Page 31 of Scarlet Secrets

“Are you okay?”

His words startle me, and I glance at him, shrugging. “After all that? Not really. But I will be.” I close my eyes. “Poor Alina.” Then my eyes snap open. “Oh my God, Max. We need to go back and get him. “

“No.”

The dark note in his voice makes me shiver for entirely different reasons. Earlier, that look on his face… My stomach churns.

“What do you mean, no?”

He sets his phone on his thigh and rubs his eyes, then takes a swallow of his whiskey. My fingers clench around my glass. “I mean we can’t.”

“They kidnapped Alina and he?—”

“He’s dead. They shot him.” His ice-blue gaze locks on me. “He was gone when I found him.”

Not even that flatness that promises retribution, thatholds the truth, can touch me. For brief, shining moments, I’m in denial. Rejecting his words and their meaning. Clearly, he’s wrong. He’s insane.

Max isn’t dead.

He’s getting married.

I swallow hard as sadness pricks deep. But I shake my head. “No. No, you’re wrong,” I say quietly, emphatically. “He can’t be dead.”

“Three bullet wounds to the chest. Probably got his heart. He’d have been dead instantly. Before he hit the ground.”

“You’re wrong,” I say again. “You made a mistake.”

This time he doesn’t say a thing. He finishes his whiskey and picks up his phone, but those ice-blue eyes are on me.

“No. I just spoke to him last night when he called to make sure I was coming.”

“And why would he do that? You’re good friends, according to you, so why wouldn’t you go to the wedding?”

A jagged bolt of heat savagely rips through the cold in me. And I bite down on my response. Because of Sasha, clearly. But this man can’t know that. Not ever.

“Max was so happy. I’ve never heard him so happy. And… and earlier, I saw him. We waved as he was caught up in conversation.” I’m aware I’m babbling and can’t stop. “He looked so happy, so full of love and his future. So he can’t be dead. You’re wrong.”

My eyes start to burn with tears, vision blurring. My heart hurts and my throat’s tight.

“Yeah, well, I’m not. I wish I was, but I saw him.”

“Used to dead bodies, are you?” I snap.

“Ya videl svoyu dolyu.” He pauses. “I’ve seen my share.”

Of course he has. He’s a dangerous man, that’s more than clear. And I can’t lose sight of that or of who he is.

He’s dangerous, powerful, and to him, I’m no one but some girl he fucked once. Right now… it’s more than rescuing. I’m almost positive he wants to find out what, if any, involvement I have in this.

Which is zero.

If I stay with that and don’t let anything about Sasha slip, I’ll be fine.

“How did this happen, anyway? Max is—was—a great guy. I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt him.”

He doesn’t answer. And I lift the glass, taking a small sip of the rich liquor, letting the burn warm me.

What I want is to down it and then another, but the numbness I’d be trying to reach carried danger, like loosened tongues. And besides, the pain of losing Max, of Alina’s kidnapping, would still be there.

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