“You’re ignoring me?” Aver asked at last. She was a bright one. It only took her an hour to realize I didn’t want to talk to her.
“Yeah, I’m ignoring you, genius,” I said and shifted in place. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Don’t you want to hear about our life before you?” she asked, taking the high-backed chair near mine. She swung her leg over the chair arm, much like Amara had, and kicked it up and down as she talked. “We were happy, you know. We’ve known each other since we were little children.”
“How lovely for you,” I said, and she smiled. I couldn’t help myself and added, “It must be so convenient to find your boyfriend at a family reunion.”
I smiled to myself as her face dropped. She caught on to what I was saying. I couldn’t help but twist the knife a little more.
“Then again, it’s not like you had much choice. Maksim’s the only man who wants your skank ass,” I smirked.
“Your roommates beg to differ,” she replied, but I could see the flames of a blush on her cheeks. I’d hit the mark. I mean, I knew my Kings wouldn’t do anything with her, but seeing her reaction confirmed it to me. My heart expanded as I imagined the humiliation she’d gone through if she had tried anything on them.
Still, even though that made me happy, I hated that they were trapped in the basement where I knew nothing about them. I didn’t even know if they were in the basement or, if they were, what kind of place they were being kept in. Was it as nice as the one Amara and I had? Or was it an actual prison? And where was Ivan? Fuck, I didn’t even know if he was here at the villa or if Ilya had him held somewhere else.
I think that’s what was getting to me most of all. Not knowing anything. I was an information gatherer and a planner. Even from the first day of kindergarten all the way up to high school graduation, I felt the need to gain as much knowledge as I could about any given situation and make my plans around it. It was the one way I could control my surroundings as if something in part of me knew I was being abused against my will all along. I craved control back then, and I craved it now.
“I doubt they even knew you were there,” I said. “I’m secure enough in our love that your taunts don’t bother me. They wouldn’t do anything with you, even if you showed up naked and ready.”
“Who said they had a choice?” she asked, raising a single eyebrow. “You’d be surprised at how fast they drop their loyalty when there’s a gun pointed at their head, or they think your life is at stake.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I hissed, narrowing my eyes.
“Wouldn’t I?” Avery asked and shrugged. “Who knows, right? You certainly don’t. You don’t even know if they’re still in the villa.”
“Just tell me where they are,” I sighed. I was tired of playing her game. I was tired of everything. It all felt like a charade. An exhausting, endless back and forth between the two of us where we scrambled to get our foothold and remain above the other.
“Okay,” she said, finally connecting with me at last. I could feel a change in the way she looked at me, in the way she felt about me. The air between us felt lighter, and I held my breath as she opened her mouth to speak. I was certain she was going to tell me where the Kings were. And maybe even throw in Amara’s location and Ivan’s too.
She took a breath and said, “They’re—”
The door whipped open with a clatter, and Maksim came strolling in wearing tight grey breeches and knee-high black leather riding boots. His feet were caked with mud and horseshoe, and he walked over to the hand-tied white silk rug that cost more than the average car, and he stood in the center of it.
He ground his heel in, one and then the other, and put his hand on his hip as he observed the two of us like we were the results of a science experiment.
“Well, you haven’t killed each other yet. That’s promising,” he said and let out his shrill, maniacal laugh that had already gotten on my last nerve. He ground his heel in again, then scraped the bottom of his boot along the carpet, one by one. “Now, where is this wedding dress I’ve paid so much for? At least you could show me that.”
I looked at the mess he’d made with disgust and said, “I would tell them to bring it in, but it would get destroyed the moment it came into contact with the shit you dragged in.”
He swayed as he looked down, took note of the ruined carpet, and let that maniacal laugh fly.
“Oh dear, I seem to have made a boo boo,” he said and walked to a beautiful linen chair behind him. He flopped into it, his dusty and dirty shirt and jodhpurs ruining the cream fabric, but I’d determined at that point that he didn’t care. “That is a theme of mine. In my life. Every time I do try to do something nice, I fuck it up. I always destroy the things I like. I liked this carpet, but now it’s fucking ruined.”
He looked up, and his eyes were flat and cold, but they still glittered with bright cruelty. His cherubic features gave way to darkness that I felt in the pit of my stomach. He could kill me and go about his day like I was nothing. Like I was horse shit to be scraped off the bottom of his boot.
“I like you, Everly Hayes,” he said with a quiet voice that scared me more than any yelling or screaming he could have done. When he spoke like this, it meant that he was calculating his next move very carefully, and that was never a good thing with a man like him.
If only my Kings weren’t being held, I could have fought back with a scathing remark. Or I could have made a break for freedom to get away from Maksim before I met the monster inside of him. I would have even sacrificed Amara and Ivan to save myself, even if admitting that made me a coward.
I never thought I’d be a coward. I always thought of myself as brave and strong. I liked to think that I was tough enough to take on anybody, I’d gone after The Organization in Oakville, and I’d survived. I’d killed those who had come for me and protected those close to my heart.
The problem is that I’d never seen the face of pure madness, and I was looking into it now. Fully confronting it had turned me to jelly. I quivered inside and felt the panicked sensation a trapped animal must feel. My only thought was to get to my Kings and save us all.
Maksim loomed over the chair where I was sitting and looked down at me like a hawk eyeing a mouse. “But don’t ever mistake my like for kindness. I’m still going to work you hard and destroy you simply because I can, and that’s what I do.”
Avery wasn’t even smug about this dressing down. When I glanced her way, she had her eyes downcast, and there were two bright red points of humiliation burning on her cheeks.
“Okay,” I replied. There wasn’t much else I could do.