Chapter 24 - Brooke

I wasn’t one to give into hopelessness, but when I woke up to find Max wasn’t home again, I had nothing to distract me. It was difficult not to lapse into despair when there was a clock hanging over my head, counting down to the looming fall semester. I was on the verge of missing out on my classes, losing my scholarships, and watching my dreams go down the drain.

Around lunchtime, Max’s assistant Olivia came over, laden down with a brand new selection of clothes, shoes, and jewelry for me to go through. As she set them all out, draping things across the bed and over every available chair, my mind shot back to Max tearing my clothes off my body. I got too warm in my flowy summer top and swingy short skirt as I remembered everything about last night.

He’d promised he’d buy me a new outfit, but this was going overboard. “He can’t just give me his credit card to buy something online?” I asked.

Olivia waved her hand at all the new goodies. “I think he wanted it to be like a shopping experience. You know, so you could have some fun.”

I grumbled. “He could actually let me go shopping, then. As if I’d try to run.”

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked. There was no judgment or suspicion in her voice, just curiosity. She knew damn well I would.

Despite not being helpful on the occasions I’d begged her for a phone, I’d grown to like Olivia and even tentatively thought of her as a friend. She was the only woman close to my age in a house surrounded by tough, reticent guards, and the middle- aged housekeeper who oversaw the food shopping and cleaning crew barely gave me a glance.

Olivia was straightforward, understanding my predicament and empathizing with me, but she was also highly professional. That meant utter devotion and loyalty to Max. Despite being as cute as a button, with curly brown hair and sharp, dark eyes, I’d never felt jealous of her since she would have rather died than do anything that was against the rules, like striking up an affair with her boss. She could be fun when she let her guard down, and this was one of those rare occasions, but in general, she was almost like a robot in her professionalism around Max.

Not that I’d be jealous, anyway. And it would be in my best interest if Max lost interest in me. I was surprised he hadn’t already; for some reason, the thought of it happening made my chest tight. Just the aftereffects of last night, and probably why I was so curious about his whereabouts right now.

“So, do you know where he’s at today?” I asked, abandoning any new efforts to get her to give me her phone for just five minutes.

“Of course,” she said briskly. “He’s with Dima.”

That told me next to nothing. “But what are they doing?” I sighed.

Her lips tightened, and she pulled a particularly pretty blue top off a nearby chair. “Isn’t this gorgeous? I love the collar.”

Okay, it was clear she was trying to distract me, and just as clear I wasn’t just curious, I was worried. And why wouldn’t I be now that I knew someone was trying to blow Max up? What if Dima hadn’t been an explosives expert and hadn’t noticed the place was wired?

“You have to know what happened last night,” I said, ready to fill her in if she hadn’t already been briefed.

“Yes. It’s not great.”

Not great. The ability to understate issues ran strong in the Fokin organization. “You don’t think it’s weird?”

“The explosion?” she asked.

“The explosion, this… whatever this is between Max and me. All of it.”

Olivia shrugged. “My father’s close with Aleks. I’ve seen a lot growing up.”

I took the blouse from her, which really was gorgeous, and held it up to appease her. “Like what?” I asked. “Tell me what kind of things.”

She laughed. “I didn’t take you for being so bloodthirsty.”

“Tell me something mild then. I just want to know more about this family I got stuck with.”

For a split second, she looked like she might take offense on the Fokin’s behalf, but then launched into a story about when she was six, her cousin got kidnapped and tortured.

“We really thought we’d never see him again. He was about fifteen at the time and I hero worshiped him like nobody’s business. He was the star of our family. Aleks Fokin saved him because my dad worked for him at the time. They’re still great friends.”

Then she told about the time she was working for Aleks two years ago, just a year after graduating, when she came across a little outbuilding at the very back of one of their safe house properties.

“I was supposed to clean up the place because one of the guys needed to lay low for a while. I wasn’t supposed to go poking around, but it’s beautiful and woodsy out there. Then I found the shack.”

She proceeded to give me a play-by-play of what took place while she watched through a crack in the wall. “You don’t want to be an enemy of the Fokins,” she finished.

I shuddered, rubbing my arms. “I guess I forgot they’re not the good guys.”

“They’re not the bad guys,” she said, ever loyal. “If I told you what that man did to deserve being in the shack, you wouldn’t sleep for a week.”

“Better not tell me then,” I said quickly.

I’d had enough of that kind of chat for one day. It was a lot to take in, and when I thought about Luca and what he’d tried to do to me, it didn’t seem so awful. There really were people out there who needed some time in a shack. After hearing her stories and hearing what I had seen last night, I really started to wonder where Max had spent all his time. And worried even more.

I chose some things, and Olivia left, allowing my imagination to go wild. I wasn’t allowed a computer and flipping channels in the media room didn’t help me take my mind off things. I picked at some of the fresh fruit in the kitchen, but my stomach refused to settle, twisting with nerves at every new scenario I thought up.

For once I wished the secrecy would just end, and not because I wanted a shot at freedom. Oh, I’d eventually speak my mind and get the hell out of there, but at the moment, I just wanted to talk to Jenna about how she put up with all this worry and fear.

Every time Max left the house, he might not come home. It hit me like a pile of bricks, nearly buckling my knees. How was I supposed to swim in the ocean or do anything fun when I was carrying this new weight of knowledge around with me? Anything could happen at any time, and from what I’d learned from Olivia, an exploding building was the least of it all.

I stopped pacing from one end of the deck to the other, sick of the wind tossing sand on me. Inside, I found myself wandering in circles around the kitchen, and finally threw myself onto the couch in the living area, sick to death of the worry gnawing at my stomach and not letting me relax.

Why was I worried anyway? It wasn’t logical. I hated Max with a passion and spent most of my time dreaming about when this would finally be over. Except, I knew Max well enough by then to know he wasn’t going to give me up that easily. He was single-minded enough to keep this up for a very long time.

I didn’t have a long time. There was barely any time left at all before I lost everything. But until Max came home with all his limbs intact, I couldn’t make myself be concerned about that, so I went back to worrying about him.