Doctored Vows - Chapter 34

A door creaks half a second before Zoya moseys into my grandfather’s makeshift medical room. It is a little after four in the afternoon, but she arrives with a super-sized mug of coffee like it is hours earlier.

“Thank you,” I whisper when she hands the mug to me, my head still too thumping for a more heartfelt response. It isn’t solely being drugged that’s responsible for my raging headache. It is the number of tears I shed last night.

Poor Zoya suffered the wrath of my downfall—again.

“About last night. I⁠—”

“If you’re about to apologize, my foot is about to land in your butt crack.” When a smile tugs at my lips, she says, “Don’t smile. I’m not joking. I even removed my shoes to make sure I wouldn’t get anything nasty on my new pumps.”

“You got new shoes?” I ask, happy to take the focus off my dread for half a minute.

“Yeah. Wanna see?” When I nod, she nudges her head to the elevator. “Follow me downstairs. There’s an entire wardrobe of brand-new designer clothes and shoes that look like they haven’t been touched.” I roll my eyes, making her laugh. “If my new husband wants to gift me a wardrobe of designer babies, I’m not going to look at a single item priced under five figures.”

The annoyance in her tone makes me realize I am one of those women who wrongly believe everything is about them, but Zoya smells my interrogation from a mile out and stops it before it can occur. “Any news?”

One simple question and my curiosity about her unexpected marriage is stored, and anxiety takes its place.

After glancing at my phone to make sure I didn’t miss a message or call while I used the restroom, I shake my head.

I haven’t heard from Maksim or his team in over twelve hours, and I’m scared shitless no news is no longer good news. I scoured online newspaper sites, the internet, and even reached out to some contacts I have at Myasnikov Private to see if there were any rumblings of a mafia war.

It is so quiet you’d be convinced not a single feather was ruffled in the Myasnikov District last night.

“He’ll be okay, Keet,” Zoya assures, mindful of where my mind strays when I go off track. “You’d need a tank to take him down, and it would have to be the size of a submarine to keep him away from you.”

She twists her lips before confessing to a sin that assures me she needs to speak with a shrink. “Not even the four deadbolts I installed on the servants’ stairwell door could stop him.”

She laughs like her life wasn’t in danger when she endeavored to put distance between Maksim and me.

“What? He couldn’t use the front door because it couldn’t be budged without pounding the living shit out of it, and he knew that would have woken you, so I got inventive.”

“Because?” I ask, happy for my curiosity to take center stage for a second if it will give my heart a little bit of relief.

Her next confession takes her a little longer to share. “Because I wanted you to know he wasn’t giving up. He was just being a stubborn ass.” She noogies my head. “Like someone else I know.”

An intercom buzzes, sending my heart into a flutter, which the concierge flatlines two seconds later. “Mrs. Ivanov, I have two officers here to speak with you.”

My suddenly wet eyes bounce between Zoya and my grandmother, who has just joined us, before I gingerly approach the intercom system to grant permission for the officers to come up.

I try to maintain a positive front as I enter the foyer to await the arrival of the officers, but it instantly crumbles when I’m hit with a flashback of me opening the door the morning my mother was killed and hearing my father’s harrowing cries seconds after they asked to speak with him in private.

“If he’s… oh god.” I bend over, the pain ripping through me too much to bear. “I should have never let him go. I should have made him keep his promise. I can’t lose him, Z. I haven’t even told him that I love him yet.”

“You won’t lose him. It’ll be okay.” Zoya’s grip on my waist is the only thing keeping me upright. “And he already knows, Keet. He saw it on your face every time you got jealous. Why do you think he loves it so much?”

I want to answer, but I can’t. I’ll sob if I speak.

When the elevator dings, announcing its arrival at the penthouse suite, I shut my eyes and say a quick prayer before slowly opening them.

I almost sigh in relief when the uniformed officers I am expecting are nowhere to be seen. It is the detectives I spoke with weeks ago, Lara and Ivan.

Lara looks remorseful for the interruption, but even with his nose splintered and a bruise he’s poorly hiding with the wrong shade of concealer shadowing his left eye, Ivan looks as arrogant as ever.

His narrowed gaze and snarled top lip get my back up in an instant, so before he can step out of the elevator, I say, “Unless you have a warrant, you are not welcome in my house.”

