Maksim: A Dark Mafia Romance (Akimov Bratva) by Nicole Fox (read aloud .TXT) 📕

wedded wife, to cherish her, to love her, to honor her and keep her for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, to love her faithfully, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Maksim says, his lips slightly curved up in contempt.

The older man turns to me. “Do you, Cassandra Balducci, take Maksim Akimov to be your wedded husband, to cherish him, to love him, to honor him and keep him for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, to love him faithfully, for as long as you both shall live?”

Everything is moving so quickly. It feels like I’m underwater, moving so slowly and unable to breathe while everyone else around me is on land, going about their normal lives at a normal pace without noticing that I’m drowning. I look over at Maksim. For the first time tonight, he’s looking right back at me. His eyes are filled with searing grief. He’s lost everything in his life and he’s trying to keep this one thing—me.

I don’t owe him anything, but I can’t live a life without Lily. He knows exactly how to keep his grip on me. He didn’t get this far in the city’s underworld by sheer luck. He knows everyone’s pressure point.

“I do,” I say.

When I sign the marriage license, my hand is steady, but as I take a step back, I realize it’s the last time I’ll sign with the last name Balducci. I’m Maksim’s now. I’m an Akimov.

My life as Mrs. Akimov begins with Maksim ignoring me.

The marriage officiant skittered out a couple of minutes ago. I stand aside, leaning against the wall in the shadows while Maksim talks to his men. I stare at my hands, devoid of a ring. I should feel irrevocably different, but I might as well be in one of Lily’s games, where we pretend to be someone else and we’re just waiting for our turn to move forward.

His two soldiers bow their heads toward Maksim before stepping back and walking away from him. Maksim turns to me, but his gaze quickly shifts from my face to my hands, which are twisted in front of me.

“I need you to follow me,” he says. I obey, trailing behind him as he walks out of the office of the city clerk. I stop as I see him heading toward his truck in the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” I ask. The last time I got into a vehicle, it directly led to me being in this wedding dress with a new last name.

“Just get in the truck.”

He’s angry enough at me to do something dangerous, but he’s not going to kill me after marrying me. He’s too strategic to make such a colossal mistake. He will, however, punish me by preventing me from seeing Lily. I see all the scenarios he could create—get someone else to adopt her, convince the Neals not to let me see her, get me arrested, keep me in captivity in his house, or tell Lily that I abandoned her the moment she was born.

I get into the passenger side of his truck.

As he drives, I focus on what’s in front of us. A line of red brake lights flashes. In the distance, ambulance sirens wail. Even in the middle of the night, NYC is agitated. Maybe that’s why I came back. When I’m restless, I know that NYC will be restless just the same. There is some comfort when the exterior environment is the same as the environment in my brain. And even when it’s not, the city’s entropy feels like a lullaby—like the city raised me, so the noise is too familiar to not be comforting.

Maksim doesn’t talk. His motions are jerky and aggressive. I wish I could find a way to apologize and to admit that he was right about what would happen to the city, but after this whole charade, I can’t find the energy to communicate with him. It seems like we were always meant to destroy each other.

By the time Maksim parks, I’ve almost fallen asleep against the door. He gets out. I follow him. In front of us, the bright lights of a hospital illuminate every inch around the building. My wedding dress drags against the dirty parking lot, but after everything, I can’t be bothered to care. He leads the way into the ER and talks to one of the women behind the desk. He continues to lean against the desk, refusing to look at me, as she calls someone. A couple of minutes later, a surgeon opens the locked doors and indicates for the two of us to walk through.

I stay behind Maksim and the surgeon as we walk through the halls. Maksim refers to him as Dr. Lisov. I vaguely remember him mentioning a Dr. Lisov before. He was telling me about one of his soldiers getting shot while trying to evade the police and how Dr. Lisov, the Bratva doctor, helped to stitch up the wound.

We get onto an elevator. Dr. Lisov uses his key card and presses on the basement button. The elevator lurches down. I don’t know what Maksim is going to show me, but there’s a sinking feeling in my gut.

When the elevator doors open, Dr. Lisov leads the way with Maksim’s pace slightly slowing down. It’s another one of those things that other people might not notice, but I’ve seen him walk enough that his pace is ingrained in my memory. I’ve never seen him hesitant about doing something before.

As we get farther down the hall, I see the first gurney with a white sheet over an uneven shape.

We’re heading toward the morgue.

I nearly trip. I recover as Maksim quickly glances back at me. Dr. Lisov opens a pair of swinging doors. We all step inside.

The room mostly smells like chemicals—formaldehyde, I’d guess—but there is a faint stench of rot. We