Chapter Five
Maksim was surprised that he hadn’t yet managed to drop the weights right on his chest. His brain was barely focused on what he was doing. Nika would not stop staring at him and it was damned distracting. Worse, he kept feeling the urge to preen. What was he? Some kind of hormonal teenager?
At least she was focused on her own workout now. It had been bad enough having her soft little fingers touching him while she wrapped his hands. Her touch was magic. It woke up every nerve in his body. Each time he felt her brush his skin he nearly trembled with the desire to stroke her in return. It was insane.
A drop of sweat stung his eye and he was glad for the reality check. He needed to stay with what he was doing. Perhaps burning a few thousand calories and wearing out his muscles would help him stay in control of his thoughts.
More weight, a few more reps, and then he was ready to move on to his cardio routine. Maksim snatched up a jump rope from the hook and stood in front of one of the mirrors. He settled into rhythm, gradually speeding up. His reflection showed not one iota of the discomfiture he was feeling inside. That was good, right? Maybe if he could fake it, he would eventually get to a point where Nika didn’t bother him at all.
Damn. There she was. Apparently she had finished her rowing. He could see her in the mirror sitting on the bench. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and was watching him as though she’d never seen such a fascinating sight. Did she hate him? Was that why she couldn’t take her eyes off him? Or could she possibly want him as much as he did her?
Maksim stumbled, catching himself at the last second to prevent his falling flat on his face. It was embarrassing. In the mirror he saw Nika hide a smile. He wondered if she was laughing at him, or if it was for something different. He would have liked to see her smile for real. He had seen her laugh before. It was a beautiful laugh and she had a pure expression when she was truly amused. Maksim hated that he was so fascinated by her, but he couldn’t manage to stop.
“Maksim?” Yuri Pavlovich interrupted Maksim’s inner musings. “Can I have a moment of your time?”
Maksim sighed. He knew what was coming and he hated it. “Certainly. What can I do for you?”
“I cannot make this quarter’s payment.” Yuri wrung his hands together. “I am sorry, but the gym is just not making the revenue we did three months ago.”
“Is this because of the new gym or the snack bar?” Maksim wanted to know.
Yuri seemed hesitant to speculate and Maksim couldn’t blame him. “I would like to think that things would be tight if the snack bar was still open, but I think we could make it through.”
“Then perhaps that is the answer.” Maksim set the jump rope back on the hook. “Let’s have a look at your fryer, shall we?”
“Yes! Yes!” Yuri said eagerly, looking shocked. “I will show you.”
Maksim sighed. He really wasn’t that much of a handyman. Hopefully it wasn’t something really serious. Feeling a little self-conscious, he followed Yuri into the snack bar area.
The little Ukrainian slipped between the wall and the fryer. “See, I think the problem is back here. Yes? The machine is not getting any power.”
Okay. There was no way in hell Maksim was going to fit in that space. He couldn’t even imagine trying. He would get stuck and they’d have to get a crane in here to winch him out.
Bracing his shoulder against the machine, Maksim took a deep breath and shoved. The metallic grinding noise made every single person in the gym turn and stare, but at least the fryer moved enough to give him the necessary room to take a look.
“It’s the power cord.” Maksim squatted down and brushed his fingers over the frayed portion of cord. “It looks like the thing got pinched when the machine was moved.”
“We moved everything to clean a few months back.” Yuri frowned. “I guess we must have done it then.”
Maksim didn’t bother to mention that Yuri was lucky he hadn’t set the place on fire. It looked like the cord had just shorted out. That was much better than arcing or something and becoming a bomb of sorts.
“So, I call an electrician to get it fixed. Yes?’ Yuri looked tense. “How expensive is that do you think?”
Maksim shoved the fryer back into place. “I know a guy. I’ll have him take care of it, Yuri. The fryer will be working by day after tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Yuri grabbed Maksim’s hand and began pumping it up and down. “Next time we will pay what we owe with interest.”
“Forget the interest,” Maksim grunted. “Just get your business up and running and pay what we’ve agreed on. All right?”
“Thank you, Maksim.” Yuri kept nodding. It was making Maksim uncomfortable. “This is why we are loyal to the Petrovs.”
“I know, Yuri. And Ivan and I both appreciate that.” Maksim patted the guy on the shoulder, careful not to use enough force to send him flying.
Yuri wandered off to help a customer up at the front counter get some clean towels, and Maksim headed back to the bench to unwrap his hands. It was time to go home.
