Page 91 of A Love Most Fatal
“Seven years,” he says. “I was thirty.”
I remember this happening. I was in my undergrad; I came home for the weekend and we all celebrated the senior Orlov’s demise. He had been a brutal force in the city, a constant source of terror for any gangster. He’d been killed. I never found out who did it.
“Good riddance,” Mary murmurs and I kick her beneath the table as quietly as I can. She doesn’t wince, just gives a tight-lipped smile.
Mom is quick to step in. “She means?—”
“No, that’s alright,” Maxim says. “He was a difficult man.”
Difficultis a mild assessment, but with my heel pressing against the tender part of her shin, Mary does not say so.
“Cleaning up his messes has been my greatest challenge. Trust is something earned over generations in our business.”
I am surprised to find that I agree with what he is saying.
I was lucky my father was as upstanding as he was (well, as upstanding as he could be, he was a criminal like the rest of us). He was fair, at least, and never needed extreme violence to be respected. The senior Orlov was the opposite, notorious for his retaliation and torture methods.
“And aligning yourself with us would help or hinder this effort?” I ask.
Maxim thinks before answering, an admirable trait. Many do not, usually men, but also Mary, who never thinks before saying anything. It’s her chaotic alignment, Willa says.
“I believe that there is a place for tradition, but when the tradition no longer serves you, it ought to be excised. Aligning with the Morelli family would be another step in this direction, one that I would like to make one way or another, circumstances not limited to these.”
These circumstances being a potential business arrangement with a fancy cake and white gown.
“We would like that, too,” I agree, and Maxim gives me a warm smile before I nod to his plate and we all get to eating in earnest.
Maxim tells more stories and is genuine and benevolent in answering everyone’s questions. We’re going around the table discussing our favorite desserts when I again see something in Maxim’s eyes that speaks of some spark just beneath the surface.
“And you, Marianna?”
Mary’s head snaps towards him, her eyes no longer absently tracing the evening clouds.
“It’s just Mary,” she says. Nobody’s called her Marianna since Dad died, not even Mom.
“Mary,” he corrects. “Your favorite dessert then?” She’s the only one who hasn’t shared, her mind wandering elsewhere as it so often does during a long family dinner.
“Half-frozen cream puffs,” she says. “Or chocolate croissants, but the chocolate inside can’t be melted.”
Mary resumes her staring at only God knows what in the distance, and we move on to the next topics until dinner is finished and Maxim asks if he can show the children a lawn game that requires only three people, a bucket, and a ball.
“He’s perfect,” Willa says when he, Sean, and the kids have moved to the lawn.
“He’s Russian,” Mary points out, and Mom snickers.
“What did you think of him, Princess?” Mom asks.
I am making a strong effort not to look at Nate, who I feel looking directly at the side of my face, his eyes boring holes into my skin.
I drop my shoulders. “Seems genuine at least. But you can never really know someone’s intentions.”
“You can’t,” Mom agrees. “Trust is difficult to build, even harder to maintain. Especially in our world.”
“For what it’s worth, hemightbe perfect,” Leo adds. The worst thing is that for as wary as I am, I can’t bring myself to disagree.
I watch Maxim in his suit, coat shed and discarded on the back of his chair, coaching the kids on how they might school their dad at this game. The sky bleeds from the purple of sunset to the pale blue of the evening over their heads and I desperately try not to imagine someone else in his place.
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