“Anton!” I grab onto his arm. “What’s wrong with you? Let him go!”
“Let him go?” he repeats slowly, menacingly even. “He led the men who attacked our family not too long ago.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it. Besides, he didn’t know they were our family.”
“This is why you never could’ve won against Kirill.” He gets in my face. “You’re na?ve and always try to see the situation from an angle that doesn’t exist.”
My throat fills with nausea, and my limbs tremble, but I still stare at my brother in his damn unfeeling eyes. “The man you’re torturing to within an inch of his life is my friend. He was also your best friend for years unless you have a split personality that made you forget everything that happened when you were Yuri.”
“He’s Kirill’s guard.”
“He’s Maks.” I extend my palm. “Give me the keys.”
“You know, this is exactly why Papa sheltered you. He knew that you would let your emotions lead you in everything.”
“I’d rather have those emotions than live like an empty shell. So unless you’re going to chain me up to the ceiling, too, give me the damn keys.”
We glare at each other for what seems like ages, neither of us willing to back down. Finally, Anton reaches into his pocket and produces the keys, but he doesn’t hand them over. Instead, he jerkily undoes Maksim’s bindings himself.
The moment my friend’s feet touch the ground, he loses balance. My brother could catch him, but he moves out of the way, letting him fall.
Dickhead.
I rush to Maksim’s side and try to help him. He pushes me away and agonizingly adjusts himself into a sitting position so that his back is against the wall.
Maksim might be easygoing, but he has a deep sense of pride. For instance, he’s never liked imposing on people or being weak. He’s always prided himself on managing to come out unscathed from all the operations we’ve had.
His combat skills are only rivaled by Kirill’s and Viktor’s, and he rubs it in everyone’s faces—especially Yuri’s/Anton’s—all the time. So to find himself in this position must be humiliating.
My brother stands to the side, directly between Maksim and the door. If my friend attempts to escape, I’m sure this will end badly.
“Are you okay?” I ask slowly, maybe redundantly, because he looks like shit. His lips are dry and bloody. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and his chest is a map of Anton’s destruction.
“Who is he to you?” Maksim asks instead of answering my question and juts his chin to the side.
“He’s…my brother.”
“Brother,” he repeats as if making sure he heard it right. “Does this mean you infiltrated the organization together?”
“No. I only found out he was my brother recently. I thought he was dead and…well, he looked different.”
“He killed Yuri.”
“And I’d do it all over again if I got a redo,” Anton announces coolly, with enough apathy to piss me off.
Maksim snarls up at him although he’s nearly collapsing.
I hastily grasp the container Anton placed on the table and settle back beside Maksim, then open it and give him a bottle of water. “You look dehydrated. You need to eat and drink.”
Still glaring at my brother, Maksim snatches the bottle and drinks it all in one go. My chest aches at the view of the bruises and cuts the cuffs left on his wrists.
He must’ve been hanging from the ceiling for a long time.
I should’ve really followed Anton sooner.
Maksim snatches the container from my hands and pauses when he sees the medium-cooked steak and the vegetables—no carrots since he doesn’t like them. His jaw clenches, but he empties the container in record time.
Once he’s finished, he stares at me. “Are you in on this, too?”
“This?”
“Torturing me.”
“No. Of course not. I just found out today, and only because I followed him.”
“Does that mean you’ll let me go?”
“In your dreams,” Anton says. “You’re not stepping a foot outside until you tell me what Kirill sent you to do. And even then, you won’t leave my sight.”
“Kill me, you motherfucker. If you don’t, I’ll be the one who kills you.”
Anton reaches over, probably to slap or punch him again, but I jump up and stand between them. “Stop it, both of you, just stop. You were the best of friends. Can’t you think of that?”
“He attacked our family!”
“He killed my real friend!” Maksim says at the same time.
I release a breath and sit between them. “This is going nowhere.”
“Leave,” my brother orders. “I’ll deal with him in my own way.”
“And let you torture, then possibly kill him? No.” I face my friend. “I don’t want to believe you attacked unarmed people, Maks. Those people are the only survivors of a family massacre, and they happen to be my elderly grandmother, my uncle, and my six-year-old cousin. But I recognized your face on the security footage. Unless you tell me what actually happened, Anton’s version is logical.”
“I wasn’t here to attack anyone. I was on a mission to locate the last members of the Belsky Organization and try to start a line of communication with Kirill.”
“Liar,” Anton snarls. “If it were that simple, you would’ve told me that instead of withstanding torture.”
“I prefer being tortured than talking to your ugly fucking face.”
Anton’s fist clenches, and I clear my throat before he moves into action. “Are you sure Kirill didn’t want you to kill the last members of the Belsky Organization?”
“If he did, he would’ve sent an army and Viktor. I came with only four other men and they were killed by your side who opened fire first.”
My heart that’s been bleeding nonstop perks up at that. Isn’t it sad that a mere sliver of hope—as minimal and speculative as it is—happens to be enough to revive my stupid heart?
I internally shake my head. “Do you know why he’s attempting to start communications?”
Maksim shakes his head. “He’s not the type who shows his hand.”
Isn’t that the damn truth?
He always kept his plans so close to his chest that even Viktor and I weren’t privy to them until the final stages. That’s how I was blindsided by his engagement, his marriage, and his damn betrayal.
Note to self: shoot more targets later.
“What are you going to do to me, Sasha?” Maksim speaks with obvious strain. “Fake asshole over there will be happy to put a bullet in my head like he did to Yuri, but I doubt that’s your stance.”
“I guess if I asked you to switch sides, you wouldn’t, right?”
“Why ask something you already know the answer to?”
I get it. Kirill and his family are Maksim’s benefactors. They gave him purpose and a privileged upbringing he wouldn’t have dreamt of having anywhere else.
Not to mention that he genuinely respects Kirill and even Viktor. The latter personally trained him from a young age and was the reason he developed superior combat skills.