The word gave him pause. Home. Did he even know where or what that was anymore? He hadn’t had his own place in a decade or more. Sometimes he thought it would nice to be out from under his brother. Maybe he could get his own house and make his own decisions. But that wasn’t the way the life of a Petrov enforcer worked.
***
Nika kept stealing glances at Maksim in the car on the ride back to the safe house. She had fully expected him to threaten that skinny little Ukrainian man when he didn’t pay up what he owed. When it hadn’t happened, Maksim knew Nika was left to wonder why. Why had Maksim strong-armed her father all those years, but chose to go easy on Yuri?
“You might as well say what you’re thinking. It’s more or less written all over your face,” Maksim informed her.
“What am I thinking then?”
Maksim didn’t miss a beat. “That you don’t understand why I didn’t bleed that guy for the money he owes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Maksim thought about what Nika had shared with him earlier that day, whether it had been intentional or not. She had been emotionally scarred by the methods of intimidation he had used on her and her father over the years. He knew it. And whether she would care, or whether it would even matter to her, Maksim had been scarred by those incidents as well.
He pursed his lips, trying to choose his words carefully. “I don’t particularly enjoy being an asshole, Nika.”
“Could have fooled me,” she retorted.
She wasn’t going to make this easy, but nothing was ever easy with Nika. “When I was young, my father would take me along when he went to collect money.” Maksim detested the memory of those excursions. They brought a sour taste to his mouth. “My father only bothered himself with collecting when there was a long debt or something large and complicated that required intimidation. He started me very young with my fists. If I didn’t do the job to his satisfaction he would take me into a room when we returned home, and show me exactly how I should have done things.”
Nika brought her hands up to her mouth to cover a gasp. Her blue eyes were wide with horror. “So he made you beat people?”
“My father was a real asshole.” Maksim couldn’t even begin to explain it to this young woman who had already seen so much in her short life. “Even Ivan doesn’t know how bad our Papa was.”
“Maksim, I’m sorry.” She reached out hesitantly and brushed her fingers over his arm. The touch seared him on the inside.
“Don’t be.” He thought of everything he had done. “I don’t deserve your pity. I’ve done so many things I’m ashamed of.” And then he thought of Yuri. “And now I just want the opportunity to do things differently. Ivan wants that too. No more threats. No more breaking fingers or busting up shops. Cooperation can be just as much of an incentive.”
Nika’s expression settled into something he couldn’t read. “Except some people only understand fear. That’s what motivates them. Kindness encourages laziness and then the whole system falls apart.”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t want your job if you paid me a million bucks a week,” Nika said dramatically.
“That’s fifty-two million dollars a year, Nika,” he teased. “I’m pretty sure you could get used to a lot of things for that sort of money.”
“I definitely spend a lot of time obsessing about money and possessions,” she agreed. “But I hate to think that I would sell out my integrity to get them.”
“It is a very fine line.” She surprised him with the clarity of her thinking. There was a lot more to Nika Sokolov than he had first thought.
Then she smiled. It was like the sun had come out on a cloudy day. Maksim felt gut kicked, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Her full lips curved and her eyes brightened. She reached very slowly across the interior of the SUV and laid her palm on his bare shoulder. He glanced down, shocked at how arousing it was to see her hand on his body.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” she admitted.
His ego swelled to mythic proportions. “Your hand is soft. It feels good.”
“You’ve always sort of scared me with how strong you are.” Her words were soft, her tone almost pensive. “I used to think that if you ever really decided to let go, you would be able to utterly destroy anything you touched. But you didn’t.”
“I’m not a violent man by nature.” He willed this to be true. “But I’m capable of things that horrify even me.”
She traced the very edge of the tattoo that peeked out from under the arm of his T-shirt. “I think we all are, Maksim. Look at everything humans have done to each other. It wasn’t like we were forced to do those things. Someone had to think of it and then put the ideas into action.”
“You’re very wise for someone so young,” he told her.
She stuck out her lower lip, almost glowering at him. “You make me sound like a child.”
“Let me assure you, Nika Sokolov. I do not think of you as a child at all.” Maksim let his hungry gaze rake her from head to toe just to show her exactly what he meant. “I’ve been looking at you since the moment it became legal to do so. I’ve watched you waste away in that shop and wondered why you stayed. Now I think I understand.”
“Do you?”
“You are tied to your family in the same way that I’m tied to mine.” Maksim offered her a smile. “You and I are not so very different you know?”