Page 56 of Surrender: XXX Maxim
“Yes.” Milton merely observes him, seemingly lacking the energy to match his vitriol. All he does is sigh. “I’ve humored this grudge of yours for over a decade, but I’m telling you now, I’mtired.” Another layer of his persona falls away, betraying his words to be the truth. Worn lines strain the flesh around his eyes, enhancing an expertly disguised exhaustion. Even Maxim’s can’t compare. “My little blond whore, as you call her? Is undermyprotection. And I won’t stand aside and watch Anatoli turn his attention toherto get to you. I fucking won’t, Maxim. End this fight with Dima—”
“Get out.” Maxim storms past Milton, but rather than head for Dima, he comes for me. His hand cinches my wrist, yanking me to his side. “Both of you.Now.As for Anatoli, I will return to the city in the morning and handle this myself.”
Milton sighs again, more heavily. “You and I both know that you can’t.”
“So, you’ve come to insult me as well as threaten me?” I’ve never heard Maxim’s voice so guttural. “I suggest you leave. You want to turn on me? Fine. I don’t need you, or your pet—”
“You do,” Milton insists. “You need me just like when we were kids, and we hadno onebut each other. Or have you forgotten that, too? I do not doubt your strength or ability to defeat him on your own. You just never had thewillto. Dima isn’t the pet here.Youare. You’ve always been that little boy pining under Anatoli’s shoe, desperate for his attention. His acceptance. Even if it bloody kills you.”
“Don’t use your fucking degree on me,” Maxim snarls, his lips curling from his teeth. “Go!”
“My degree?” Milton laughs, a disarmingly beautiful sound. With his head held high, he faces Maxim directly and moves to stand within his path. “One of many I got from an education that wasn’t free. That I paid in blood for. You want me to use it? Fine. You never hated Dima, not truly. You just can’t stand what he signifies. Freedom. Independence. Someone who can live outside the shadow of your grandfather unscathed by his poison. You’ve let jealousy consume you for over twenty years. Dima never wanted his name—andthat’swhat bothers you. Anatoli bred you like an animal, and you don’t know a life outside of that brutal, violent existence. Do you deny it?”
He waits, but Maxim says nothing.
“I thought so.” Flicking his collar, he strolls for the front door, deliberately unhurried. “When you change your mind, contact me, and I’ll make the arrangements.” He stops and cocks his head before adding. “What happened today doesn’t change anything between us. Not to me, anyway. You know I’ll always stand by you—but I won’t enable you. Ican’t.”
“Well, this was lovely,” a cheerier voice cuts in, a surreal contrast to the anger crackling in the air. “A wonderful reunion, much better than I could have ever hoped for—”
“Race ya!” The high pitched, childish shriek cuts through the tension like a knife. It takes my brain a second to identify it as not belonging to any one of the three men before me. Which can only mean…
“Fuck!” I race to the glass door leading to the terrace to find Ainsley skipping toward me, her hair streaming behind her. She waves, giggling even as I shake my head and fumble for the door.
“No! No, no, no…”
Suddenly, a deeper voice calls out, and Lucius appears in her wake, running to catch up.
Whatever he says makes Ainsley turn to him, and he manages to take her hand and lead her away. Relief rips through me, and I brace my palms against the glass just to stay standing.
“Thank God.”
“A child? Hers?” The question comes from Dima, or so I assume, given the lightness of the baritone. But his voice sounds different, suddenly devoid of amusement. Surprise colors it instead. Alarm. “You brought a child here. With him?”
He isn’t speaking to Maxim.
“No. No one could be that reckless…”
“Come, Dima,” Milton snaps, sounding farther away. When I finally have the strength to look back, he’s halfway across the entryway. “Now!”
But Vadim doesn’t move. His dark eyes remain fixated on me, narrowed with disdain. “You trust him with your child? I’d assumed you were his victim, but perhaps I was wrong. Norealmother would ever put her children in danger—”
“Maxim!” In a blur of motion, Milton reappears as if from thin air to physically shove the other man back.
“Get out!” Eyes like coal, Maxim pivots, nearly barreling past Milton, who has to grasp his shoulders just to keep him back.
“Go, Dima!” Milton snarls.
Vadim doesn’t seem to even notice the commotion. Or care. An expression crosses his face almost too quickly to process. Only my time with Maxim gives me a faint hope at interpreting it—an icy veil of memory, trapping him in the past.
“Your little daughter? He’ll carve her to pieces,” he tells me softly, while brushing his hand along the scar on his throat. “But you know that, don’t you? Youknowhe’ll see her beaten. Raped. He’ll sell her to the highest bidder himself, if his true master tells him to. You know this to be true.” He nods as if my expression alone gives him all of the confirmation he needs. “And yet you stay. How dare you put an innocent in harm’s way?”
Pain lances through my chest. It feels as if he punched me though he never moves a single inch. My lungs throb regardless, and it’s harder to breathe. Think.
Is that what I’m doing?Selling…
Maxim bellows something, followed by another frantic warning from Milton.
But all I hear is Dima’s calm, relentless murmur, sneaking past the clamor to easily reach me. “If you keep your child around him, you’re no better than he is. You condemn her, and any other children you may have. The Koslovs. That name is more thanjusta name,” he insists. “It is a creed. A brutality. And you’ve already sold your daughter to them just by taking his ring—”
“Get… Out!” My chest heaves as I spit out the words one by one, surprised by their ferocity.
From the corner of my eye, I see Milton and Maxim pause, panting in their struggle.
“As you wish,” Dima says with another gallant nod. He turns on his heel, strolling for the door. Once he’s out of view, Milton follows, adjusting his mussed suit. Near the threshold, he pauses.
“I’m sorry. You may not think Danil as a threat, but you didn’t ask why he—of all Anatoli’s pawns—would be so desperate to attack you directly. But he wants the bounty, Maxim.” He sets his gaze on me and then back to Maxim. “And if you want to protect yours, as I am mine, reconsider this place. If I found you, he will, fool or not.”
Finally, he exits the house, and both men leave, taking all hope of normalcy with them.
