Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

75. Zoya

75

ZOYA

D on’t let my stellar GPA fool you. I’m an idiot—a complete and utter idiot.

I sent Andrik’s drafted email because I had no clue Andrik and Maksim had an agreement to keep those types of proceedings away from Myasnikov Private Hospital. I would have never done it if I had known the consequences it would instigate.

Maksim thinks Andrik betrayed him, and he’s out for revenge.

I can only hope Mikhail reaches him before my stupidity destroys more than just my friendship with my best friend.

As I ride the elevator to the top floor of Maksim’s building, I pray for a nonviolent outcome. Pushing Zakhar’s name to the top of the donor list with a bribe isn’t the worst thing in the world I could have done to get him a new heart. I’m just unfamiliar with how matters like this are handled in the underworld.

Fingers crossed it involves money. Andrik has plenty of that, and although he’ll be pissed when he learns my mistake cost him millions, I doubt his anger will linger long when Zakhar makes a full recovery.

When the elevator pops open, I exhale a deep breath before entering the foyer of Gigi’s and Grampies’s new crash pad. I’ve never felt more hopeless. I haven’t heard from Andrik or Mikhail in hours. Not even Maksim is answering my calls, and I’ve been ringing him as regularly as I have the other two.

I’m panicked out of my mind that I’ve caused irreparable damage to two mafia entities that were once more friendly than foe, but I need to keep a calm head.

Nikita is fretful enough for the both of us, and I’ve yet to tell her that I instigated a fight that may end with multiple casualties.

Also, I need to remember not all of Maksim’s focus should be on Andrik. His crew didn’t drug and kidnap Nikita for hours. More than bribery commenced this battle. I’m certain of it. I just need Maksim to answer one of my damn calls to make sure he is aware of that.

“Thank you,” Nikita whispers when I hand her the coffee I offered to fetch so I could fight the urge to fall to my knees and plead for forgiveness. She donated her mother’s organs when she was killed, so if she finds out a medical unit may have profited from her loss, she will be pissed.

“About last night.” Nikita’s exhale ruffles the locks I pulled in front of my shoulders to hide my head wound. “I?—”

“If you’re about to apologize, my foot is about to land in your butt crack.”

She smiles.

She fucking smiles.

I don’t deserve it, but I am going to relish it.

“Don’t smile. I’m not joking. I even removed my shoes to make sure I wouldn’t get anything nasty on my new pumps.”

She is as eager as me to escape the turmoil making her stomach a sticky mess. “You got new shoes?”

“Yeah. Wanna see?” When she nods, I hook my thumb to the elevator I wish was full of as many Dokovic men as Ivanovs. I’ll even accept Andrik’s father as a co-rider if it guarantees Andrik’s, Mikhail’s, and Maksim’s reappearances. “Follow me downstairs. There’s an entire wardrobe of brand-new designer clothes and shoes that look like they haven’t been touched.” I remind my heart that no news doesn’t always equate to bad news before saying, “If my new husband wants to gift me a wardrobe of designer babies, I’m not going to look at a single item priced under five figures.” Before she can sink her teeth into the juicy worm I accidentally dangled in front of her, I back out of my ruse with my arms held high in the air. If I open that can of worms, I won’t be done for hours. Nikita needs my focus on her marriage, not mine. “Any news?”

With a defeated sigh, Nikita shakes her head.

“He’ll be okay, Keet,” I assure her, my voice cracking like Maksim’s safety isn’t hinged on Andrik’s ability to protect his son. “You’d need a tank to take him down, and it would have to be the size of a submarine to keep him away from you.” I bring back the playfulness she instigated earlier. It reminds me that there are soft sides to even the hardest men. “Not even the four deadbolts I installed on the servants’ stairwell door could stop him.” When her mouth gapes, I smile. “What? He couldn’t use the front door because it couldn’t be budged without pounding the living shit out of it, and he knew that would have woken you, so I got inventive.”

“Because?”

My thoughts stray to Andrik when I reply, “Because I wanted you to know he wasn’t giving up. He was just being a stubborn ass.” I mess up her hair because I know how much she hates it. She won’t cry if she’s angry. “Like someone else I know.”

An intercom buzzing ends her eye roll halfway around.

“Mrs. Ivanov, I have two officers here to speak with you.”

My throat grows scratchy. Those were almost the exact words Nikita spoke when she told her dad there were two officers wanting to speak with him.

I can still remember the howl Mr. Hoffman released when they told him his wife had been brutally raped and murdered.

It haunts my dreams to this day, and it is the very reason I’ve kept my focus on settling Nikita’s panic more than my own.

Nikita makes it to the foyer of her grandparents’ apartment before a heartbreaking sob tears through her.

“If he’s… oh god.” When she folds in two, gripping her stomach as furiously as nausea shreds through mine, I race to her side.

“I should have never let him go. I should have made him keep his promise. I can’t lose him, Z. I haven’t even told him that I love him yet.”

