Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (22 page)

I
hear
the second explosion go off, but the brute on top of me has his knee on the back of mine, and he’s pinning my arms behind my back, pressing my face into the seat, and I all I can do is feel my heart leap into my throat again.

“Much better,” I hear Will’s insufferably cruel voice say, and that pushes me over the edge. Feeling the slightest slack in the henchman’s grip, I wrench my arms free the way Max taught me how, and in a flash, I push myself up, and an elbow shoots back to smack the man in the mouth, and I feel teeth crack under the blow as he howls and I turn my eyes to the rear window.

I wish I hadn’t.

Out of the smoke, I watch Max’s car roll forward, the once-splendid vehicle we’d planned to drive away to a new life inside, coasting across the French countryside away from all this terror. Instead, I watch it sputter forward, smoke billowing from every opening, and as we come to a stop, the men who’d been hiding in the forest on the sides of the road step out, guns blazing as they riddle the sides, the back, and the front with bullets.

I let out a scream, tears streaming down my eyes as I slam my fist into the rear window, not even caring that the ogre-like man beside me is pinning my arms again. I can’t even feel the pain compared to the sight of Max’s car, and visions of what he must look like inside flash in front of my mind’s eye unbidden. I clench my eyes and look away, tears stinging terribly.

It isn’t fair. This can’t be real. This isn’t real. Absurdly, I become vaguely aware that I’m still in my wedding dress, half-torn and filthy by now. This was supposed to be the best day of my life, a day I’d dreamed about since I was a little girl, even if I’d never imagined it taking place in such a place as this.

This whole time has been a kind of dream turned nightmare. And just when I think Max had woken me from the nightmare and brought me back into the real world, into my real life, I just slipped back into the depths, getting dragged down as I watch my last glimmer of hope get gunned to pieces on a dirt road in the woods.

My mind flits to everyone back at the wedding. Did the bastards take anyone else? Oh god, what about Maggie? She saw them all again, she saw Will, she relived the trauma. Was she okay? What if they took her? Could she stand the pain of being plunged into darkness all over again?

Then there’s a third explosion, and as Will laughs, I realize one of the shots must have hit the car’s gas tank, as I open my eyes and see the car hitting the ground with a metallic thud a moment later, upside-down.

There’s a tug at my hair, then a sudden jerk as Will pulls me close to him, his hands forcing me to look at the burning remains of the car.

“Take a good look,
ma chérie
,” he taunts me, “I don’t want you getting the wrong impression. Maksim Pavlenko is somewhere in there — or at least, bits and pieces of him are.”

I hate myself so much for having ever trusted Will, for having ever come close to letting myself feel attracted to this devil wearing human skin.

“What are you?” I say through choked sobs as Will strokes my hair. I want to kill him. I want so dearly to break that snide nose of his and toss him into the inferno along with the love of my life. I want so much, but I can do so little.

“Merely a man,” says Will, purring the words into my ear as I try to pull away. He glances to the man with me in the back, and he nods to him out the door. “Take a hold of her and get out. Confirm the bastard’s death.”

I’m pulled out into the smoky air, the smell of the burning car and gunshots mingling toxically with the otherwise pleasant scents of the French countryside in autumn. This is the kind of place bikers come careening through, or lovers come walking. I might have come here with Max one day, walking hand in hand with him without the faintest care in the world. Never in my darkest nightmares would I have imagined knowing such a forest as a place of death.

I try to pull part of my dress back up over my shoulder to cover myself. My shoes are long gone, and my captor’s sweaty hands have stained my ensemble. He yanks me with him as Will gets out and spreads his arms out wide, beaming. Men are stepping out of the woods now, guns pointed at the burning remains of the car as the shooting finally stops.

“I should say, Olivia,” Will says as the men approach the car and he turns to face me, stepping forward with a smile, “I’m genuinely sorry you became so personally involved in this business.” He reaches out and takes my chin in his hand the way Max used to, and I want to bite his fucking fingers off, but my face is swollen from crying and I can only stare into those heartless eyes.

“You know nothing about human caring,” I spit at him.

