An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3) (26 page)

He didn’t believe her, but he nodded anyway; then her outfit got his attention. The worn jeans, the wedge-heeled boots, a black tee. This had been in the other bag Micha had given her yesterday. The guy had chosen well, had gotten her size perfectly—her style, too. A new respect was born. Maybe his weapon-mongering friend knew women better than Maks had originally thought.

Through the distraction her clothes presented, and the inane topic of spiders, and the clearing of the mess, one thought kept running through his head.

Holy fuck, a kid.

Sydney swallowed the bile in her throat and chanced another peek at Maksim, looking for the change she knew would be there now that he knew her secret. She couldn’t get a read on him, though. His face was a mask. But she knew it was in there somewhere. Had been trying to brace herself against being bothered by it for the past few hours. Once she informed people she was a single mother, even in this day and age, the way they looked at her changed. Their treatment of her would alter. Just slightly. She hated that, but she had been dealing with it for so long that it normally didn’t bother her very much. Unless the person with the attitude meant something to her.

Surreptitiously glancing between the two males on either side of her, noting Andrew grabbing at his left earlobe in that way he did when he was feeling awkward, she reached back to one of her mother’s most tedious teachings and pasted a social smile-from-hell on her face.

“Well, gentlemen, I don’t know about you, but I could use a refreshment. Preferably something that has a percent sign slapped somewhere on its label. Andrew, if you insist that you need a shot, just let me know. Russia? Your choice would be vodka, correct?”

With that, she clasped her hands to her chest, met neither pairs of eyes she could feel on her, and walked into the loft, leaving them to follow.

“You seriously going to let me drink?” Andrew asked, his voice right behind her.

She scoffed as she turned the lights on and entered the kitchen area, motioning them both to sit at the breakfast bar. Andrew did. Maksim stood at the end of the counter, looking delicious and dangerous, his brow up as though waiting to hear her answer to Andrew’s question. “No, silly. That was a joke. A bad one, considering your age. Do you want a ginger ale?”

“Sure. You okay, Mom?”

“Yup. Are either of you hungry?”

“I am.”

She gave her son a droll look and didn’t hold his eyes when she saw the way he was studying her. “Really? That’s so surprising. Russia?” Why was she reverting to that nickname with him?

Because I’m nervous! I’m nervous, and I’m losing my shit!

She jerked open the fridge and grabbed the white wine from the door, so annoyed by that fact. So annoyed by all of this. Truth be told, she’d had it. She hated being stressed out. This last year had been brutal, but this past week had been the worst yet. Her anxiety was making her do things she wouldn’t normally do.

I orgasmed in a man’s hand and made him do the same in mine!

Her cheeks burned as she slammed the bottle onto the counter and jerked a glass out from the rack anchored beneath the cupboard. After splashing in three fingers, she chugged it and could almost hear her mother’s embarrassed gasp. She mentally flipped her the bird.
Fuck it.
It was what it was. She’d fucked up after Emily’s death. Fucked up with Luiz Morales. Fucked up with Maksim. And that latest fuckup was distracting her from the more important, the more dangerous, one! And it had to stop before it was too late. Even now she was more worried about what this man thought of her and her stupid morals than any new information he might have regarding the drug lord that wanted her head on a pike. She poured two more fingers and tossed it back, belatedly hoping it was a decent hour so she wasn’t coming across as a fucking alcoholic. At least her mother had known to hide her booze in a goddamn teacup!

“Mom?”

The curious note in her son’s voice had her plastering that smile back on as she spun around and grabbed the counter behind her. “Sorry. Thirsty. Maksim? Are you hungry?” She swallowed the hysteria from her voice and finally looked at him, and she couldn’t read him to save her life.

“No, princess. I’m not hungry.”

She started to shake.
See? You’ve given in to another one, and he doesn’t want you anymore
, her mother’s raspy voice echoed in her head.

So what? So. What
, she tried to tell herself. They’d played with each other’s private parts. Big deal. During the drive over, she’d explained to her son that she’d angered a dangerous man and they probably wouldn’t be remaining in their home because he might come there to harm them. Her son had told her calmly and sedately that he could stay at Daniel’s until things were back to normal. That’s what was important here! She’d wanted to wail sitting beside her twelve-year-old, who was acting more together than his thirty-year-old mother.

And if Maksim had a problem with her
being
a mother, he could go fuck himself.

“Do you want that drink?” she practically growled at him.

“No, thank you.”

Her bottom lip quivered. “Excuse me.” She retreated and had never been more embarrassed by her behavior in her life.

Maksim watched Sydney disappear around a tall brick wall and heard a door slam a second later. Stress was a bitch, wasn’t it? And it had just kicked his Aussie’s ass.

“My friend Heyden is starting to get hormonal, and me and my buddy Daniel bug her about it. I don’t think I’m going to do that anymore.”

Maks looked at Sydney’s kid, quirked his brow, and just barely caught himself from laughing out loud. That’s all Sydney would need. Her thinking they had enjoyed that semibreakdown.

“It isn’t just hormones, kid,” he said, moving farther into the kitchen. He capped the wine and put it back in the fridge, at the same time getting the boy his soda. Popping the tab, he passed it over, just as he’d do for one of his boys at the club. “I know we just met, but we’re going to get personal real quick because the circumstances here are on the extreme side. That okay with you?”

