Page 14 of The Russian's Revenge Bride
“We need to talk,” she said, her voice carrying the kind of authority that reminded me she wasn’t the scared little girl I’d pulled from our burning house years ago.
“Later. I have calls to make.”
“Now, Maxim.” She blocked my path, all five feet seven inches of controlled fury. “You don’t get to bring your war into my home and expect me to just accept it.”
Anya had always hated the Bratva, blamed our criminal life for everything that had gone wrong. She wasn’t entirely wrong about that either. Our parents were dead because of this world, because of choices I’d made and debts that had come due in blood.
“This is temporary,” I said, trying to move past her.
“Bullshit.” She stepped sideways, still blocking me. “You kidnapped an innocent woman and brought her here. You made me complicit in whatever sick revenge fantasy you’re playing out.”
“She’s not innocent. She’s William Beaumont’s daughter.”
“She’s twenty-one years old, Maxim. She designs fucking clothes for a living. Whatever sins her father committed, they’re not hers to pay for.”
The worst part was that Anya was right. Eleanor had nothing to do with Prague, nothing to do with the ambush that had left good men dead and my partner bleeding. But William Beaumont’s sins were about to become his daughter’s problem, whether she deserved it or not.
“I need you to bring her food,” I said, changing the subject. “No one else goes down there. No outside eyes in the basement.”
“So now I’m your jailer?”
“You’re my sister. And this house is the safest place I could think of for her.”
Anya’s laugh was as bitter as winter wind. “Safe? You don’t get to put blood under my roof and call it safety, brother.”
But she would do it anyway. Anya loved me, had always loved me, even when my choices made her hate everything I represented. Family was family, and blood was thicker than morality in our world.
“Two days,” I said. “Maybe three. Then this is over.”
“And then what? You kill her father and let her go? You think she’ll just forget what you did, go back to her fashion shows, and pretend none of this happened?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Hadn’t thought that far ahead, if I was being honest. The plan had always ended with William Beaumont on his knees, begging for mercy he wouldn’t receive. What happened to Eleanor afterward was a problem for future Maxim to solve.
I left Anya in the hallway and made my way to the office I maintained in the house. Lev and Cassandra were waiting for me, both wearing expressions that told me they’d been watching the basement feed.
“Interesting conversation,” Lev said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Girl’s got fire. Most people would be pissing themselves by now.”
“She called you a monster,” Cassandra added, her dark eyes dancing with barely suppressed laughter. “To your face. And you just…walked away.”
“What was I supposed to do? Beat her unconscious?”
“We’ve seen you kill men for less,” Lev pointed out. “Remember that asshole in Detroit who called you a Russian dog? You put two bullets in his head before he finished the sentence.”
I flipped them both off and moved to my desk. “This is different.”
“How?”
“She’s leverage. Dead leverage is useless.”
But even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. I’d killed people for disrespect before, turned minor slights into capital offenses. The fact that Eleanor’s words hadn’t triggered that same response was…noteworthy.
“Right,” Lev said, drawing the word out like he was talking to a particularly slow child. “Leverage. That’s why you’re making excuses.”
“I’m not making excuses.”
“Then why do you keep checking the basement feed?” Cassandra gestured toward the monitor on my desk, where Eleanor’s room was displayed in high definition. “You’ve looked at that screen six times since you walked in here.”
“Security check.”
