Maksim: A Dark Mafia Romance (Akimov Bratva)

minute, I keep my eyes focused on the movement of the housekeeper. As we keep moving, there’s a glow of light from another room. The housekeeper stands aside again, gesturing into the room.
I step in. Nothing in the room is surprising. It has a stone floor, a queen-sized bed with an iron headboard and footboard that’s twisted into elaborate, circular designs, and a three-panel closet lined with full-length mirrors in front of the bed. Another door opens to the left.
The housekeeper walks over to the mirrors and slides open one of the mirrored closet doors. “There is a dress in here for you to wear. Mr. Akimov wants you to shower and change into it. Your bathroom is through that door.”
She points to the door on the left.
“What if I already showered?” I ask.
“Then you’ll shower again,” she says simply. I take a deep breath, ready to argue, but I know I’d be arguing with the wrong person. She’s just parroting what Maksim told her, and she hasn’t exactly struck me as the flexible type. “I’ll be back in half an hour to take you to Mr. Akimov. Should I get the rest of your luggage?”
I shake my head. “This is all I brought.”
“Mr. Akimov said you’d be here indefinitely.”
“Yes,” I say. “I will be. But I don’t have that many things. I just moved here from North Carolina. I donated a lot of my things before I came.”
“I see,” she says. “Please shower quickly. We don’t want to keep Mr. Akimov waiting.”
“Definitely not,” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Can I ask what your name is?”
“Mary,” she says.
“Thank you, Mary,” I say. She gives me a quick nod before leaving the room.
I open the bathroom door. Everything is stainless steel or pitch black. Not much of an eye for color, this one.
I undress and step into the shower. The minimalism of the single glass wall between me and the rest of the bathroom adds a sense of surrealism to the situation, but as I turn on the water, the cold stream brings me back to the truth.
I’m screwed.
The only chance I have to make this deal worth anything is to find out as much as possible about my daughter and get enough information out of Maksim to make it into a great story. Otherwise, I’m just a rat in a cage with a sadistic scientist.
The water quickly warms. Three small bottles—shampoo, conditioner, and soap—are placed in a row in the small shelf built into the wall. I scrub my hair and body thoroughly, trying not to think of Maksim joining me or which circle of hell I’m diving straight into.
I have to think like an investigative journalist. Be invested, but not too invested. Act benign. Convince the source that I am his pastor and his confessions won’t end up on the front page of a newspaper.
Even if every word of that promise is a lie.
I grab the fresh towel off the bureau. I open the top drawer, finding a variety of bathroom essentials—brushes, combs, deodorant, razors, cotton swabs, cotton balls. I take out the comb, teasing out the knots in my hair.
When I open the bathroom door, a stream of cold air cascades over me. My eyes adjust to the dimmer light. I head over to the closet, pulling out the dress.
The dress is sheer black with silk material barely covering up the chest and private areas. It’s certainly meant to humiliate me. My instincts tell me to refuse to wear it—to put my old clothes back on—but I’m certain he expects I’ll do it and he’ll see it as a victory. He’ll see it as proof that I was humiliated.
Better idea: wear the fuck out of it and act like it doesn’t bother me at all. That is what gets under the skin of these types of men. I won’t let him cow me that easily.
Pulling it on turns out to be harder than I thought. The material is tight and I have to keep rearranging the silk material to ensure that everything is covered. The hem cuts just below my ass. As I try to walk in it, I’m surprised to see it isn’t as constricting as I thought. It presses against my ribs and it’s hard to take long strides, but I won’t be afraid of it splitting if I sit down.
There’s a long shoebox at the bottom of the closet. I pick it up, setting it on the bed before flipping the top off.
They’re knee-high red boots.
He’s absolutely messing with me.
I sit down, pulling on each boot. I zip up the sides and check myself in the mirror. To my surprise, I don’t look bad. My hair could be better, but the dress fits and it gives me more curves than I normally have. I look like a hooker, but at least I look like one that’s getting paid handsomely for her time.
I check my phone. No messages. I have no idea how much time has passed, but it has to be close to half an hour. I could risk checking some of the other rooms, but it would be a dangerous risk at this point. Mary doesn’t seem like she’s exactly on my side. I have no doubt that she’d go running to Maksim to tattle on me if she found out I’d been snooping around where I don’t belong.
Mary appears out of the darkness like I just said “Beetlejuice” in the mirror ten times. I catch myself as I nearly fall over in the stiletto boots.
“Jesus, Mary,” I mutter. And Joseph. “Don’t scare me like that.”
She ignores my comment. “Are you ready? I’m taking you to the library. Mr. Akimov will join you there shortly.”
As Mary starts leading me back to the library, I pull at the hem of my dress and consider how I can get Maksim to talk about the Bratva. I could lead him into a discussion about my daughter and when he refuses to