Possess (The Syndicate: Crime and Passion Book 1) (11 page)

M
axim

I
’d let Senna leave
, deciding to be charitable for once, but my patience had reached its breaking point. Her upset was my fault. I’d let her think there could be something else between us. All that had changed was our physical relationship. We’d acted on the long-standing connection that had simmered between us, but there wasn’t more than that.

There could be nothing like what Senna probably thought of as a normal life. I couldn’t even fathom how I could give her something like it. There was passion, connection, but that was all, so I’d given her time to come to grips with that. Perhaps not enough, though, given how she’d left earlier, bag in hand.

I knew something else was troubling her too. Those earrings were one of the only things she’d kept from her past. I hadn’t seen her take them out of her house that night, but she’d held them close, never let them out of her sight. She looked at them sometimes, and when I’d glimpsed her studying them tonight, I’d known the direction of her thoughts, my role in them.

I’d let her parents’ murders go unanswered for years, hadn’t given Senna the justice she deserved. Letting Santo live was an affront to her, had contributed to her pain. And it was my responsibility to see that affront repaired.

Maybe then, once I’d taken care of Santo and Senna had come to accept how things would be between us, we’d be able to go on.

I checked my watch.

She’d been gone two hours. Time enough. I knew where she had gone, and had Adrian drive me to the airport, knowing I wouldn’t feel right until I saw her again.

She’d planned to leave, and that should have made me angry, and it had, at least for a few minutes. But that anger had calmed quickly. I couldn’t give Senna what she wanted, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care for her. I’d show her how much I did, and then we’d move past her little tantrum.

I sent Adrian to retrieve her, knowing she would probably be more amiable to his presence than mine, at least right now. But I was anxious to see her, knew I wouldn’t feel right again until I did.

Though I wanted to stare out of the window until I saw her, I didn’t, kept my eyes centered ahead, but was acutely aware of her approaching. She got into the SUV, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking at her immediately, the sight of her sweet face, her dark eyes on mine loosening some of the tension in my chest that I had tried to ignore, though I wouldn’t feel completely normal until I touched her again.

“Taking a trip?” I asked as Adrian drove off.

“That was the plan,” she said, her voice sounding weary.

I looked at her, saw tiredness around her eyes, sensed a weariness that was unlike her. I reached across the seat and gripped her small hand in mine, ignoring how she stiffened at first and kept my fingers entwined with hers.

“You’re tired, little flower,” I said.

She frowned but then quickly moved her expression to neutral. “I am. That matters to you?” she said.

I held her gaze with mine, but didn’t get angry. I understood that she was upset and knew that I bore some responsibility for that, something I planned to fix. “That matters to me,” I said.

She flashed me the most heartbreaking smile and then her face again went neutral.

“I’ll take you home so you can rest,” I said.

She looked at me again. “Home? Is that what you think it is?”

I said nothing, but as we rode in silence, I couldn’t shake her last words, how haunted, brimming with disbelief they had been. Nor the response that I hadn’t given voice to.

Yes, I thought of it as home because it was where she was. Anywhere she was was my home, and for the first time, I questioned if it was the same for her.

I glanced at Senna again, saw how she looked out of the window, or more honestly, looked anywhere but at me. I had let her down, but I would fix it. Then we would get back to normal.

M
axim

W
hen we reached the building
, Senna got out before Adrian or I could stop her, but I emerged quickly and caught up with her, followed as she rode up to our living area. But unlike before, she turned into her bedroom, and without looking at me, she went inside, closed the door.

Her distance hurt, deeply, but I
would
fix this.

I went down the stairs, found Adrian and Sergei waiting for me. Santo standing between them.

I walked toward him.

“So this is it, huh?” Santo said.

I nodded.

He scoffed, shook his head. “I thought we’d have time to negotiate,” he said.

“Interestingly enough, I considered it. But I’m no longer willing to overlook what you’ve done, Santo,” I said.

“Too bad I didn’t have a chance to kill that bitch,” he said, shaking his head.

Moving quickly, I connected my fist with his jaw, heard the satisfying
crack
of his teeth clacking together.