“Me? I know more than anyone here,” he practically hisses back at me, his eyes narrowing. “Do you think it’s for the money that I work with all these Chechens? Well, partly, but I find in them a lot of empathy in their hatred of the Russians, particularly of these Russian assassins.” Will flashes a quick smile to the man holding me, who nods back curtly. “But I must say, Liv,” Will goes on with a sigh, looking me up and down with ravenous eyes, “you do look lovely in your wedding gown, so it would be a shame to let you go through the whole day without the comfort of a man. Maybe I will be your groom instead? You seemed to be keen on that when we first met,” he says with a silky smile, and I want to burst with fury, my jaw clenched. “But I should introduce myself properly, first. My name is Guillaume Bouchard, and my brother Jean was murdered by a Russian pig, just like your late fiancé,” he growls, clenching his fist as he shoots a glare back at my lover’s fiery grave.

The men near the car, poking around different parts of it, and one of them holds up a burnt jacket —the tuxedo jacket Max was wearing. I’m unable to hold back another wave of tears, my head hanging.

“Fuck you,” I sob, “fuck you, fuck you.” I try to come up with something more biting, but I’ve had to be strong against these men so long that I feel utterly spent. Will — Guillaume — frowns, rolling his eyes at me.

“Stupid girl. You really are in love with him, aren’t you? Well, maybe your love for the Russian has ruined you for me. It’s a shame. I was looking forward to letting you live, but I see he’s made you far too much of a liability. So before you go thinking this is something personal on your part, dear Olivia,” he says, stroking my chin before taking his pistol out and pointing it at my head as my eyes focus on the barrel, my short life flashing before my eyes, “You can blame Mother Russia.”

A gunshot splits the air, and for a second, I wonder if this is what death feels like. Silent and like all the air has been sucked out of the world.

But then Will spins around, eyes wide, as one of his men near the car falls to the ground, dead. Shouts in Russian ring out in the forest, and men start taking cover as a firefight breaks out by the ruins of the car, and Will swears, ducking. The man holding my arms back jerks me to the side as he takes cover, but my heart jumps as I see a glimpse of something in the forest beyond the smoke, a tall, dark-haired figure, clothes half-burnt off and smoke staining his face, his piercing eyes unmistakable.

“Max!” I cry out, my lungs unable to contain the joy welling up in me.

“Kill the bastard!” Will barks hoarsely, aiming his pistol and taking a few shots into the woods where my lover disappeared. “A half-mill to the man who lands the killing shot!”

Immediately, the men seem emboldened, and bullets spray the trees, but two more thuds signal the deaths of two more of the Mafiosi. The men are looking around wildly, not even sure where the shots are coming from now. Before they can react, I watch a man standing in front of a fallen log get yanked behind it with a shout, and there’s another gunshot before Max leaps from cover, firing the dead man’s Uzi into the crowd of shooters by the car. His tuxedo shirt is mostly burned off, but his face is unscathed, fury in his eyes as he guns the men down. Then his eyes meet mine.

A thousand words could have passed silently between us in that split second. I forgive him for letting me think he was dead before he could apologize for having to torment my heart so. He tells me how much he loved me and that I was unharmed. We tell each other how dearly we wanted to put these wretched men down, permanently.
All that in a look.

The brute holding me pulls me close, holding his gun up in Max’s direction, but before he can even aim the gun, Max draws another pistol from his side, the same weapon he used to save me from the apartment, and I hear the bullet whiz past my head as it lands true in the gunman’s throat, and his grip on me slackens as I recoil and he hits the ground.

More gunshots as the remaining men react. I can hear the screams of the Chechens as Max dashes through the smoke of the car again, and for a moment I see him flash past the trees, taking on one of the men with his bare hands.

Gathering my bearings, I reach down to pick up the weapon of the dead man at my feet, and my hands nearly wrap around the handle of the gun when I feel a strong grip on the back of my dress that yanks me up, and before I can react, I feel cold steel on my temple as Will wraps his arm around my neck and stands me up, and his pistol cocks.

“
Pavlenko!
” he roars, and in an instant, the forest falls silent, save for the rustling of the leaves in a gentle breeze. The wind parts the smoke, and I see Max less than ten feet away, pistol raised to Will, all the rest of the Chechens dead on the forest floor all around us. “Put. The weapon. Down,” Will growls. I don’t need to look at him to feel his wide, wild eyes, truly on the edge of doing something drastic.

