The car ride is torture.
I clutch my hands together in my lap to keep them from trembling.
My mind screams at me to find an excuse, any excuse, to call it off. To tell him I’m sick, that I’ve changed my mind. To tell himanythingto get me out of this horrible nightmare. ButLeo’s face floats up in the back of my eyelids, and my excuses die in my throat instantly.
By the time we pull up outside the restaurant, my body feels numb.
Inside, the place is warm, buzzing with quiet conversation. The hostess leads us back, past couples sipping wine and businessmen hunched over steaks while discussing capital ventures, until we reach a small alcove sectioned off with a partition.
Private.
Perfect for an ambush.
The waiter arrives with menus shortly after we’re seated with a long list of wines that nearly make my head spin. When I look up from the menu to tell him I’m sticking with water, my blood runs cold.
I know him.
Not his name, but his face.
He’s one of Mikhail’s men.
I nearly lose it right there, my stomach lurching so badly that I almost throw up. My hands grip the edge of the table so hard my knuckles ache as I try to hold it together. The walls are closing in, my lungs collapsing.
Maksim doesn’t notice my internal meltdown at all. He thanks the waiter, orders an appetizer for us to start and an expensive bottle of wine to share. He’s completely calm and unbothered by my silent panic attack, not at all mentioning the strained look I know I have on my face.
As soon as the man walks away, I feel tears burning behind my eyes.
I don’t want to do this.
I don’t want to say goodbye.
I don’t want to betray him.
But Leo’s face is carved into my heart, and I can’t let him die. I can’t. It will destroy me as much as it’s destroying me right now to do this to the man I love. To his father. How am I going to explain this to him when he’s older? How will my child be able to look me in the eye when he finds out I’m the one who sentenced his father to death?
He’ll hate me. He’ll never want to speak to me again.
“Ivy?” Maksim asks softly, his eyes on me.
The dam breaks instantly. My throat burns, the words clawing out before I can stop them. “I set you up.”
My heart pounds so loudly, I can hear it in my ears.
And then, to my shock, he smiles. Slow, almost gentle. “Yes. I know.”
The world folds in on itself, my breath catching in my chest.
What?
He knows.
He’sknown.
I don’t know whether that terrifies me more than the betrayal itself.
16
MAKSIM