Ivan proves a vicious tongue is necessary to deal with men like him. “Do I need a warrant, Dr. Fernandez?”

“It is Dr. Ivanov,” I correct, “and yes, you do. My husband owns this building, so anything inside it is his possession.”

“Then I guess it’s lucky we’re not here for him, isn’t it?”

There’s so much evilness in his eyes Zoya can’t help but respond to it. “Call Raya,” she instructs my grandmother before butting her shoulder with mine. “What is this in regard to?”

“Are you her lawyer?”

Zoya doesn’t take her eyes off Ivan while answering Lara’s question. “No, but I don’t need to be to make sure she isn’t railroaded by a chauvinistic asshole who thinks he’s tough because he has a gun.”

Our standoff reaches fever pitch before Lara finally ends it. “We’re here in regard to your whereabouts between the hours of”—she checks her notepad—“2 p.m. yesterday afternoon until 5 a.m. this morning.”

Before I can fall into the trap they’re laying out for me, Zoya says, “She was here the entire time.”

Ivan undoes her lie with a simple snapshot.

It is of me in the Myasnikov Private elevator. It is timestamped within the range Lara announced.

“I arrived for my shift at…” I struggle to remember anything that happened since I slid into the back seat of Maksim’s SUV yesterday morning. “I’m having difficulties remembering the exact time⁠—”

“Another lapse in memory? How convenient,” Ivan interrupts with an eye roll.

He doesn’t deserve an explanation, but with my worry higher than my smarts, I give him one. “I was drugged with a benzodiazepine that causes memory issues, so perhaps instead of wasting your time questioning me about my whereabouts, you should go search for the real criminals ruining this town.” So much honesty colors my next statement no one could accuse me of not knowing where my loyalties lie. “And that person is not my husband.”

Mercifully, Lara seems more interested in my rant than Ivan does, who’s still glaring at me as if I am dog shit stuck under his shoe. “Do you know who drugged you or what synthetic they used?”

“No. We took a sample with the hope it would give us answers, but the results aren’t back yet.”

She jots down something in her notepad before asking, “Do you have an approximate time you were drugged?”

I shake my head. “I don’t remember much from before I arrived for my shift yesterday. I remember driving there, and I think I entered via the underground garage elevator, but I can’t be sure. It’s all blank.”

“Until what time?”

Ivan’s sudden interest in my defense is shocking, but I don’t realize it is a trap until it is too late. “I woke around two.”

“A.m.?” Lara checks.

When I nod, victory gleams in Ivan’s sable eyes. “So the alibi your husband’s lawyer gave us an hour ago is false. He was not with you at all.”

“Th-that isn’t what I said. I said I woke at two. But he was with me the en-entire time.”

“How would you know if you were passed out?”

Again, he doesn’t deserve a reply, but Zoya can’t cut down his attitude without words. “Because he sleeps inside her every night, and unlike the unfortunate women who have slept with you, she couldn’t mistake his presence.”

I assume I am imagining Maksim’s deep, commanding timbre sounding through my ears when he says, “It’s actually anytime she sleeps, but I’ll save the details for someone more worthy of my time.” But why can I smell his manly scent if it is an illusion?

I’m grateful Zoya still has me attached to her hip when Maksim enters the foyer from the left. It appears as if he is exiting the main bedroom of the penthouse after a shower. His hair is wet, and his suit smells freshly laundered. It is just the tiredness in his eyes that tells the truth.

I wasn’t the only one who went without sleep last night.

Maksim was right there with me.

After banding his arm around my waist, taking over Zoya’s campaign to keep me upright, Maksim presses his lips to my temple before he shifts his focus to the detectives. “Is there something I can assist you with, Officers?”

With Ivan too shocked by Maksim’s arrival to speak, Lara takes up the campaign. “Detective Lara Sonova from Trudny PD.” After showing her credentials, she says, “We’re here to verify the alibi Raya Hughes gave for Mrs. Fern—” She recovers quickly. “Mrs. Ivanov earlier today.”

“Once she finalized her shift, she was here with me all night, as my lawyer has already stated.”

