Chapter 21 - Maksim
Watching the woman you’re falling for pull away from you feels like drowning in slow motion.
Alyssa has been distant since her trip to the mall earlier today, and every day that passes makes the growing space between us more obvious. She avoids my eyes during breakfast, finds excuses to leave the room when I enter it, and treats me like she can’t stand the sight of me.
“Everything all right?” Harrison asks as I stare at my untouched dinner for the third night in a row.
“Fine,” I lie, pushing the plate away.
Alyssa didn’t join me for dinner again tonight. She claimed she wasn’t hungry, but I suspect she’s eating in her room to avoid spending time with me, which hits my stomach like lead.
I pour myself three fingers of whiskey and retreat to my office, where I can brood in private about how spectacularly I’ve managed to fuck this up.
Clearly, my confession on the hillside spooked her more than I realized.
All that talk about wanting a future together, about building something permanent—I pushed too hard, too fast.
She’s pulling away because she wants her independence back. Because the Bratva life isn’t what she signed up for, and I’m too wrapped up in my own feelings to see that she needs space to breathe.
The whiskey burns going down, but it doesn’t touch the ache in my chest that’s been growing stronger every day.
“Drinking alone is never a good sign,” Dmitri notes from the doorway.
“It also means nobody has to listen to me complain,” I reply without looking up from my glass.
“Mind if I join you anyway?”
Before I can answer, he’s already taking a seat in the chair across from my desk with his own glass of whiskey. Brothers have a way of inserting themselves into your misery, whether you want them there or not.
“What’s eating at you?” he asks after we drink in silence for a few minutes.
“Nothing. Everything. Take your pick.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the woman who’s been tiptoeing around this house like she’s afraid to breathe too loudly, would it?”
“She’s not afraid. She’s just… working through things.”
“Working through what?”
“The fact that I’m an idiot who moves too fast and scares off women who’ve already been through enough trauma.”
Dmitri raises an eyebrow at my self-flagellation. “Is that what she told you?”
“She didn’t have to. Actions speak louder than words, and her actions are screaming that she wants distance.”
“Maybe she’s dealing with something else.”
“Like what?”
“Look, adjusting to our world isn’t easy, even when you want to be part of it. Cecily went through something similar when we first got together.”
“Cecily didn’t run away from you every time you tried to have a conversation.”
“Actually, she did. For weeks. I thought she regretted marrying me, that she wanted out but didn’t know how to say it.”
This catches my attention despite my determination to wallow. “What changed?”
“I stopped assuming I knew what she was thinking and started asking her directly. Turned out she was scared of disappointing me, not running from me.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? Or are you so convinced she’s going to leave that you’re not seeing what’s actually happening?”
Before I can answer, footsteps in the hallway signal someone approaching. Alyssa appears in the doorway, looking surprised to find us here.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company,” she says, already backing away. “I’ll come back later.”
“Don’t leave on my account,” Dmitri urges with a knowing look in my direction. “I was just heading out.”
He stands and drains his glass before heading for the door. “Think about what I said,” he tells me quietly as he passes.
Alyssa loiters in the doorway like she’s debating whether to stay or flee.
“Did you need something?” I ask after a moment.
“Just… wanted to say goodnight.”
“Goodnight then.”
She turns to leave, but something about the defeated slump of her shoulders makes me call out, “Alyssa.”
“Yes?”
“Are you happy here?”
She turns back to face me, scrunching her nose. “What kind of question is that?”
“Are you happy?” I repeat.
“I’m… It’s more nuanced than that, Maksim.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I have right now.”
She disappears before I can press her any more, leaving me alone with my whiskey and the growing certainty that I’m losing her, whether I understand why or not.
The next couple of days pass much the same way. Alyssa continues to avoid me whenever possible, and I throw myself into work at the docks to keep from going insane. But even managing shipping schedules and coordinating security can’t distract me from the fact that she’s slipping away.
When I come home Thursday evening to find her having what appears to be a heated phone conversation in the garden, my already frayed patience finally snaps.
“No, I told you I need more time,” she’s saying as I approach. “A week isn’t enough to… What the hell do you mean you don’t care?”
She notices me coming and immediately ends the call before shoving her phone into her pocket.
“Who was that?” I ask without preamble.
She rubs the back of her neck and replies, “Nobody important.”
“Try again.”
“It’s none of your business, Maksim.”
“Everything about you is my business when you’re living under my roof.”
“Excuse me?” Her tone turns arctic, and I flinch at the sound. “I wasn’t aware I needed permission to take phone calls.”
“Who. Was. It?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” she replies with a scoff.
