The mug froze halfway to her lips.
“What?”she asked, looking confused.
“I can make you disappear,” Maksim said evenly.“New name.New documents.Enough money to start over somewhere else.”
Lena stared at him.The color slowly drained from her face.
“You’re sending me away?”Lena demanded.
“It’s the safest option.”
Her laugh came sharp and disbelieving.“Safest?”
Maksim remained calm outwardly even as tension coiled tighter beneath his skin.
“My brothers won’t let me keep a witness,” he told her.
The words landed badly.He saw it instantly in her hurt expression, then she gritted her teeth.
“Wow,” Lena said softly.“That’s what last night was to you?”
“That’s not what I said,” Maksim said, tightening his jaw.
“You slept with me and now you’re trying to ship me off with a fake passport and hush money,” she pointed out.
“It’s not hush money.”
“Then what is it?”she snapped.
He said nothing.Maksim wasn’t sure how to explain.Lena shoved away from the table suddenly, pacing the tiny apartment.
“You know what?”she said bitterly.“I actually thought last night meant something.”
“It did,” Maksim admitted.
“Did it?”She turned toward him sharply.“Because this feels suspiciously like you trying to get rid of me afterward.”
Frustration flashed through him, and not because she was wrong entirely, because she was partially right.Maksim stood slowly.
“You don’t understand the situation,” he told her.
“Then explain it to me!”
“I am trying to keep you alive,” he said.
Lena went still.The raw intensity in his tone hung heavily between them.Maksim exhaled slowly through his nose.
“My brothers already suspect I’ve lost objectivity where you’re concerned,” he said more quietly.“After the attack last night, they’ll push harder.”
“The attack your brothers probably ordered?”
Silence answered her.Lena’s expression shifted immediately.
“Oh, my God,” Lena whispered.
Maksim looked away briefly.That was answer enough.She folded her arms tightly across herself.
“So what?Your solution is throwing me out into the world alone?”Lena demanded.