Page 109 of Doctored Vows

I’m poked and prodded, all while still in Maksim’s arms, before I’m asked a range of questions.

None I know how to answer.

“I don’t remember anything. I’m not even sure what day it is.”

I realize we bypassed the ER at Myasnikov Private when I’m placed onto a cool surface and Maksim inches back so we can lock eyes. We’re in the security office of my apartment building, but it is far more fitted out than when I reported a suspected attempted burglary six months ago. The back laundry window had been shattered and opened, but nothing was missing, which led me to believe my return home from a late shift had scared the perps off.

“It’s Friday morning,” Maksim announces. “You collected donuts and coffees from Ano yesterday afternoon and ate them with Alla.” He twists a monitor around to face me. It shows me sitting in the makeshift break room Alla and I set up whenever we’re rostered on the same shift. “Do you remember that?”

He cusses under his breath when I shake my head. “I’m sorr?—”

His growl cuts me off—and makes me hot, but I’ll keep that to myself. “Don’t apologize for something those fuckers did to you.” The pain in his words cuts me deep, but it has nothing on the torment in his eyes when he asks, “Did they hurt you? Are you hurting anywhere we haven’t checked?” The pure terror in his eyes asks the question he can’t speak. He wants to know if I was raped like my mother was when she was taken.

“No, Maksim. I’m not sore. I feel perfectly fine.” My quivering voice undoes the confidence I am trying to portray. “I feel like I just went to sleep and woke up.”

When my words offer Maksim little comfort, Eva reminds me we’re not the only two people in the room. “I can check.”

“No,” I shout a little too loud. “I’d know if I was hurt like that.” Tears gloss my cheeks when I murmur, “My mother’s injuries couldn’t be hidden. She was torn to shreds…” When a sob replaces my words, Maksim wipes away my tears before shaking his head at Eva’s offer, loosening the valve stopping my lungs from replenishing. “My memories will come back. They’re just buried beneath a heap of fog.”

I must miss a private conversation between Maksim and Eva as she objects to his silent denial as if they shared many words. I’d be jealous of their ability to communicate without words if there weren’t a heap of similarities I had missed earlier. They could be mistaken as siblings.

“It could take a heap of weight off your shoulders, Maksim, and help us find Ano.”

“Ano is missing?”

Again, Maksim doesn’t look set to lie.

He merely continues to skirt the truth like he has our entire marriage.

“Do it.” Maksim tries to cut me off, but I peer past his shoulder, stare Eva in the eyes, and repeat, “Do it. Do whatever you need to do to get answers.”

“Answers that will leave me no choice but to retaliate,” Maksim sneers. “Do you understand that, Doc? They took my fucking wife from right under my fucking nose. I can’t let that slide.”

“You can, and you will.”

My head snaps to the side so fast I almost make myself sick. I don’t know which way is up when Maksim’s mother starts barking orders seconds after she enters the room. She takes command, making me realize Maksim isn’t the king of his realm just yet. His mother is.

My throat dries even more when Mrs. Ivanov shifts her focus to me. She stares at me like she is assessing my soul from the inside out before she twists to face Eva. “Digestive benzodiazepine or injectable?”

“There are no puncture wounds in her arms or between her toes,” Eva answers, alerting me to the fact she was the one poking and prodding me during our short commute to my building. “But I don’t believe she ingested it either.” Her next question exposes that her cover may not be fraudulent. “Rumors have been circling for some time that a biochemist has created a new drug that works as effectively as GHB, but it is dispensed as a vapor instead of a liquid. It makes it almost impossible to trace back to the source since there is nothing to compare it to. Vapors?—”

“Burn off,” I interrupt, too intrigued not to include myself in their conversation. “How long was I missing?”

“Nine hours,” Maksim answers. His low tone shreds my heart.

I place my hand over his balled and bruised one resting next to my thigh and squeeze it before shifting my focus back to Eva. “There could still be residue in my nasal cavity or respiratory tract.”

When Maksim’s mother silently questions Eva, she takes a moment to ponder before jerking up her chin. “It will still be hard to trace since the manufacturing is being kept under wraps, but any sample is better than none.”

“Do you have what is needed to test it?”

Eva almost shakes her head, but a second after her lips part, she waggles her brows instead. “I can have everything I need here in under a minute.”

Mrs. Ivanov gives her silent permission to do what needs to be done before she devotes all her attention to me. Well, more my wedding rings than me as a whole.

“Mrs. Ivanov?—”

“Mrs. Ivanov?” she interrupts, scoffing. “I believe the only person in this room with that title is you, dear.”

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