Chapter 11
Mary
The overhead lights buzz, the printer coughs.
The desk is stacked high—loan files, cash-count slips, receipts with sticky notes that all say urgent. My hands are typing fast, but every time I look up, the stack’s taller. The printer in the corner keeps spitting paper that no one bothers to grab.
“Steph? Jess?” I call.
No answer.
The lobby’s empty. Desks abandoned. Phones ringing and ringing until they choke out into silence.
The overhead lights hum too loudly, buzzing like they’re about to blow.
I stand. My chair screeches against the tile.
“Hello?” My voice echoes. Way too loud. “Who’s there?”
The glass walls of Dave’s office glow faintly. His blinds are half-closed, shadows flickering through the slats. My feet move on their own. Closer. Closer.
When I push the door open, he’s there.
Dave.
Sitting behind his desk like nothing ever happened. His tie is crooked, his cologne hangs in the air, and his pen scratches across paper like it’s just another Monday morning.
He looks up when I step inside. That same smug grin. The one he always wore when he dumped his work on me with a “be a team player, Mary.”
My stomach knots. The air tastes like copper.
“Dave…” My voice cracks in my throat. “What—? But… but you’re… you’re dead.”
He doesn’t blink. Just leans back in his chair, laces his fingers over his stomach like he’s settling in for a chat.
“Funny thing about that,” he says. “Nobody ever files the paperwork.”
I stumble back a step. The walls feel closer.
“This isn’t real. You’re not—”
“Not what?” His grin stretches wider, too wide. His teeth are rimmed red now, like he’s been chewing on his own tongue. “Not your fault that I’m dead? Not the reason I screamed my last breath while you stood there and did nothing?”
The fluorescents overhead flicker, popping once, and I swear the shadows crawl closer.
“Stop,” I whisper. “Stop talking.”
His pen drops from his hand, clattering against the ledger. He lifts his head fully now, and that’s when I see it: thick red streaks sliding from his eyes, slow and heavy. Tears of blood carving down his cheeks.
I gag on air. My feet won’t move.
“Am I dead?” he whispers, voice wet, gurgling. “Or am I still right here… watching you choke on guilt?”
The blood drips onto the paper, soaking the ink until the numbers bleed into nothing.
I shake my head hard. “No. No, you’re not here. You can’t be here.”
But he leans forward, elbows on the desk. “Then why do you keep seeing me?”
That’s when the gunshot cracks the silence.
I scream and hit the floor hard, palms smacking concrete. My ears ring. For a second, I can’t breathe.
When I lift my head, Dave is still slouched behind the desk. No hole in his skull. No gun in sight. But the blood keeps coming.
Thick streaks. Hot and slow. Sliding down his face until it paints his grin red. He lifts a trembling hand, swipes under one eye, stares at his palm like he doesn’t recognize it.
Then his chest starts heaving. Sharp. Wrong.
“No,” he rasps. His voice breaks into something guttural. He scrubs at his face, smearing red across his skin. “No, no, no…”
The gurgle turns to sobs. He slams his fist down on the desk, smearing blood across the paper, then the walls, his tie, anything his hands can touch. His voice cracks loudly now, echoing.
“YOU LET ME DIE!”
He lunges up, reaching across the desk toward me, fingers slick, leaving streaks in the air.
I stumble to my feet. My breath claws up my throat. I bolt.
The office stretches wrong as I run. Walls bend, hallways blur. My lungs are burning, my legs won’t stop, until suddenly—
I’m not in the bank anymore.
I’m outside. Empty asphalt under my feet. Streetlights buzzing, all but one flickering out until only shadows remain. And there—across the lot—is a figure.
Tall. Broad. Still.
Anton.
It has to be him.
My chest breaks open with relief. I run. Faster, faster, legs pumping like they finally remember how.
“Anton!”
But as the light hits the figure, the face shifts. Too smooth. Too stretched.
Evan.
His smile is jagged, his skin pale and slick like wax. His eyes glow, hollow pits lit from inside.
“No—” My voice cuts. I skid back, but his arm shoots out, fast, iron-strong.
He grabs me. Fists in my hair. Yanks my head back until my neck screams.
“You thought you could leave me?” His voice warps, two tones at once—Evan’s voice, but darker, warped with static. “You thought you could tell me no?”
“Let go!” I claw at him, nails tearing skin that peels too easily, like wet paper. He laughs. Presses his weight into me, shoving me down into the ground. Asphalt tears my elbows raw.
“You’re mine.” His breath is hot and rotten against my ear. “Always were. Always will be.”
I thrash. Kick. My scream shreds out of my chest. “ANTON!”
And then he’s there.
Anton slams into him, fist cracking across Evan’s face with a sound that vibrates in my ribs. Evan reels back, blood spraying from his mouth, but he’s still laughing.
Anton plants himself between us, solid, unmovable. He’s breathing hard, green eyes cutting through the dark.
“Stay behind me,” he snaps.
Evan’s grin splits wider. His hand jerks up, and suddenly there’s a knife. Rusted. Long. He lunges.
“Anton!” I scream.
Instinct takes me. I don’t think. I move.
My hand dives for his side. His holster. His gun. It’s heavy in my grip, almost drags me down. But I raise it. My arms shake, but I fire anyway.
The shot rips the air apart.
Evan jerks back. A hole blooms dark in his chest. His face twists—not pain, not anger. Just… disappointment. Then the light drains from his eyes. His body collapses into the dark, vanishing like smoke.
My chest heaves. My hands are shaking, gun slipping from my fingers.
Anton turns, grabs my shoulders, steadying me. His mouth moves. He’s saying something, but the sound is muffled, far away.
