Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy #3) by Rina Kent

His murmured question stabs me in the chest. I expected him to be shocked at my gender switch, especially since he was against my leaving the Morozov family. However, I didn’t think it’d hit him to this extent.

He looks so betrayed, so…distraught.

Anton slides his attention between him and me before he zeroes in on who could safely be considered his ex-friend. His jaw clenches, and his eyes blaze in a way I haven’t witnessed before.

No.

I actually have, when he inexplicably got angry whenever Maksim was acting familiar with me or others. But those were mere hints of his bottled feelings—this, however, is pure rage.

“You’re a girl?” Maksim asks in a faint, uncharacteristic tone.

He was always the loud, untamed one, but now, he looks like a kicked puppy with wounds all over his body. Literally and figuratively.

“She is.” My brother gets in his face. “She was a woman all along, but you believed she was a man like a fucking fool. Intelligence was never your strongest skill.”

“You shut the fuck up!” Maksim lunges against his bindings. “This is none of your business—”

His words are cut off when Anton backhands him hard and fast. The slap of flesh against flesh echoes in the silent air worse than a whip. It’s not a punch, but it feels so much worse, judging from the way Maksim freezes up.

“Anton!” I grab onto his arm. “What’s wrong with you? Let him go!”

“Let him go?” he repeats slowly, menacingly even. “He led the men who attacked our family not too long ago.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it. Besides, he didn’t know they were our family.”

“This is why you never could’ve won against Kirill.” He gets in my face. “You’re naïve and always try to see the situation from an angle that doesn’t exist.”

My throat fills with nausea, and my limbs tremble, but I still stare at my brother in his damn unfeeling eyes. “The man you’re torturing to within an inch of his life is my friend. He was also your best friend for years unless you have a split personality that made you forget everything that happened when you were Yuri.”

“He’s Kirill’s guard.”

“He’s Maks.” I extend my palm. “Give me the keys.”

“You know, this is exactly why Papa sheltered you. He knew that you would let your emotions lead you in everything.”

“I’d rather have those emotions than live like an empty shell. So unless you’re going to chain me up to the ceiling, too, give me the damn keys.”

We glare at each other for what seems like ages, neither of us willing to back down. Finally, Anton reaches into his pocket and produces the keys, but he doesn’t hand them over. Instead, he jerkily undoes Maksim’s bindings himself.

The moment my friend’s feet touch the ground, he loses balance. My brother could catch him, but he moves out of the way, letting him fall.

Dickhead.

I rush to Maksim’s side and try to help him. He pushes me away and agonizingly adjusts himself into a sitting position so that his back is against the wall.

Maksim might be easygoing, but he has a deep sense of pride. For instance, he’s never liked imposing on people or being weak. He’s always prided himself on managing to come out unscathed from all the operations we’ve had.

His combat skills are only rivaled by Kirill’s and Viktor’s, and he rubs it in everyone’s faces—especially Yuri’s/Anton’s—all the time. So to find himself in this position must be humiliating.

My brother stands to the side, directly between Maksim and the door. If my friend attempts to escape, I’m sure this will end badly.

“Are you okay?” I ask slowly, maybe redundantly, because he looks like shit. His lips are dry and bloody. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and his chest is a map of Anton’s destruction.

“Who is he to you?” Maksim asks instead of answering my question and juts his chin to the side.

“He’s…my brother.”

“Brother,” he repeats as if making sure he heard it right. “Does this mean you infiltrated the organization together?”

“No. I only found out he was my brother recently. I thought he was dead and…well, he looked different.”

“He killed Yuri.”

“And I’d do it all over again if I got a redo,” Anton announces coolly, with enough apathy to piss me off.

Maksim snarls up at him although he’s nearly collapsing.

I hastily grasp the container Anton placed on the table and settle back beside Maksim, then open it and give him a bottle of water. “You look dehydrated. You need to eat and drink.”

Still glaring at my brother, Maksim snatches the bottle and drinks it all in one go. My chest aches at the view of the bruises and cuts the cuffs left on his wrists.

He must’ve been hanging from the ceiling for a long time.

I should’ve really followed Anton sooner.

Maksim snatches the container from my hands and pauses when he sees the medium-cooked steak and the vegetables—no carrots since he doesn’t like them. His jaw clenches, but he empties the container in record time.

Once he’s finished, he stares at me. “Are you in on this, too?”

“This?”

“Torturing me.”