Lara checks her notes. “And⁠—”

“And if you have any further questions, they can be directed through my lawyer, as also stated earlier.” I shouldn’t love Maksim’s arrogance, but I do. He is the ruler of his realm, and I am the woman he will protect until the end of his reign. “Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Lara replies, nodding.

She shifts her eyes to me for the quickest second before she returns to the elevator.

It takes Ivan another thirty seconds to join her.

He keeps staring at Maksim like he’s seeing a ghost.

There are a million questions in my head, but none will be voiced until I thoroughly investigate Maksim’s body. I don’t even care that Zoya and my grandmother are in the room with us. I tug his business shirt out of his trousers with so much urgency that stitches pop before buttons scatter across the marble floors.

I secure a full breath for the first time in almost a minute.

He is unharmed and beautifully humored by my search.

His laugh rumbles through my chest, shuddering out some of the calcifications his absence caused to my heart before it drops to an area far lower.

My pussy, to be precise.

“Ano?” That’s all I can get out—one measly name.

Zoya sighs with me when Maksim replies, “He was found a few hours ago. He is a little groggy and sporting a handful of new stitches, but he’s been through worse, so I don’t see his recovery taking long.”

“Is it…? Did you…?” I don’t think I will ever be able to place murder and his name in the same sentence, so I try a different way to get answers. “Is it done?”

His eyes dance between mine for many seconds before he jerks up his chin. I assume that will be the end of his reply, but he shocks me by walking me to the corner of the foyer that hides me from the security camera before he says, “The faction working out of Myasnikov Private was more extensive than anyone realized. They weren’t just selling the organs of legitimate donors. They were encouraging harvests.”

I’m completely lost, but mercifully, Zoya seems more clued in. “With food?” When Maksim nods, she shifts her wide eyes to me. “That’s why you kept bringing up bananas.” Her focus is back on Maksim. “Her memories are still foggy, but she recalled seeing a crate of bananas being carried out of the hospital.”

Maksim appears unsurprised by her admission.

I learn why when he says, “They were poisoning members of the community through food banks, then plucking a handful of unsuspecting victims from the pile to succumb to the latest gastroenteritis outbreak ravishing the city. Their families had no clue.”

“Then how did your mother end up on that list?” I’m not meaning to sound rude. I am genuinely curious because the Ivanovs are incredibly wealthy, beyond anything you could imagine, so there’s no way she would be eating produce from a food bank.

Thankfully, Maksim understands my question is more inquisitive than an interrogative. “The man she came to see was a chef. With his business not doing well, he substituted some of his produce with supplies a charity worker was skimming from the food banks.”

“The tainted food is why there were so many outbreaks over the past several months.”

“And also why there was an increase in surgeries,” I add to Zoya’s statement, my heart sinking. With my heart in the vicinity of my shoes, my brain finally turns back on.

“I saw bananas. They were being carried out of the hospital. Does that mean…?” My breath catches in my throat when the flood of information I’ve been overwhelmed with the past few days starts clicking together.

“Yulia’s father lost his job. He couldn’t afford food. He was supplementing his lost wages with produce that was donated to him. That could be what is making Yulia sick.”

I barely get two steps away from Maksim when he snatches up my wrist, halting my exit.

“Let me go, Maksim. I need to help her. There are ways we can reverse the damage of the poison.”

The remorse in Maksim’s eyes cuts me to pieces, let alone what he says next. “It’s too late.”

“No.” Yulia isn’t my sister, but you wouldn’t know that from the devastation in my tone. “She can get better. I can help her.”

The reason for Maksim’s many quests to keep the truth from me is unearthed when he proves I’m not strong enough to learn just how cruel the world can be.

“My men found her this morning.” A sob rips from my throat when he pulls me into his chest before he murmurs into my hair, “She was in a room at the back of the loading dock.

Her organs had been harvested. There was nothing we could do.” My sob almost drowns out a promise I had no clue I’d ever need until now.

“We took down the people directly responsible for her death. We made them pay.” Honesty rings true in his tone. “And I won’t stop until every person who hurt her has paid.”

“Promise me,” I murmur, either too heartbroken to understand the depth of my demand or finally realizing if you don’t fight fire with fire, you will never win.

Maksim inches me back before he lifts my tear-drenched face. “I promise. No one will ever hurt you like this again.”

I believe every word he speaks.

It isn’t hard since they are gospel.