Page 72 of The Bratva's Christmas Bump
“Who are you?” hiccups the tear-filled voice.
“I’m Hollie. I’m Maxim’s… wife.”
“Oh. He brought you?”
“We were going to go shopping, but he got your message and this is more important.”
“Oh.” The voice cracks slightly and sniffling follows. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say softly. “Maxim is here for you.” I can’t fathom what this woman has been through, even from Nancy’s tale of the kidnapping. Surviving it might almost be worse than experiencing it.
“I saw him,” Zoe weeps, and the door creaks as if she’s leaning against it. “I swear it was him.”
My chest tightens. “You saw who?”
“The man who did this to me.” More sniffles follow. “I didn’t think I would recognize him, but I saw him and his dark hair and that cold smirk and the heart on his wrist when he reached for me, and I just?—”
“He tried to grab you?”
Zoe dissolves into tears on the other side of the door. I crouch down as her voice seems to be lower now. She cries, and my heart breaks, so I press one hand to the door. “Maxim will find him.”
“What if he followed me?” she gasps. “I ran and I ran. All over. I ran for hours so he couldn’t follow me home, but what if he still did?”
“I know Maxim will take care of this. He will find a new place for you and your family, I have no doubt. And he will find the man who did this to you.” If the determined look on Maxim’s face was anything to go by, it’s only a matter of time.
“You don’t know that,” Zoe weeps. “He won’t ever leave me alone!”
She cries until she starts to choke and Toto has to break down the door because I’m terrified something will happen to her. In the end, she’s only choking on her own tears and she dissolves into frantic weeping in my arms. She cries until she has nothing left, and then she lets me gently clean her up and tend to the cuts and scrapes on her bare feet from when she abandoned her shoes because she thought they hindered her escape.
She signed herself out of the hospital against medical advice two days ago, and he already found her.
No wonder Maxim is furious. He’s been searching for that bastard for weeks.
I’ve never seen someone look as broken as Zoe. She’s covered in bandages with a few of them stained red from reopened wounds. Her breathing is labored and by the time Maxim returns, my concern is so high that he immediately agrees with me.
Zoe and her family are taken by Stu to a private hospital where she will receive medical care and round-the-clock security until that monster is found. She doesn’t protest. She falls scarily quiet when being loaded into the ambulance and the sight of her confused, upset child haunts me.
“Will she be safe?” I ask Maxim as we walk together under the twinkling streetlights that capture the snow as it drifts down around us. I won the argument about being driven home while Maxim walked to process everything, insisting we should stay together.
Toto lingers somewhere behind along with a few other guards I’ve not been told the names of.
“Yes,” Maxim replies, rubbing his eyes. “She would have been if she hadn’t checked out.”
“She wanted to be back with her family. I can’t blame her.”
“Family,” Maxim murmurs. “It makes people do the craziest things.”
I slide my hand into Maxim’s and grip tightly. My heart lifts when he clutches me back. “Did you find him, then?”
“No. We tracked the store she saw him at and Rex was working on the security tapes, but so far, it looks like she just had a flashback and scared herself. We’ll keep looking, though.”
“Poor thing. The trauma and the pain she must be going through.” Any lingering sympathy I held for the monster shot dead in the restaurant vanished the moment I saw Zoe’s beaten face. There’s no more doubt that someone capable of such cruelty doesn’t deserve to live. And the second monster out there, hiding, deserves the same fate.
“She’s strong,” Maxim replies. “But she shouldn’t have to be. My men have been working around the clock trying to—” He trails off. “I need to talk about something else before I explode.”
I caress his knuckles with my thumb. “Okay, then tell me, is this sort of thing normal?” We turn into a quiet park enclosed with trees and black fence. “Do you usually kill people in pizzerias?”
Maxim snorts softly. “Not usually. In my line of work, death is rare. It’s a double-edged sword. My father believes getting rid of anyone and everyone who stands in your way or threatens you is the best way.”
