Page 229 of Reckless Obsession

I turn my head and look directly at Maksim.

His eyes are wide, the cold, murderous mask slipping off his face, completely undone by the raw honesty in my voice.

“I love this crazy psychopath with everything in me,” I say, holding Maksim’s stunned gaze for a second before turning back to Jake.

Jake stares at me in utter, shattered disbelief.

For a second, he looks like he has forgotten how to breathe. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Whatever he expected from me tonight, it clearly wasn’t this.

Before he can form a single word, my hand slip beneath my overcoat and closes around the pistol. His eyes widen, as if he knows what’s coming for him.

I draw the pistol out smoothly, raise it, and fire without hesitation.

The gunshot tears through the room.

The bullet strikes the side of his shoulder, and he screams, his entire body jerking against the restraints. He immediately looks down at the wound, panic flashing across his face as blood begins to seep through his clothes.

“Holy shit,” Maksim says, the pure surprise in his voice almost comical.

I don’t look at him yet.

My eyes remain on Jake as I step closer. He is still breathing hard, his face twisted with pain as he stares down at the blood seeping from his shoulder. I reach for his chin and force his face upward, making him look at me instead.

“I love him so much, Jake,” I tell him, each word cold and absolute. “I love him so much that I would gladly get rid of you myself if it would make him forgive me. I would put a bullet in you without hesitating a second time if that’s what it takes to keep my relationship with Maksim intact.”

Jake’s eyes search mine desperately for something—regret, hesitation, the slightest remnant of the man who once loved him enough to forgive everything.

He finds nothing.

“You are nothing to me anymore,” I say evenly. “You’re just a ghost standing in my way.”

I release his chin and step back.

Then I turn towards Maksim. He’s still staring at me, as though he’s forgotten how to process what just happened. When I hold the pistol out to him, his eyes drop to it.

He blinks at the weapon.

Then at me.

Then back at the weapon. Slowly, almost cautiously, he takes it from my hand.

“Why the shoulder, though?” he asks.

“Because you’ve always wanted to be the one to kill him, Maksim.” I hold his gaze. “I’m not going to take that opportunity away from you.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

“So you love me?” he asks, his tone suddenly dropping into something surprisingly soft, stripped bare of his usual sarcasm.

“Very much, spitfire,” I say without hesitation.

His eyes soften for half a second before the familiar mischief returns. He tilts his head, studying me as if he’s trying to decide whether I am telling the truth or whether he should make me prove it.

Then, without looking away from me, he raises the pistol and points it at Jake.

Jake’s panicked cries rise to a frantic, hysterical pitch, the sound bouncing off the wet stone walls. Neither of us even bothers to look at him.

“You love me despite how crazy I am?” Maksim murmurs, his eyes burning into mine. “Despite how impossible and difficult I make everything?”