“The hell you don’t.”
Color floods her cheeks as her temper rises. “What gives you the right to interrogate me about my private conversations?”
“Someone tried to kill you two months ago,” I remind her. “I’m looking out for you.”
“So you’re going to monitor my communications now? Screen my calls? Decide who I can and can’t talk to?”
“If that’s what it takes to keep you safe, yes.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head and throws her hands in the air. “Listen to yourself. You sound exactly like Troy.”
The comparison hits me right in the chest, and I take a step back, raising my hands out in front of me. “That’s not… I’m not trying to control you.”
“Then what would you call this?” she asks, gesturing between us.
“Protecting you.”
“From phone calls? From conversations you don’t get to overhear? That’s not protection, Maksim. That’s control.”
She turns to walk away, but I grab her arm before she can leave. “We’re not finished talking about this.”
“Yes, we are.” She jerks free from my grip and glares at me with more fire than I’ve ever seen from her. “I won’t be interrogated like a suspect in my own home.”
“This isn’t your home. It’s mine, and while you’re here—”
“While I’m here, what? I’m your prisoner? Your property? Your little kitten who needs permission to breathe?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you meant. You just can’t admit it because that would make you the kind of man you claim to be protecting me from.”
She storms into the house, leaving me standing alone in the garden with the taste of my own stupidity coating my tongue. Everything she said is right, and the worst part is that I know it.
I grab a bottle of whiskey from my office and drink until the edges of my anger blur into something more manageable. By the time I work up the courage to apologize, it’s past midnight, and the house is quiet.
Her bedroom door is closed, but I can see light underneath it. I knock softly, hoping she’s still awake.
“Alyssa? Can we talk?”
Silence.
“I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. I was out of line earlier.”
Still nothing.
“I don’t want to fight with you. I just… I miss you. We used to talk, and now it feels like you’re a million miles away even when you’re sitting right next to me.”
The light under her door goes out, and I take the hint. She doesn’t want to hear my apologies tonight, and I can’t blame her.
I retreat to my room and lie awake staring at the ceiling, replaying our argument and hating every word that came out of my mouth. Dmitri was right; I’m so convinced she’s going to leave that I’m driving her away myself.
Tomorrow I’ll apologize. I’ll explain that my jealousy got the better of me, that I trust her judgment even when I don’t understand her choices. I’ll prove to her that I’m not Troy, that I can love her without controlling her.
But when morning comes, Alyssa is nowhere to be found.
“Have you seen Alyssa?” I ask Harrison as he serves breakfast for one.
“I’m afraid not, Sir. Her bed appears to have been slept in, but she wasn’t in her room when I went to check on her this morning.”
“Maybe she went for a walk,” I suggest, more to myself than to my butler.
“Perhaps. Though I did notice her car keys are missing from the hook by the kitchen door.”
I sit up straighter and ask, “Her car?”
“The small sedan we acquired for her use. It’s not in the garage.”
I check the garage myself and confirm what Harrison already knows. The blue Honda I bought for her three weeks ago is gone, along with any sign of where she might have headed.
Back in the house, I take the stairs two at a time and burst into her room without knocking. Her overnight bag is missing from the closet, along with several changes of clothes and her toiletries.
She’s gone.
Not just out for the day or running errands. She’s packed up and left, probably sometime after our fight last night, while I was drinking myself into oblivion.
Shit.
After weeks of watching her pull away, after nights of lying awake wondering what I’d done wrong, she’s finally done what I was afraid she’d do all along.
She’s run.
And this time, I have no idea how to find her.
I sink onto her bed, surrounded by the faint scent of her perfume and the overwhelming weight of my own stupidity. Last night I accused her of being secretive, demanded answers she didn’t want to give, and proved every fear she had about controlling men.
Now she’s gone, and I’m left with nothing but regret and the growing certainty that I’ve lost the best thing that ever happened to me.
My phone goes off with a text from Dmitri: Family meeting in an hour. Aleksei wants to discuss the Serpent's situation.
I stare at the message, then at the empty room around me. How am I supposed to focus on family business when the woman I’m falling for has disappeared into the night because I couldn’t keep my jealousy in check?
The answer is simple: I’m not.
But I also can’t fall apart now, not when she might be in danger. If Alyssa is out there alone, she’s vulnerable to Troy and his associates.
I need to find her before someone else does.
But first, I need to figure out where she would go when running from a life she never asked to be part of, from a man who proved he’s just as controlling as the one she ran from before.
The irony isn’t lost on me. In trying so hard not to lose her, I’ve driven her away myself.
And now I have to live with the consequences.