The feeling of Santo’s flesh and bone giving way under my fist ignited something inside me, and I hit him again, then again. Each time my fist contacted his face, making me want to hit him again, hit him harder, was a reminder of all of the pain he had brought to Senna.

Santo’s life would soon be over, but I wouldn’t tolerate even a hint of a threat to Senna, was disgusted I had allowed him to live as long as I had.

Then suddenly, I dropped my arm, alarmed by my loss of control, unsure what had caused it. But what had caused it didn’t matter now because this would be over soon.

After a few breaths, I reached up and adjusted my shirtsleeve.

I met Santo’s eyes. “We all have our regrets,” I said.

I turned and walked away.

S
enna

T
he bed had looked so tempting
that I had given in to its siren call. Maxim had been right that I was tired, and though I had wanted to stay standing, ready to confront the conversation I knew was soon to come, I couldn’t. So I lay in the soft bed, somehow managing to stay awake.

About an hour after we’d come back, the bedroom door opened, and Maxim walked in.

I remembered when he’d told me no locked doors, how thrilled I had been by it, how I’d thought it had meant something.

I guess I still did, because even after everything that had happened between us, as angry and hurt as I was, I still hadn’t locked it.

“Are you sleeping?” he said when he stopped to stand at the side of the bed.

I didn’t turn to face him when I said, “You know I’m not.”

“I know,” he said. “You see what you turned me into, little flower?”

That got my attention. I turned over, looked at him from his impossibly shiny shoes, up his expensive suit, over his stubbornly stubbled jaw, to his low-cut hair, intentionally skipping over his stern yet soft lips, the eyes that I thought of whenever I closed mine.

It was him. Maxim. As he had always been. Nothing, not me, not the life growing inside me, had changed him. Could ever change him.

I accepted that now.

Didn’t know what I would do with it, but I accepted it.

“Has something changed?” I said, thinning my lips as I looked at him.

“Perhaps not,” he said, thinning his own lips and then walking across the room. “Get up,” he said.

“Fine,” I said, frowning.

I was exhausted, too tired to argue and not really wanting to anyway. Doing so would simply delay the inevitable, because Maxim would get his way, and I didn’t need another reminder that no matter what, I would always bend to his will.

“Where are we going?” I asked when I was finally dressed.

“Downstairs,” he said.

I walked beside him and stood next to him in the elevator as I had countless times before. If not this one, then one somewhere else, one of the countless places we’d been over these years, the places I had let myself think meant we had a life.

But now I realized how wrong I had been then, how now was no different.
We
didn’t have a life. I was simply an appendage, content to live in his shadow, him content to have me there.

Was I content to do so now?

I didn’t know.

I looked at Maxim, still felt the surge of attraction, love, that I always did, still tried to reconcile what I knew was his bad side with all of the subtle kindness he’d shown me, the passion, the affection. All of it together was nearly too much for me to process, but I’d have to eventually. I had more than myself to consider.

The elevator doors opened and we exited.

We were in the lower levels, and I wondered why he’d brought me here. I stayed on the office level and living quarters. Everything else was off-limits. I’d understood that without him even having to say so.

I looked at him, searching for some sign of why we were here, but he just walked, eyes ahead, again seeming impervious to me or my presence.

Adrian was standing outside of a door at the end of the room, Sergei flanking him on the other side. I met both of their gazes, but was too confused, too drained to do more than give them both a quick smile.

“Open the door,” Maxim said.

Adrian did, and then Maxim wrapped his hand around my arm and led me into the room. He stopped when we were halfway in and my gaze landed on the sight in the middle of the room.

I’d only seen him once, ten years ago when he had disemboweled my father right in front of me.

I’d run after that, but running hadn’t protected me from the sounds of my mother’s screams, the sound of Santo’s booming voice as he had yelled foul, vicious things at her.

So while I had only seen him once, I remembered his face. Remembered the fear, remembered my anger at myself for not being able to help them, my cowardice at hiding away.

My heart began to pound so hard each beat seemed to shake my entire body. The blood filled my head in a rush. It was only my unwillingness to allow Santo to see how much he affected me that kept me calm.