“You won’t lose him. It’ll be okay. And he already knows, Keet. He saw it on your face every time you got jealous. Why do you think he loves it so much?”

Again, my thoughts stray to Andrik. I hate how he hurt me by throwing my sister in my face, but there are so many similarities to the way Maksim loves Nikita and how Andrik was with me before his attention waned that I can’t help but compare them.

Our time in the cabana… gosh . I’ve never felt more wanted. I fell in love with him on sight, and that afternoon cemented my feelings for him.

Cement is hard to crack.

Andrik has given it his best shot over the past few weeks, but his hits barely scratched the surface. I still love him enough that I can forgive him. He just needs to ask—and perhaps fall to his knees and beg.

I’m immersed in my wicked plan of revenge I am confident I will be given the chance to execute that it takes me longer than I care to admit to learn why the tension is so rife.

Nikita is standing across from a male and a female detective. The brunette seems somewhat polite, but the gray-haired man’s aura puts my nerves on edge.

“Do I need a warrant, Dr. Fernandez ?” he spits into Nikita’s face.

“It is Dr. Ivanov,” Nikita barks back, her bite just as stern. “And yes, you do. My husband owns this building, so anything inside it is his possession.”

“Then I guess it’s lucky we’re not here for him, isn’t it?”

Recalling Maksim’s instructions for Nikita if she was ever bombarded like this, I shift on my feet to face Gigi before saying, “Call Raya.” When she nods and waddles off, I butt shoulders with Nikita. “What is this in regard to?”

“Are you her lawyer?”

“No.” My words are for the female detective, but my scold is for her male counterpart. “But I don’t need to be to make sure she isn’t railroaded by a chauvinistic asshole who thinks he’s tough because he has a gun.”

The brunette attempts to take charge. “We’re here in regard to your whereabouts between the hours of”—she checks her notepad—“two p.m. yesterday afternoon until five a.m. this morning.”

I continue with Maksim’s plan. “She was here the entire time.”

The male detective exposes part of his hand when he flashes an image of Nikita in the elevator of her workplace during the timeline his colleague mentioned.

“I arrived for my shift at…” Nikita breathes out slowly before murmuring, “I’m having difficulties remembering the exact time?—”

“Another lapse in memory? How convenient.”

Nikita retaliates to his snarky tone before I can. “I was drugged with a benzodiazepine that causes memory issues, so perhaps instead of wasting your time questioning me about my whereabouts, you should go search for the real criminals ruining this town.” I want to slap her back and say, Attagirl , when she snaps out, “And that person is not my husband.”

“Do you know who drugged you or what synthetic they used?” the brunette asks, her interests piqued.

Nikita shakes her head. “No. We took a sample with the hope it would give us answers, but the results aren’t back yet.”

She flips over the pages in her notepad before asking, “Do you have an approximate time you were drugged?”

“I don’t remember much from before I arrived for my shift yesterday,” Nikita answers. “I remember driving there, and I think I entered via the underground garage elevator, but I can’t be sure. It’s all blank.”

“Until what time?”

The male detective’s voice is as railroading as earlier, but it is too late for him. He lost any pleasantries he seems to think he suddenly deserves.

“I woke around two,” Nikita answers, even with her tone announcing she doesn’t believe he deserves her assistance.

The brunette jumps back into the conversation. “A.m.?”

When Nikita nods, arrogance hardens the male detective’s wrinkly features. “So the alibi your husband’s lawyer gave us an hour ago is false. He was not with you at all.”

“Th-that isn’t what I said. I said I woke at two. But he was with me the en-entire time.”

He scoffs at Nikita’s reply. “How would you know if you were passed out?”

“Because he sleeps inside her every night.” I look him up and down, doubling my wish to vomit. “And unlike the unfortunate women who have slept with you, she couldn’t mistake his presence.”

“It’s actually anytime she sleeps.” Maksim enters the frame from stage left, almost pulling my knees out from beneath me as well as he does Nikita’s. “But I’ll save the details for someone more worthy of my time.” He assists me in keeping Nikita upright before he doubles the whiteness of the detectives’ cheeks with a commanding glare. “Is there something I can assist you with, Officers?”

The brunette flashes her credentials. “Detective Lara Sonova from Trudny PD. We’re here to verify the alibi Raya Hughes gave for Mrs. Fern—” She recovers quickly. “Mrs. Ivanov earlier today.”

“Once she finalized her shift, she was here with me all night, as my lawyer has already stated.”

“Ah…” Lara flicks through her notepad. “And?—”

“And if you have any further questions, they can be directed through my lawyer, as also stated earlier.” Maksim’s arrogance could give Andrik’s a run for its money. It doesn’t stop me from seeking any signs of injury on his body, however. “Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Lara gives in just as I sigh in relief.

Maksim doesn’t appear to have even been in a fight.

