“She didn’t say anything.”
Maksim’s eyes flick toward Sienna, and for the first time I see real hatred there. Not performance. Not panic. Something smaller and nastier. “You’d choose her over everyone.”
“Yes.” The answer comes easily.
His face twists.
I crouch in front of him, not close enough for him to reach me. “I trusted you,” I say. “I let you near my family. I let you near her.You helped deliver my daughter, then you took her mother from a hospital bed.”
He says nothing.
That silence tells me more than another excuse would have.
“You don’t get to call yourself my friend.”
His breathing worsens. His hand slips a little on the blood soaking his shirt.
He gives a weak, ugly smile. “You thought Mikhail did this.”
I don’t answer.
Maksim laughs, but it turns into another cough. “Of course you do. I made sure you would.”
The room goes quiet. Behind me, Sienna is still shaking on the floor. Ethan is unconscious in the hallway. I keep my eyes on Maksim. “What did you do?”
He leans his head back against the wall, breathing hard. “What didn’t I? Ah, what a fool I was to think I could have the thing you had.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I say before it dawns on me.
“Alina,” I breathe. “So all of this was for her?”
“This and so much more. You were never worthy of her,” he tells me, his eyes full of venom. “Even after you discarded her, even after I had her in my arms, you still had your talons deep in her.”
“Alina doesn’t love me.”
“Bullshit,” Maksim spits. He then turns to Sienna. “What do you see in this broken man anyway? He’s weak and coward. He’s only the pakhan because his men are too pussy to go against him.”
“And you wanted me gone so bad?” I shake my head.
“The champagne,” he says. “The shooting. The whole thing.”
My grip tightens around the gun. “You poisoned that girl.”
“She wasn’t supposed to drink it.”
The answer comes too quickly. Too easily.
Sienna makes a small sound behind me.
I feel my own anger go cold. “You put poison into a wedding breakfast.”
“I arranged for one glass to reach you,” he says. “That was all.”
“That was all?”
His mouth twists. “Don’t sound offended. You’ve done worse.”
I step closer. “And the shooting?”