choice. I could leave if I wanted to—”
“Is that what you want now?” The hollowness of his tone sucks any warmth from the room. I’m shivering. “To leave me?”
“No.” I start toward him only to falter paces away. He’s still within my reach though, a raging shadow in the waning daylight, but my fingers twitch uselessly at my sides. His anger radiates, forming an invisible barrier too dangerous to breach.
“Then what are you saying?” he demands.