I can see Max recognizing that look. “Max,” I whisper, but Will tightens his grip at my throat.

“Quiet, bitch,” he hushes me, and Max tenses. “Alright, assassin, weapon on the ground now, or I’ll decorate the woods with this cunt’s brains.”

Max looks ready to shoot, but Will’s finger is on the trigger, his voice steady, his hands not shaking. But is he willing to take that chance?

“Now, Pavlenko!” Will barks, and finally, Max nods, taking his hand off the trigger and holding the gun out in front of him, slowly setting it on the forest floor. “Everything else,” Will says, and Max turns around slowly, displaying the two more pistols he has strapped to his back. My heart sinking, I watch him do the same with those, then the knife on his leg, and the pistol on the other leg, and the smoke grenades in his pockets before he raises his hands and puts them on the back of his head.

“I’m yours, Will,” Max says calmly, his voice as even as if he were chatting casually with me. “Release Liv, and I’ll come with you. It’s me you want more, after all, isn’t it? I can think of a lot of people who have a high price on my head.”

“I was going to kill you,” Will says, “but perhaps you’ll have better uses. Bitch,” Will addresses me, giving me a squeeze, “I’m going to let you go and turn the gun on your Russian lover-boy. Then you’re going to walk far away and get a cab to wherever the fuck you want. Call the police, they won’t catch us.”

Max nods significantly to me, and I take a deep breath before I nod my head a little, the metal of the gun barrel still pushing into my skin. “Okay, Will. Okay.”

Next thing I know, Will shoves me to the ground roughly, and he starts to step forward to Max, pistol now turned on him. My hand tightens around the torn dress draped over my thigh. Then it slides the dress up, and my fingers wrap around the knife in my garter.

The motion is quick and fluid. I draw the blade, leaping to my feet and diving for Will, and before he can turn around, eyes wide, I drive the blade with all my strength into the side of his head, and as his reflexes fire the gun wildly into the forest, his balance gives out, and his weight carries him to the ground, the blade lodged in his head breaking off the knife as Guillaume Bouchard hits the dirt, dead.

I let the handle slip from my fingers as I turn to meet Max, who’s rushing forward to catch me in his arms as we melt into one another, his strong muscles lifting me off my feet and swinging me around as he squeezes me tight into that strong, comforting grip.

“Oh my god,” I sob into his chest, “oh my god, Max, I thought I’d lost you.”

“Liv,” he says back, his own voice choked with joy as he sets me back down and looks into my tear-stained eyes, “it’s over, Liv, truly over. He’s gone, my love.”

“How did you-”

“I leaped from the car before the gunmen started firing,” he said, “into the ditch, then dashed to the forest. I killed one of the men I landed near and started from there.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Only that your wedding day was ruined,
lyubov moya
.”

A smile tugs at my face involuntarily, and I hug him back as hard as I can, meeting his lips for a kiss. “Alongside you, Max, no day can be ruined.”

We look at each other a long time, our hearts sailing together out of the darkest storm of our lives, and even in the smoke-filled forest, tattered and battered, for the first time in so, so long, we share in each other’s peace. “Come on,” he finally says, his voice low. “Let’s get out of here.”

I glance back at Will’s car, by now a shot-up mess. “I’m not sure bullet holes are street legal in France.”

“No,” Max admits, glancing at the road behind us, then flashing me a coyly raised eyebrow, “but didn’t you mention wanting to take a walk through the French woods some time?”

My smile broadens, and I burst into laughter, punching him playfully in the side of the arm before giving a yelp as he sweeps me off my feet, carrying me back down the road and through the autumn woods, leaving everything else behind us at last.

W
hen I first came to
Paris, it was something like a dream come true, some kind of wild fantasy I’d only imagined being thrust into. My outlook might have changed a lot since then, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the surreal beauty of Monaco from the balcony of our hotel suite any less. Over the past few minutes, I’ve been losing myself as I gaze out onto the sunset that’s casting a pink light over the Mediterranean, thinking about what a storm the last month was, and what a breath of fresh air these past few days have been.

