“Her husband Lucas and I formed our alliance shortly after they met and married. Together we patrol these waters, the island in this region, and most of Miami.”
“Against The East Syndicate?”
“Among others. Several pests need to be exterminated.”
My lawyer brain wants to scream at me to throw the book at them after what happened with my crooked father. Do all things the legal route is my knee-jerk reaction, but I’m quickly learning the world isn’t simply black and white. My father twisted the law enough to do dirty deeds. Maybe Maxim is doing the same to do good. We have a lot to talk about.
“I see our mind running. I’m not a monster, malyshka. I don’t hurt people.”
A pandemonium of parrots glides overhead as we disembark from Maxim’s yacht. I look up to see red, blues, and yellow swoosh by.
“I feel like I’ve stepped out of the twenty-first century and taken a trip back to the pirate days of two hundred years ago.”
“Come.”
Maxim tugs me portside and we disembark onto a long pier stretching several yards into a calm bay.
I raise my hands and shake them. “Umm, excuse me, it’s not like I am going anywhere. Mind untying me?”
The pier is made of weathered, uneven planks and creaks as we walk up the fifty feet to the beach. Dense foliage breaks up the endless sands as soft waves crash against the sandy earth.
It’s paradise. Greens, pinks, blues and so much fresh air I can’t stop inhaling for the fun of it. Okay, private island life is way better than a darkened house with no air conditioning. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful sunset.”
My attention roams back to Maxim and he’s looking at me with a peculiar look in his eyes that has my face probably turning the same shade as the pinking sky.
The rumble of a powerful motor catches my attention.
Behind me see Gray and the boat retreating. Maxim starts to walk up the pier when I shake his shoulder. “Whoa, there, buddy. Where is he going?” I turn on the ball of my feet and point my tied hands in the direction of my only ride pulling away without me. I might love it here so far but that does not mean I want to be marooned in the middle of I don’t even know where.
Maxim’s heat is against my back, that sneaky arm of his moving around my waist. “To get the yacht out of the coming storm. There is a safer cove on the back side of the island.” Maxim points the tip of a blade I didn’t see on him anywhere to a storm brewing in the distance.
Okay. That made sense. Protect your only way off a deserted island.
Maxim slashes the ropes around my wrists and tucks the blade back into a holster beneath his pant leg.
“Handy,” I quip.
He silently stands and takes my hand in his, turning it over to place featherlight kisses on the spots the ropes rubbed a little too hard.
“I should not have left those on you for so long. Mne zhal.”
“I am sorry,” I repeat his words in English. His eyes raise to mine in question.
“I’ve been studying.”
“You knew I would come for you.”
A deep part of me might have played with the fantasy. “Nope. Just wanted to be able to say fuck you in Russian when the time came.”
“I don’t think that is in the dictionary, malyshka.” His smirk is equally irritating as it is humorous when he signals me to follow.
I walk behind him as he leads me up a winding dirt path. Foliage hangs over to play in my hair and brush against my shoulders. To the left the trail forks off in another direction.
I could run. Find the hidden cover he’s talking about and head northeast. At least that is the direction I think the mainland is in. Either way, I would be out of this man’s clutches. I could call the coast guard in and they would save me. I could go back to my dad’s house with the broken AC unit, pack my bags and just leave.
I’d be free and damn it that has to be worth something, right?
I slow and tuck under a low-hanging mango branch when steel arms clamp around my waist.