Those eyes, so much like Sydney’s, studied him for a suspended moment, proving the kid had a brain. Had he agreed instantly, Maksim would have known he was simply trying to please.

“This about what my mom told me? About that guy she pissed off?”

“How old are you, kid?” He took his phone out and sent a text to Micha, telling him to come back. They weren’t staying here. Something wasn’t right. Or maybe he was edgy now because he’d just become responsible for this boy still staring at him.

“I’ll be thirteen in June,” Andrew said, sounding proud.

Holy hell.
“So your mom was only a child herself when she had you,” he mused. “What, seventeen?”

“She was seventeen when she got pregnant but eighteen when I was born. So, yeah, but she did great.”

“Yes, she did. And what exactly did she tell you about this sitch, Andy? You mind if I call you Andy?”

“Sure. Makes me think of
Toy Story
, but whatever. It’s cool.”

What the fuck was
Toy Story
? “Okay. What do you know?”

“She said she pissed a guy off because of my aunt Emily’s death. Didn’t say how but said her friend—that would be you—probably wouldn’t let us stay here because it isn’t safe. I told her it wouldn’t be a big deal for me to stay at my buddy’s till it was over. I think that upset her.” He played with the tab on the top of his soda can. “Who are you, Russia? Why are you helping my mom?”

The kid was forthright but not disrespectful. He didn’t even seem aware that he’d taken up Sydney’s nickname instead of addressing him as Maksim, or God fucking forbid, Mr. Kirov, something Maks would have killed immediately. “I own a club a few blocks from here and knew the man your mother bought her club from. Since we’re all in the same neighborhood, we help each other out. Your mom, being the tiny little thing she is, needs a hand. So here we are.”

Andy nodded and took a drink. “That bomb yesterday scared the shit out of her. I’ve seen two people get killed. One guy got stabbed at school; another got shot coming off the subway last September. I didn’t tell my mom about them because she’d have worried, but I know what happens on the streets. The kids at school talk about everything.”

Unsure if he should treat the boy as he would anybody and talk straight, or coddle him because he was Sydney’s son, Maks shrugged mentally and went with his gut. “Do you know how your aunt died?”

“OD.”

Maks almost rolled his eyes at the direct answer and casual reference. But not at the sadness that pulled the boy’s brows down. “Your mom tangled with some dealers to keep the drugs that killed her friend out of her club. They found out and are pissed because she was destroying their product. They’re not happy. I’ll be sticking around until the storm blows over.”

“Holy shit.” Andy smiled at him. “You just told me some serious stuff. My mom would never have done that.”

“You gonna freak out on me?”

“No, I’m cool.”

“You don’t need me to tell you this stays on the DL,” Maks warned.

“No. Of course not. I won’t say anything.”

They were quiet for a minute, Maks looking around, Andy looking at him.

“Your tats are sick, by the way.”

He looked at the ink on his fingers, hands, and forearms. “I have a good guy. Talented artist.”

“My mom has some ink.”

He nodded casually, recognizing a trap when he heard one. “I’ve seen the one on her wrist. It’s . . . cute.”

“Yeah. Yours remind me of a movie my mom made me watch a couple of weeks ago.”

“Do they? What movie was that?”

“
Eastern Promises.
The guy from
The Lord of the Rings
is in it.”

An unwanted satisfaction hummed through him. A couple of weeks ago Sydney had been researching him through Netflix, hmm? Could be coincidence, but he doubted it. “I know it well.”

“I figured that just by looking at you. Is that the kind of busi—”

The sound of a door opening cut the kid’s question off, saving Maks from having to bullshit him. Sydney came out, looking subdued, eyes red, skin pale. She went right over and kissed her son on the crown of his head. “Why don’t you go play your games so I can talk to Maksim.”

“’Kay.”

Maks nodded at Andy when he looked over, and then the boy grabbed his drink and went off into the living area. He picked up the gaming controller Maks had spied earlier, turned on the TV, and was instantly lost.

“So,” Sydney said as she came over and leaned her hip on the counter, arms crossed, hands grasping her biceps. She might as well have been wearing armor. “What do you want to know first?”

Before he pulled up one fuck of a list in his head, he asked, “If you’re okay?”

She nodded. “Sorry. I . . . had a tantrum. My mother would have been humiliated.”

Not concerned? Shouldn’t her mother have been concerned to see her daughter lose it? “Ready?” he posed, needing those silent questions answered.

“Yes.”

“Is Sydney Martin your real name?”

Her eyes flared, clashing with his. “Jeez. I think you have pieces of my jugular in your teeth.”

His lip quirked, and he winked. “Go big or go home, baby.”

Her eyes slid down to his groin. “Indeed,” she murmured before shaking her head and blushing like a virgin. “I was born Erica Johnson.”

The announcement ripped him from his enjoyment of her reference to his . . . He tore his phone out and pulled up a search engine. Typed in Erica fucking Johnson. And soaked in all of those words and words and words. The more he read—head cheerleader, lead in the high school production of
Cinderella
, among others, top volunteer in a long list of causes, blah, blah, blah, and then a last article in the
Sydney Morning Herald
—the deeper his frown became.

Glad Andy was more than thirty feet away and surrounded by the sounds of
Call of Duty: Black Ops
, Maks spoke freely. “You disappeared when you were seventeen. Presumed and declared legally dead when you were twenty.” No mention of any teen pregnancy.