I looked at Santo now, catalogued the way he’d changed over the years. Gray hair where it had once been black, bullish physique now soft. But his eyes still blazed with rage, anger, the threat of harm, the promise of pain.

I remembered that too, remembered the girl I had been, how terrified she had been.

I wasn’t that girl anymore.

I turned away from Santo Carmelli where he lay, hog-tied and naked, and looked at Maxim, who still held my arm.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I asked, lifting my eyes to Maxim’s, trying to understand why he had brought me here.

He glanced at Santo and then turned to me. “No.”

“Then why am I here?” I asked.

“He’s yours,” Maxim said, gesturing at Santo.

“Another gift, Maxim?” I said, my anger intensifying, but different now as I began to realize what he intended.

He shook his head. “No. More like an explanation.”

Though I could hear Santo’s muffled yells through the gag that had been stuffed in his mouth, I continued to ignore him and instead focused on Maxim. “An explanation? What are you explaining?” I said.

“You think I was protecting him, think I had forgotten his crime. But I wasn’t, not really. From the moment I saw you, I swore I would see the terrible injustice that had been done to you righted. It’s taken me a very long time, Senna. But I will see it righted.”

“You think it can be?” I said, eyes still locked on Santo.

He shook his head again. “No. Not completely. But this I can do for you. I can at least give you the gift of his death. However delayed.”

Santo was screaming in earnest now and I looked at him again, saw as he squirmed, tried to break his feet free of his bonds.

I wasn’t a kind enough person to pretend I didn’t enjoy watching him squirm, wasn’t happy to see the way his hands and feet had started to turn blue from the tightness of the thin plastic zip ties that held him. He deserved that, so much worse, for what he had done.

But as much as I believed that, as happy as his suffering made me, I didn’t want his life.

I looked at Maxim. “You know how many people would want to see you in that position, would be happy to offer your life to someone?”

“I couldn’t even begin to imagine,” he said.

“Me neither. But it’s a lot. Do you know how sad losing you would make me?” I said.

“No,” he said, looking confused in a way I had never seen Maxim look.

“Probably as sad as losing Santo would make his family. He is a disgusting, murderous pig, but someone loves him,” I said, looking at Santo, who thrashed in earnest now in his attempt to get free.

After a moment, I looked at Maxim again. There were people who loved Santo as much as I loved Maxim, and I couldn’t, no matter how much I may have wanted to, make them feel the pain I had felt at my parents’ loss.

“What if I don’t want his life? What if I want to let him go, Maxim? Would you do that?”

“Senna—”

“Would you do that?” I repeated.

“For you, I would do anything,” he said.

“Almost anything,” I corrected.

He nodded. “Almost anything.”

I looked at Santo again. “Let him go,” I said.

“Okay,” Maxim said.

I left and returned to my room, waited, knowing that Maxim would soon follow.

He did, and this time he didn’t have to contend with a lock or even a closed door.

“So you really are going to let him go?” I asked.

“Yes. Santo will live,” he said.

“But there are strings?” I said, knowing that Maxim wouldn’t let Santo go if there was no benefit to the Syndicate.

“There are always strings, little flower,” he replied.

“I’m learning that,” I said. I couldn’t be angry with him, though. I was frustrated, but I knew Maxim and expected no less.

He stepped close to me, pulled me against his body, and I laid my head against his chest, wrapped my arms around him and held him, let him hold me.

He exhaled, and I felt his body relax in my arms.

“This, this is how it should be. No anger, no strife between us,” he said.

His voice was tender, as soft as I’d ever heard it, that softness working to sway me more than his sternness ever could. How I’d longed to hear that tone from him, dreamed of it, of the feelings I had hoped lay behind it more times than I could count.

Before, I wouldn’t have been able to resist him if he’d spoken like this, but now, things were different. The agonizing irony of this situation was not lost on me, but it didn’t change anything, not now.

I pulled back slightly, my arms still around him, and looked into his eyes.

“Maxim, I’m pregnant. And I’m leaving.”