Maksim: A Dark Mafia Romance (Akimov Bratva) by Nicole Fox (good books to read for beginners .TXT) 📗

possibly some prostitution, but I hadn’t anticipated he’d have his operations functioning from a place with his name on it. He parks in the back parking lot of the facility. After we get out, Maksim settles his hand on the small of my back and leads me into the hotel.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Akimov. It’s wonderful to see you again. And good afternoon to you, too, ma’am,” the doorman greets us. I give him a quick smile, but my mind is racing. Anybody here could be involved with the Bratva. Anybody could be a potential enemy—or a potential source of information.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Akimov!” the woman standing behind the front desk calls out. He nods to her, continuing our walk straight to the elevators. He presses the button for the fourth floor. I lean against the elevator’s railing.

“Not the basement or the penthouse?” I ask.

“I move things around to avoid catching people’s attention,” he says. “The basement is used for emergencies. Right now it’s being used as an operating room. I would never use the penthouse for anything illegal. It’s worth too much money and draws too much attention.”

We get off on the fourth floor. He leads me to room 408. A “Do Not Disturb” sign hangs from the doorknob. He takes his wallet out, pulling out a hotel key. He unlocks the door and pushes it open.

I don’t know exactly what I expected, but the room is disappointingly normal. It’s still a beautiful room. With a bed layered with cream-colored and green blankets and leather furniture, it gives off a calming, earthy vibe. But I expected to find a lab setup or a wall covered with shotguns.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. It adjusts underneath me like memory foam.

“What is this?” I ask. “I thought you were going to show me your business. Did you just want to get me away from Miguel Pérez?”

“I am showing you,” he says. “This room is under the name Isamu Sugihara. It’s one of our code names.”

He opens the top dresser drawer. Inside, there are several small jars. He takes one of them out and hands it to me. Cimona’s Face Cream.

“This is what your shipments are,” I say. “This is how you get the drugs across the border.”

“Yes,” he says. “Cimona has enough money now to retire, but she wants to continue. Thank God for human greed.”

“You just keep the drugs in this room,” I say. “And you don’t get caught.”

“Like I said—we change rooms.” He takes the jar from me, putting it back into the drawer. As he stands back up, he leans close to me, his hand brushing up against the inside of my elbow. His grayish blue eyes send sparks through me.

“Any questions yet?” he asks.

How do you unnerve me so easily?

“Um.” I focus on the dresser. “How does the cocaine end up in this room?”

“Housekeeping,” he says. I nod. The housekeepers push their carts straight into the room. It would be easy to drop off all these jars. “Any other questions?”

I should have hundreds of questions. I should be drilling him, demanding answers like he’s already in an interrogation room.

“No.”

He offers me his hand. “Let’s go then. If you want to see the rest of my enterprise, we need to keep moving.”

After he helps me onto my feet, he goes to open the door and waits for me to walk out before following. Out in the hallway, he takes the lead again, staying a half step ahead of me. I pick up my pace to keep up with him.

“There’s something else I need to do here as well,” he says.

We take the elevator down to the ground floor. I start heading back toward the lobby, but he grabs my arm, taking me toward the back of the hotel. He moves his hand to the small of my back as we step outside. We head north for several feet before he leads me down a set of stone stairs. He knocks on the metal door at the end of the stairs.

The door opens a crack. A man’s face pokes out. A large scar stretches across his forehead and down his cheek.

“Hey, boss,” he says. He opens the door farther. With his arm around my waist, Maksim pulls me into the basement of the hotel. There’s a short hallway, pipes snaking their way across the walls, but all I can focus on is the bright, blinding lights coming through the plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling at the end of the hall. And the stench of blood.

“The doc says Semyon is doing good. Yury and Ivan are hanging on,” the scarred man tells Maksim.

“And Joseph?” Maksim asks.

The scarred man sighs heavily. “He didn’t make it.”

I try to look at Maksim’s face, but he steps forward, clapping the man on the shoulder.

“Start making the calls. Money isn’t an issue,” Maksim says. His tone isn’t harsh, but it’s commanding.

The scarred man nods once. He moves past the two of us to go out of the door we came through. Maksim doesn’t watch him leave—his eyes are focused on the plastic sheet. Two silhouettes are moving behind it. They read off numbers and abbreviations to each other.

“There was a shooting?” I ask. “Did you bring me here to see your men having surgery?”

It would be great for an article—Mafia doctors aren’t mentioned much in the legacies left by fallen Mafias and nothing gets people talking about an article more than humanizing the vile people of the world—but this feels too intimate, too personal, and too real to put into words. It almost feels like I’d be profiting off multiple murders.

“No,” he says. “I just wanted to check what had changed. Excuse me for a moment.”

He disappears behind the plastic sheets. He questions the two silhouettes, but his voice is strangely composed for just hearing that one of his men died. Initially, I think it’s apathy, but as he steps out and I see a brief flash of anguish rip across his