With This Ring

I arrived at her door and knocked hard, twice. It took a while, but soon it was opened and Freya appeared at the door looking more annoyed than anything else. I looked beyond her into the room, my gaze searched and saw no one except Britney, sitting on their couch.

The expression on Freya’s face shocked me. “Maxim sweetheart,” she sang out.

I knew then he was already in there.

“What are you doing here, darling? It’s already too late and Britney and I are just about to go to bed, but I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I forgot my tie here,” I said, and when she still refused to step aside I gently pushed her out of the way.

All seemed well, but I knew that was not the case. Her friend looked terrified while Freya had fear written all over her face as she looked from me to the counter. I turned around and found myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Freya

I hated with all of my heart that Maxim was here.

My shock at seeing him at the door had been immeasurable, then relief, and then the fear that he would get hurt had swamped me. I didn’t want him here.

“Put down your gun,” the idiot that had posed as a pizza delivery man ordered.

He was skinny and had the weirdest looking face and flattened bangs I had ever seen. I couldn’t place his ethnicity but he had the protruded facial structure of a dog or wolf. I liked wolves and dogs, but it was not a good look on him.

“Drop your fucking gun!” he yelled, and I could see that his fully tattooed hand was now shaking, where it had previously not been when he had been faced with just myself and Britney. I could see then that he feared Maxim. He probably even knew him.

I breathed easier, but we were still in the midst of a madman and possibly mere seconds from life and death if he got spooked and began firing. Britney was the one whom I pitied the most. She was trembling so hard in her flea market red chair I could almost hear it rattling under the pressure. I swore then that I would find a way to get her out of all this.

Maxim lowered the gun and gently placed it on the ground as per the instruction given. When he rose back up, he asked a question that we all wanted to know the answer to. “Who sent you?”

“Shut up!” The madman barked nervously. “Step away from the gun. Far, far away. Or else I will blow her fucking head off right now.”

He pointed the gun towards me and my heart almost jumped out of my chest. I needed to sit down but I couldn’t move an inch from my position against the door.

“Tell me who sent you,” Maxim repeated, “I’ll let you go. I’m a man of my word.”

He began to approach him and suddenly a bullet was fired. Britney screamed as even the walls seemed to shake with the explosion. My hands went to my ringing ears. For a few seconds, I was in shock. I felt sick to my stomach and was almost too afraid to open my eyes, but when I did, I saw that Maxim was alright and Britney who had her head buried between her knees was completely still. She might have passed out.

“Don’t you fucking move!” the gunman screamed. It was clear he felt he’d lost control of the situation and was in panic mode.

Everything in the room stilled as we waited along with the madman for what Maxim would do.

Maxim took another step forward.

I found my voice. “Uh, I don’t think that’s the best approach, Maxim.”

“I will blow your head off!” the madman promised, his eyes wild, but when that didn’t seem to faze Maxim he turned the gun towards me. “I will blow her fucking head off.”

Maxim raised his hands in the air. “You know who I am. If you kill me or her, you will be hunted down like a dog and made to suffer for days. Your skin will be torn off you. Your dick will be cut off and fed to you. Your mother will die. If you have children they will die too. If you have a wife or girl, pity her for what she will suffer.”

The man began to shake uncontrollably.

“I’ll let you go,” he said. “I’ll count to three, and you can leave.”

I suddenly wasn’t sure who was more out of their mind. Maxim or the madman, but I kept my mouth shut, but I did notice the intense way Maxim was studying him. Perhaps he knew something that I did not.

He backed away then and the man seemed to be considering what he had just said.

Maxim turned to me and I was more freaked out than anything that he had actually taken his eyes off the guy.