THE FIXER

He grips my hair, pulling my head back at the same time he pushes my torso down, making me arch for him. Hurting me lightly in that wonderful, dominant way of his. “Crazy for you.”

He comes, and I screech, already coming, too, unable to hold off any longer. Maxim chuckles darkly, dropping his torso down over mine, his cock still inside me, his body molded to mine from the back. “You’ll be punished for that, lyubimaya.”

I close my eyes, my internal muscles pulsing again around his cock in an aftershock. “I couldn’t help it.”

He kisses my neck. “Me either.”

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I WALK out of my acting class with a group of actors, still talking about the Stanislavaski exercise we did. It’s the third week I’ve been going, and I already feel like I belong. I have friends. I love the exercises. I’m getting the inside scoop on the Chicago scene.

Maxim found a Hollywood speech coach to help me with my accent in virtual sessions, and if I concentrate, you can barely tell I’m not American. At least, that’s what my new friends say.

“Hey Sasha, you want to join us for coffee?” one of the older women asks.

I hesitate.

At first, Maxim didn’t want to let me come to this class alone, but I threw a fit. Having a possessive and protective husband sitting in on class would make everyone think I was a freak. After a throw-down, he ended up dropping me off and picking me up for the first class, but last week, he decided I could start leaving the Kremlin on my own because Dima’s new data mining program is in place, and things are settling down in Moscow.

It finally gave me the chance to pick up a burner phone and call my mom, who still wouldn’t tell me where she is. I felt a little guilty breaking my promise to only go straight to class and home and hiding the phone and the conversation from him, but my mom was still full of suspicions about Maxim’s intentions, which made me wary.

Am I still in danger? Or is the only real danger from him? I don’t really believe it, but I don’t want to be foolish, either. I read every Agatha Christie book as a child. I know large sums of money make people untrustworthy.

“Not this time,” I say. It’s not just my promise to Maxim. It’s that the chef was going to cook a nice meal, and we were all going to eat together tonight. And as much as I want to make new friends, especially actors, I’d rather get to know and hang out with my new family.

I walk to the parking lot next to where my class is held. No valet nearby, unfortunately. Parking the Lamborghini in an unattended lot made me nervous, and I’m so relieved to see it’s still there.

I open the door and slide in, tossing my purse on the seat beside me. When the door opens back up, I shriek in surprise.

“Get out, the car is going to blow,” she says in clipped Russian.

“Mama?”

“Get out, now.” My mother drags me out of the car and pulls me, ducking low, at a run through the rows of parked cars.

An explosion knocks me forward. I think I scream.

Even though she told me it was going to blow, I’m in disbelief. I turn to stare at the smoke and flames.

My mother yanks me forward until we reach an alleyway, and then she pulls me into it.

“Mama! What’s happening”

She doesn’t answer, just keeps yanking me along, down the alley, up a side street, back around until we’re on the other side of the street, the sirens of police and fire trucks shrieking as they race to the scene.

We go into the hotel across the street and straight for the elevators.

Tears drip down my face. “What’s happening? Who did that?”

“It’s all right, darling.” My mother turns to face me in the elevator and takes both my hands. To my surprise, she looks happy. Giddy, almost. “We did that!”

“Wh-what?”

My mother nods, beaming. “Viktor set the bomb. You’re free now!”

It must be the reverberation of the bomb because a ringing in my ears suddenly makes me deaf. In a bubble of confusion and shock, I don’t hear the elevator ding or notice the doors open, but my mom tugs me out of it and into a hotel room. Alexei sits on one of the double beds watching television. Viktor stands at the curtain watching the mayhem below. He gives me a curt nod.

I run to the window to look down at my sweet car-my beautiful baby that Maxim bought me because I’d look hot in-but it’s completely gone. Viktor grabs my upper arm and yanks me roughly back, jerking my shoulder and giving my neck whiplash.

“What the hell?” I snap in Russian.

“Keep her away from the window,” he orders my mother, like I’m not even worth explaining things to. His words sound far away, filtered through the echoing in my ears.

I stare at his handprint on my arm in shock. “What did you do?” I ask my mother.

She cups my face. “I killed you. You’re dead now. You’re free of Maxim and Ravil and their plans for your money. Now it all goes to me-to us!”

“Us?” I ask.

My stomach drops out. My body turns ice cold. I think I always knew my mom had money issues. She loved money but was terrified of losing it. That’s why she put up with my dad-to be kept in luxury. And then her worst fears manifested when he left Vladimir in control of her purse strings. I knew she had these fears, but now I suddenly see her through a new lens. Like when the wicked witch in a fairytale-the one who was beautiful and said all the right things-is suddenly unveiled as an ugly old hag.