The firefight in the forest is still burned bright in my memory. The first few nights afterwards, I woke up in a cold sweat next to Max, forgetting he was right there beside me just like that first night we spent together. Remembering that first night always dispelled the night terrors, though, as I recalled the feeling of him curling around me protectively. I smile, remembering how embarrassing that felt, asking him to sleep beside me. He was
my teacher
, for goodness’ sake! My towering, muscular Russian teacher. That all seems so far away now.

“What are you smiling about,
lyubov moya
?” Max’s voice is like silk behind me as he strides out of the open glass doors to the balcony, slipping his arms around me to give me a hug and stroke his hand over my stomach, feeling the baby that’s yet to start showing visibly. I smile as I turn my head to kiss him, letting out a soft moan as he presses into my back and slides his hands to my shoulders to start massaging gently.

“Hm, just you,” I say, turning my eyes back to the glittering water out there. I hear him chuckle as he rubs my back. That sound has been a pleasant new experience — a genuine, mirthful chuckle, free of all the worries that burdened him down back in Paris. Not that the city itself held too many bad memories to bear. Our little house on the outskirts of the city is a testament to that.

We even had the wedding in the city, both to enjoy the living spirit of the city that could at least for a little while be free of the pall it had cast over us and to send a message to onlookers that we would never be cowed by our enemies. And now, all of that is put to rest. The second ceremony was even more beautiful than the first one was going to be, and it was everything I could have hoped for. The light at the end of the darkest tunnel of my life is turning out to be the brightest, now.

Well, almost. I’m having to put a hold on my gymnastics career, largely thanks to the child I’ll be carrying for the next eight months, but after everything that’s happened, a break is more than welcome, and Max has taken steps to ensure that as soon as I’m ready to get back out there, I’ll have a place at the university waiting for me.

Maggie, meanwhile, seems to be channeling her trauma into a kind of renewed energy in leaps and bounds — literally. Max says he sees something in her that supersedes even the potential he saw when he recruited her. She’s excelling so quickly that she’s already helping tutor some of the other students, and as a trauma survivor, getting out there and being physically active again has done wonders for her mental health. Of course, we’re around each other nearly all the time she isn’t at school — you don’t go through something like that with someone and not feel a special kind of connection.

I know it will take a lot more than just gymnastics for her to heal entirely, just like it will take a lot more than my relationship with Max to heal me, mentally and emotionally, but keeping up our friendship has been invaluable. We never thought we’d be this close when we first walked off that plane, but here we are — and I couldn’t ask for a better friend.

And she needs a friend now more than ever. When we talked before I left for this honeymoon trip, she told me her talks with her parents have been a little awkward. “It’s not like they’re upset,” she’d said reluctantly, “it’s just that what happened to me — to us — was never really part of their plan for my life, you know? So they don’t really know what to do with me.”

“Oh my god,” I’d said, shocked. “I’m so sorry, Mag. They’re your parents, I’d hope that they’d be there for you now more than ever.”

“I’m not that sorry,” she’d said unexpectedly, looking me in the eye with a small smile that was braver than I knew she was capable of. “I’ve been smothered my whole life, Liv. Maybe this is a good chance to grow into myself — healing has a lot of change involved already, right?”

She still has plenty of rough days, of course, and her parents are paying for her to have an apartment of her own, since the old dorm holds some rough associations, but it’s a step-by-step process that’s bringing her forward every day. I’m so proud of her, and Max is too.

“Well,” Max says softly into my ear, “don’t get too lost in thought. Don’t forget the last thing we have planned for this evening.”

“How could I forget?” I said, looking back at him, unable to hold back the grin on my face. Despite all of Max’s reticence in the past, he seems to be an endless stream of surprises now. Well, not that he wasn’t exactly a surprising man before. “But we’ve already made a killing at the casinos, should we need to catch the next cab out of here before security decides we won too much?”

Max laughs, kissing me on the neck. “Ah, you’ve got a taste for danger now, what am I going to do with you? But no, we’ll save that for tomorrow,” he says, rubbing my hips. “Come on, let’s get down to the docks — I hope you have an appetite.”

