Page 32 of Surrender: XXX Maxim
Chapter Seven
Icould never hold onto anger the way Maxim does. At least, in the sense that I don’t acknowledge it at all. Feel it. Let it consume me. If anything, I’ve always been a doormat, swallowing down my emotions. Choking on them. My pain. My hate. If I didn’t, I doubt I would have survived up until this point.
Melanie may have been a cunt, but she wasn’t stupid—and she wasn’t inclined to get arrested for child neglect either. She knew which kid to shoulder her responsibility on. She knew whose personality she could meld and shape and beat into submission.
She knew that as much as I hated her, I loved the kids more. Enough to willingly suffer anything for them. Anything…and devotion was one surefire thing she could always bank on—even when the shitty marriages and stolen money ran out.
And now, she’s laughing at me from her spot in hell.I never got them shot at, Francesca,I imagine her taunting in that smug fucking way only she could.I never put their lives in danger. I was a selfish bitch, but I never entangled them in a mafia war. What does that make you?
It makes me crazy.
It makes me guilty. So fucking guilty…
And it makes me more selfish than she ever was.
I’m blind to everything but the gut-wrenching panic building within me, as Maxim’s doctor finally arrives and examines my injury. His determination is a mild concussion, nothing serious. Once I’m deemed able to fly, Maxim ushers me into the car, and we leave for the airport.
The following hours pass by in a blur too dizzying to interpret. I’m left with just snippets of memory. Entering a private jet. Staring blankly from a window, aware of Maxim watching me. I don’t even have the sense of mind to acknowledge another of the many firsts I’ve experienced with him—my virgin plane trip.
I’m numb when we land, and I nearly lunge out of my seat the second Maxim stands. Exiting the climate-controlled cabin for a sweltering, oppressive heat feels like entering a parallel universe. The sun is so bright I have to shield my eyes with my hand and take in our surroundings in bits and pieces.
No city, for one. No skyscrapers and lifeless concrete. Instead, I see endless blue—sky, water—everywhere, reflecting sunlight like glitter. The taste of salt teases my tongue and triggers my curiosity. We’re somewhere tropical. Near the ocean?
Maxim pushes ahead without revealing the answer, and I don’t ask. As we descend the steps to the tarmac, I spot a black car waiting nearby, along with a familiar face.
“Sir. Ms. Marconi.” Lucius nods to us in greeting, but even his warm smile can’t disguise the exhaustion hammered beneath his eyes in purplish bruises. I doubt he’s slept at all since I saw him last. As dutiful as ever, he opens the door to the back seat. “Once you’re settled, we can go.”
Maxim extends his hand for me, but I stare ahead and enter the car on my own. He follows me in without a word, and Lucius commands the steering wheel.
“Your siblings are safe and sound,” Lucius declares before I can get a single word out. “Everyone is settled in. They know to expect you shortly.”
“Thank you.” God, I sound worse than he does. My eyes burn as I rest my head against the window on my end. I can’t even tell how long I’ve been awake. An eternity, it feels like.
“Sir,” Lucius begins, shifting the conversation. “Mr. Hood has been persistent in his attempts to reach you.”
“Milton?” Maxim’s voice is a passionless hiss. “Tell him I’m otherwise engaged.”
“I have,” Lucius admits. “But I will say that he seems…unwilling to be pacified in this instance. I know for a fact he’s tracked the jet out of the country, an action he doesn’t normally take—”
“Did you make the arrangements I requested?” Maxim interjects, forcibly changing the subject.Arrangements.I make a half-hearted attempt at guessing what he means. More security? More shuffling my family around like pieces on a gameboard? More lies?
Wary, I eye him through a crack in my eyelids. Though he sits beside me, we could be an entire fucking world apart. We don’t touch, our bodies poised on opposite ends.
“Yes, sir,” Lucius replies. “I will admit it was a challenge, but everything is in place.”
“Good.”
They continue speaking, presumably about business, but I stop listening. I must drift off because when I snap to awareness, Maxim’s hand is on my shoulder, and the door on his end is open, letting in a wave of stifling heat.
“We’re home.” Something in his tone catches me off guard. The softness, maybe?
I inhale in the wake of it, my fingers fluttering toward him. But then I remember Vadim’s “price,” and I shrug him off and exit the car on my own, clinging to the side of it for balance. His eyes track my every movement, dark and unreadable.
In a bid to ignore him, I focus on our surroundings.
It looks to be late in the evening now. Despite its intensity, the sun has gone down compared to when we first landed. A brilliant, reddish-orange paints the horizon, threatening to swallow it for good. I can’t tell how long we were in the car.
Or where we are now, exactly.