After soundlessly apologizing to Nikita for her partner’s actions, Lara heads for the elevator.

It takes her colleague another thirty seconds to join her.

The elevator doors have only just shut with the detectives on one side and us on the other when Nikita commences an in-depth search of Maksim’s body.

When he laughs, appreciative of her panic, I inhale a lung-filling breath of air for the first time in hours. It has me convinced that everything is okay, that none of the horrid theories I’ve been running through my head over the past several hours are true.

Only a psychopath could laugh after hurting innocent victims because of someone else’s mistake.

Andrik and Mikhail are quiet because Zakhar’s recovery is more important than my dramatics. They had nothing to do with the revenge Maksim was undertaking. They’re as innocent as the gleam in Zakhar’s eyes when he asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend.

I tune back in at the right time.

“Ano?” Nikita asks, her one word full of worry.

I sigh in relief when Maksim replies, “He was found a few hours ago. He is a little groggy and sporting a handful of new stitches, but he’s been through worse, so I don’t see his recovery taking long.”

“Is it…? Did you…?” After a stern swallow, Nikita asks more fluently, “Is it done?”

All the relief Maksim’s laughter lifted from my shoulders stacks back on when he shifts his eyes to me and narrows them before he says, “The faction working out of Myasnikov Private was more extensive than anyone realized. They weren’t just selling the organs of legitimate donors. They were encouraging harvests.”

Oh shit.

When I recall the weirdness of the invoices Boris tidied up in a hurry, I make sure Maksim’s focus is on the right people. “With food?” When Maksim nods, I shift my focus to Nikita, praying like hell she will help me shift Maksim’s daggers to the right culprits. “That’s why you kept bringing up bananas.” Hating that I’m being a coward, I return my eyes to Maksim. “Her memories are still foggy, but she recalled seeing a crate of bananas being carried out of the hospital.”

A rush of nausea hits me when Maksim discloses, “They were poisoning members of the community through food banks, then plucking a handful of unsuspecting victims from the pile to succumb to the latest gastroenteritis outbreak ravishing the city. Their families had no clue.”

He isn’t saying what I think he is, is he?

Zakhar’s new heart was from someone who accidentally died, right?

That’s how bribes work. You pay a premium to push a desired recipient to the top of the stack. You don’t murder someone for what is meant to be readily available.

Before I can pry the truth from Maksim’s eyes, Nikita asks, “Then how did your mother end up on that list?”

I take a moment to breathe through the heaviness on my chest when Maksim attempts to appease Nikita’s curiosity. “The man she came to see was a chef. With his business not doing well, he substituted some of his produce with supplies a charity worker was skimming from the food banks.”

“The tainted food is why there were so many outbreaks over the past several months.”

I’m brainstorming out loud, mindful this is bigger than just Zakhar’s new heart, but Nikita doesn’t know that. “And also why there was an increase in surgeries.” Her eyes widen as her mouth gapes. “I saw bananas. They were being carried out of the hospital. Does that mean…?” My stomach gurgles when she clicks on to the truth half a second before me. “Yulia’s father lost his job. He couldn’t afford food. He was supplementing his lost wages with produce that was donated to him. That could be what is making Yulia sick.”

Yulia is almost the same age as Zakhar.

The same height.

The same weight.

She also has the same blood type. I saw her patient details on the invoice I paid for a blood workup Maksim funded on behalf of her family weeks ago.

Please, no.

When Nikita races for the exit, Maksim grabs her wrists and tugs her back.

She doesn’t take kindly to being manhandled, but unlike me, she uses words to announce her dislike. “Let me go, Maksim. I need to help her. There are ways we can reverse the damage of the poison.”

“Oh fuck,” I murmur on a sob when Maksim says, “It’s too late.”

“No.” The devastation in Nikita’s voice cuts me like a knife. Its slashes are nowhere near as damaging as the ones my guilt is instigating. “She can get better. I can help her.”

As he stares at me as if I am the professor who threatened to fail Nikita every semester if she wouldn’t put out, Maksim says, “My men found her this morning. She was in a room at the back of the loading dock. Her organs had been harvested. There was nothing we could do.” My heart breaks along with Nikita’s when he says without remorse, “We took down the people directly responsible for her death. We made them pay.” A tear rolls down my cheek when he adds, “And I won’t stop until every person who hurt her has paid.”

“Promise me,” Nikita demands, unaware she is signing my death certificate.

After a final glare hotter than the sun, Maksim lifts Nikita’s tear-drenched face before he murmurs, “I promise.” His eyes are back on me, hot and heavy. “No one will ever hurt you like this again.”

I don’t know what compels me to do it, but I nod as if his confirmation of protection isn’t a threat.

My agreeing gesture pacifies Maksim enough to put our confrontation on the backburner until he settles Nikita, though it does little to stop my knees from pulling out from underneath me when I’m left alone in the foyer.

I fall to the floor with a clatter and muffle my howling sobs by biting my palm.