* * *

H
alf an hour later
, we’re gliding across the waters on the deck of a large, spacious yacht that’s headed out of the little port and out onto the glittering water that’s painted in the sparkling white ink of the late autumn’s full moon. Lights from the other boats out and about tonight sparkle in the bay like fireflies, and there’s a small fireworks display being put on a little further out, setting the night’s sky aglow with reds and purples and greens, and as I look over to Max as he sits beside me, a plate of fine food in his lap, I see the fire reflected in his eyes, and my heart grows warmer as I snuggle in beside him.

“Not the most quiet place to enjoy escargot,” he admits, and I giggle, taking a sip of the non-alcoholic wine in front of me.

“Are you kidding? This is the smoothest ride I’ve ever had. You need to come check out the boat rides in North Carolina with me sometime.”

“Visit America? That might be something to look forward to, with you,” he says, and we lean in for a quick kiss when a crackling sound behind us catches our attention. I glance back and notice the captain adjusting his radio until the news comes in clearly for a few moments, and I hear the sound of a newscaster speaking in accented English over an international news station.

“. . . and the investigation into a major crime ring bust in Paris is underway in full swing thanks to a particularly tech-savvy anonymous source who has begun collaborating with Parisian and international authorities, identifying himself only as ‘F.’ Correspondents at INTERPOL have refused to comment on the specifics of F’s activities and relation to law enforcement, save that they have been aware of his activities for some time and look forward to discussing a permanent position for F at the agency, citing the value of such independent investigative work. This development has sparked some heated conversation among officials regarding the place of vigilante justice in law enforcement, and . . .”

The sound fades as the captain notices us paying attention, and he gives an embarrassed smile, turning the sound down quickly, but Max is quick to give a smile, letting him know it’s quite alright before he turns to me.

“Sounds like Felix has been keeping busy,” he whispers, and I smile.

“Let’s hope the attention doesn’t get to his head.”

“If it does,” Max admits reluctantly, “I think he’s earned it. Honestly, I didn’t expect him to stick around as long as he did. He’s come a long way from the simpering techie who came to me for help at the university. If he thinks he can stomach working for something with as much red tape as INTERPOL, he might just have a successful career ahead of him. I wouldn’t take a job like that,” he’s quick to add with a smile, “but that’s just me.”

I smile, biting my lip, and Max raises an eyebrow at me, knowing I’m holding something back. “What’s that smile for?” he asks, leaning forward and touching my chin lightly.

“Well, you’ve been going all out with the surprises for me on this trip,” I say, looking over to the captain and nodding at him. He nods back understandingly, saying something quietly into his collar microphone with a smile. “Felix has been busier than you thought — I convinced him to help me with one more thing: track down someone who’s a hell of a lot harder to find than you’d think. A little surprise for you that I think you’ll appreciate.”

Max blinks, not understanding until the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs to the deck turns his attention, and his eyes widen as a large man with a stony face and a small smile makes his way onto the deck.

“Andrei!” exclaims Max, standing up and crossing the deck.

“Maksim,” the man greets in return, and I get a little choked up at the look on Max’s face as the two old friends embrace in a tight, powerful hug. “Look at you,” Andrei says, stepping back and looking Max up and down with a warm smile. “France has been good to you,
tovarishch.
”

“And what has America done to you?” Max says back, beaming. “You’ve got a light in your gaze I didn’t think those dark eyes could harbor.”

“Well, that’s a long story,” says Andrei with a smile, “one that I’d like to have in our mother tongue.”

Before anything else, Max looks over to me and says, “I suppose this was your co-conspirator? Andrei, meet the love of my life, Olivia.”

“A pleasure to meet you formally,” Andrei says to me, and I give a little wave back, wondering if all the men in Russia are mountains of muscle. Max makes his way over to me, sweeping me up as I giggle, and we meet in a passionate, deep kiss. When it finally breaks, he holds my face, looking into my eyes.

“Liv,” he says, “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. How much all of this means to me.”

“I want to tell you all about how much everything you’ve done means to me,” I breathe back, “but we’ll have all the time in the world for that now. I love you, Max.”

“I love you, Olivia,” he says. And after one final kiss, I watch Max head off to the other side of the deck with Andrei to recount old stories and new as our little yacht carries us around the Monaco bay, around whatever new dreams and new life me and Max will be able to build with each other. Free at last.