Page 33 of Teach Me How To Fly

“You said that you know everything about anyone, so I guessed you would’ve known this already,” she rasped and folded her hands on her chest.

One point Katya. Zero points Maksen.

“I could congratulate you for being a smartass, but I won’t. Instead, I want to make a deal with you,” I declared and sat down on the deckchair right next to her.

“Do you really think that I would make a deal with you after you almost killed me in the room?”

A grin came on my face and I let out a laugh before speaking again.

“My dear, if that’s what you call almost killing you, then you probably weren’t close to actually being killed,” I declared and winked at her.

She gazed at me like I had turned into a ghost that was ready to haunt her until she was dead. But she took her eyes off of me, then inhaled deeply and fixed her hair. I was going to make her accept my deal. She had no other choice.

“Fine. I’m sorry for doing that to you, but you really have a way to make people angry beyond the limits.”

She looked at me and started playing with her fingers in her lap. Her thin lips stretched up into a light smile, and then I saw some tears forming in her eyes.

“Laura says this often, so I guess you’re right. But still, that didn’t give you the permission to do that,” she hissed and put her hair strand behind her ear.

Couldn’t she just shut up and fucking accept my apologies?

God damn it.

For the first time in your life, you have an assassin saying sorry to you, and you don’t take advantage of it.

“Neither should’ve you called your sister a fake bitch, Katya,” I replied in a serious tone of voice and it came out more like a threat rather than a simple reply.

“I was angry at her, okay? I always am. Father always makes everything for her, always protects her like she’s this fucking rare gem,” she burst out and I noticed her cheeks had turned red.

“What do you mean? She’s forbidden to do anything she wants and you’re literally living the life she wishes,” I briefly replied, waiting for her answer, more confused than ever.

“I would’ve rather been forbidden to do what I want than to be deprived of my father’s love. ”

Oh.

So she felt like she wasn’t loved by her father, which made sense to me at that exact moment. He let her do drugs and alcohol, and spend the nights wherever she wanted, and she was still a minor, not even a fully grown woman that could take careof herself, while he made sure that Annalise had a healthy life, protected in the mansion and always with her bodyguards after her. It really explained a lot now that I’ve heard Katya’s point of view.

We kept the silence a bit longer, and then I coughed and licked my lips.

“So, do you want to hear my deal?”

She turned around to look me in the eyes and I saw the reticence she had about the answer she was going to give me.

“Spill it.”

“I’ll help you have the relationship you want with Laura, because I know very well that your father is religious and wouldn’t allow you to have a relationship with a girl, more likely if the girl is his enemy’s daughter,”

She furrowed her brows and scrutinized my face. “Okay, and what would you get from helping me?”

“You have to help me make Annalise mine.”

12

MAKSEN

The morning was a slow, lazy, and relaxing one now that Katya and I had agreed to plot together against her father’s crazy plan.

She drank her cocktails while I did my workout and ate my breakfast. She had a weird way of starting her morning, but I wasn’t mad at it as long as she left me alone.

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