Then I hear it.
Clear. Right against my ear.
“Mary.”
I freeze. His lips didn’t move that time.
“Mary,” the voice says again.
I blink, and suddenly the warehouse, the asphalt, Evan—everything blurs, smears into nothing.
I’m back in the dark.
And when my eyes snap open—
Anton is right there.
Sitting at the edge of the bed. Watching me.
I jolt up so fast my lungs seize. I’m gasping, clawing at the sheets like they’ll hold me steady. My skin’s soaked, hair plastered to my temples, and tears just won’t stop coming.
He doesn’t move. Just sits there, dim light cutting shadows across his face, as steady as if he’s been here for hours.
“It’s just a nightmare,” Anton says. His voice is low, even, like he’s trying not to spook me further.
Except that’s the problem. His voice feels like the only thing keeping me tethered.
I drag in another breath, sharp and ragged, and stare at him.
The dark shirt clings to his chest, half-unbuttoned, and there’s a shadow blooming across his ribs—dark, ugly, spreading under the fabric.
His jacket’s gone. His holster’s still strapped to his side, like he hasn’t stopped moving all night.
My stomach twists. “You— What—?” My throat locks. I have to swallow before I get the words out. “Am… Am I still dreaming?”
Before he can answer, Gordo makes his own decision. He launches off the bed, tail high, and bolts straight out of the room like he’s got better things to do than witness my breakdown.
“Guess not,” I mutter, wiping at my face with the heel of my palm. “Even Gordo doesn’t buy it.”
Anton’s gaze flicks toward the door Gordo vanished through, then back to me. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t soften, but something in his eyes tightens. Like he doesn’t know what to do with me like this.
I notice the way he’s holding himself. Too stiff. His arm braced slightly against his side. That shadow under his shirt isn’t just shadow.
I rub at my eyes, trying to swipe away the leftover tears, and when I lower my hand, I see it—the faint bruise along his cheekbone. Darker in the dim light, the kind of mark that doesn’t come from nothing.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach up. Slow. Careful. Expecting him to pull back, to bark at me for daring. But he doesn’t. He stays still. Lets me cup his face. His skin is warm under my palm, rough with stubble.
My heart kicks hard enough that I feel it in my throat. “You’re hurt.”
He doesn’t answer. The lamp throws just enough glow that his eyes catch it, and for one second, it’s like they flash—bright, unreadable, dangerous. Heat rolls off him, not fever-warm but alive, like he’s been carrying fire under his skin. His gaze drops, quick and sharp, to my mouth.
I don’t think.
I lean in first.
The kiss is clumsy at the start—wet lashes, shaky breath, the brush of lips that shouldn’t meet but do anyway.
Then it deepens. His mouth is firm, demanding without moving, and mine parts like it’s been waiting.
The sound is low, slick, the kind that makes my stomach bottom out and my core clench so hard it hurts.
My hand slides from his jaw to his chest. Broad, solid, hot through the shirt. I press against him, needing more, and my palm drifts lower without thought, over muscle, down toward his ribs.
That’s when it happens.
He flinches. Not big. Just the smallest twitch in his jaw.
“Jesus,” I whisper. “You’re bleeding under there, aren’t you?”
Still no answer.
Fine. I grab the hem of his shirt and tug it up before he can stop me. The fabric lifts, slow, until the bruising shows—a deep, mottled blue-black spread across his ribs, ugly as hell, with a darker patch surrounded by torn flesh that makes my stomach roll.
“Oh, my God,” I breathe. My hands hover over him, useless. “What happened?”
His voice is flat. “Doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t.” My hand presses just above the wound, careful but insistent. “This isn’t a paper cut. You look like you lost a fight with a truck.”
That earns me the faintest huff of breath. Not quite a laugh. More like disbelief. “You should see the truck.”
I blink at him, tears still streaking down my face, and a wet, shaky laugh bursts out before I can stop it. “That’s not funny.”
I swipe at my cheeks again, but the stupid tears just keep coming, and at the same time, a broken laugh slips out. It’s ugly, clumsy—half sob, half choke.
His head tilts, just slightly. “You can’t decide if you want to laugh or cry, malyshka?” The sarcasm is soft, almost dry, like he’s testing the words in his mouth.
And then it happens.
The corner of his mouth twitches, and a low sound slips out of him. Not a full laugh. Not even close. More like the rumble of a man who hasn’t let himself laugh in years and forgot how it’s supposed to work.
Holy shit. He’s laughing.
And God, he’s gorgeous when he laughs. It’s rough and short, like it scraped its way out of him against his will. It’s real. It makes my chest do something stupid, tight, and fluttery, and suddenly I want it again. I want more.
God. I’m crazy. Absolutely insane. Who the hell wants “make a Bratva hitman laugh” on their bucket list?
But I do.
“You should laugh more,” I whisper, my voice rough from crying.
Before I know it, my hand is on his face again.
My thumb brushes the edge of his jaw, stubble scratching softly against my skin.
He doesn’t move away this time either. Just lets me touch him.
His eyes meet mine, and in the dim light they darken, heat pooling there in a way that makes my stomach flip.
His hand comes up, slow, steady, and his thumb drags across my bottom lip. My breath stutters. His chest rises, heavier now, heat rolling off him in waves.
And then, low and dangerous, he says, “Don’t look at me like that unless you want your legs over my shoulders, malyshka.”
My breath catches so hard I nearly choke on it.
His thumb stays on my mouth, like he owns the air I breathe.Like he’s already decided what happens next.I should pull away. I don’t.Because for the first time, the danger doesn’t scare me—it feels like home.And I know I am ruined.