Chapter 8 Maksim
MAKSIM
The elevator doors close, and my body halts in its refusal to move.
A minute ago, I was a weapon—cutting through bodies, hearing the sharp pop of gunfire and the wet sounds that followed. I remained in that state during the drive back, listening to the car's hum as streetlights slid across the windows. I kept my face still and my hands ready.
Now, the small, private quiet of the elevator reveals every bruise.
My ribs throb first, a deep ache that catches my breath halfway in, as if my chest is wrapped in wire. My knuckles burn where the skin has split against bone. My shoulder stings in a thin, hot line I don't remember earning. My forearms feel heavy, the dull weight of impact settling beneath my skin.
My hands shake.
It isn't dramatic. It isn't visible unless you're looking for it. But I can feel it in the tendons—a low-frequency tremor, as if the last remnants of the fight are trapped in my joints, vibrating for release.
I don't conduct the inventory I was taught.
At the facility, we were trained to sort ourselves into parts: find the damage, assign it a place, put it away, and move on.
I can't do that right now. The pain won't fit neatly into boxes. It shifts when I breathe, when I swallow, when the elevator rises and the change in pressure makes my bruised ribs protest.
I maintain my posture because Ivan is beside me. I can sense his attention skimming the space without him turning his head. Even in silence, he is counting exits, listening for the slightest change, pretending he isn't thinking about the blood on my shirt.
I have killed before.
The first time wasn't in the city. It wasn't for a principal, nor for money or loyalty.
It was in a room with a locked door.
We were boys then, numbers instead of names. They told us one of us was surplus, and they didn't reveal which until the door shut behind us.
Only one of us walked out.
I remember the other boy's eyes more vividly than the sound he made. I recall the shape of his mouth trying to form words and failing. I remember my own hands—how steady they were, how my body acted as it had been trained while my mind remained blank, because being blank was safer.
Afterward, the instructor nodded. That was all. I had met the minimum requirement for breathing.
Tonight was different.
Tonight, I killed while Ivan watched.
I felt his eyes on me through smoke and candlelight. I sensed him under the table, observing my movements, seeing what I become when I take people apart.
And afterward—inside the car—his hand on my skin made my pulse race harder than any attacker ever had.
He didn't touch me like I was a weapon needing cleaning. He touched me like I was something else.
I can't let you go.
The words circle my mind as the elevator ascends, refusing to settle.
I should be focused on the attack—the door, the lights, the breach. I should be compiling the after-action report to give Ivan the data the moment he asks.
Instead, I keep replaying Ivan's fingers tracing blood across my knuckles, his voice rough and stripped down.
The elevator doors open.
The penthouse is dark. Ivan doesn't reach for a switch; he moves through the space as if he knows it by the feel of the air currents. I follow him, because following is what I do.
He stops in front of the master bathroom.
"Get in the shower," he commands.
Quiet. Certain. No extra words. No softness. A command that doesn't need volume to be obeyed.
"You're covered in them."
I look down.
My clothes are stiff with dried blood, crusted dark across my chest. When I shift my shoulders, I feel the fabric crack. The smell is copper, sweat, and old heat. Some of it is mine; most of it belongs to men who aren't breathing anymore.
I should tell him I can handle this. I should go to the guest bathroom. That's the world I understand: I protect, I maintain distance, I disappear.
But my hands shake again, giving me away.
My ribs flare when I breathe too deeply.
Ivan pushes the bathroom door open and gestures for me to enter.
I go.
The bathroom is adorned with white marble and chrome, lit by the city's glow filtering through frosted glass. The shower is a glass box, large enough to be a room of its own. I've used it in the mornings—quick and silent, using his soap because he told me to.
Tonight isn't morning.
I reach for the fastenings on my vest. My fingers fumble with the clasp; they feel thick and clumsy. I force the latch open. The vest comes off, followed by the ruined shirt beneath it.
The shirt sticks where blood has dried into the fabric. When I pull it over my head, it tears with a soft ripping sound.
My skin is mapped with bruises. The mark on my ribs has spread, darkening under the lights. Smaller impacts dot my forearms. A shallow cut on my shoulder leaks slowly, just enough to keep the skin tacky.
I reach for my belt.
I stop.
Ivan is still in the doorway.
"You should—" I start, but the words snag. You should leave. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be looking at me like that.
"I should what?" he asks.
His voice is soft in a way that tightens my stomach. Not gentle. Not cold. Something else.
I don't answer.
I unfasten my belt, pushing my pants down and stepping out of them and my boots. The movement sends a bright lance of pain through my ribs, making me inhale sharply. My vision sharpens at the edges.
I find myself in nothing but briefs, standing in Ivan Baranov's bathroom, blood drying on my skin.
Ivan doesn't look away.
I step into the shower and turn on the water. It hits cold at first, shocking my tight muscles. Then it warms. Steam begins to rise.
Water runs red off my body.
It streams down my arms, across my chest, swirling pink toward the drain. The copper smell blooms in the steam, mingling with the familiar scent of cedar soap.
I brace one hand against the tile wall and let my head drop forward.
The heat helps. My hands steady, and my breathing finds a rhythm that isn't ragged.
The crash comes anyway—the drop after violence. At the facility, they taught us how to manage it: breathe slowly, unclench, focus on neutral sensations—water, heat, tile.
None of the instruction covered being watched.
None of it covered Ivan's gaze on my bare back.
The shower door opens.
I don't turn.
I stand there with my hand against the wall while Ivan steps into the enclosure behind me.
He is still dressed. I hear the change in the water's sound as it strikes fabric. His sleeves are rolled up—when his hand touches my shoulder blade, there is no cloth between his skin and mine.
"Hold still," he says.
A cloth appears in my peripheral vision, wet and soft. Ivan draws it across my back in slow strokes, wiping away blood I couldn't reach. My skin feels too awake. The touch sends a tight shiver down my spine that I try to suppress.
He works without speaking.
The cloth traces the line of my spine, moves across my shoulders, and dips into the hollow at the base of my back. Where the blood is thickest, he presses harder—patient, steady.
The water at my feet shifts from red to clear.
He is close enough that I can feel heat radiating from him through the steam. Close enough that if I leaned back an inch, I would hit him.
My body wants to.
I keep myself still.
"You were extraordinary," Ivan says. His voice is low, almost lost under the water.
Praise sits awkwardly inside me. At the facility, you were corrected. Silence meant you hadn't failed yet.
"I did my job."
"You did more than your job." The cloth pauses at my side, near the bruise. "You took a hit that was meant for me."
"He was aiming for you."
"Yes." Ivan's other hand presses gently along the edge of the bruise. Pain flashes bright enough to make my breath hitch. "So why didn't you move?"
I turn my head slightly, looking back over my shoulder.
Ivan is soaked. His shirt clings to him, transparent in places. His hair is flattened to his forehead. Steam has put color in his cheeks. He looks younger, stripped down—less like a statue and more like a man.
"Because he was aiming for you," I say again. "If I moved, it would land on you."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
"It was," I reply. The answer is simple. "It was the only one."
His hand stills on my ribs.
The shower pounds relentlessly, filling the space with sound, making it easier to say things you'd never voice in silence.
"You could have been killed," Ivan says.
"You would have been." I turn fully, ignoring the pain that bites at my side as I twist. I face him amidst the steam and water. "I can be replaced."
His jaw tightens.
"You can't," I add, because it is the truth of our world. "Not like that."
Something in Ivan's expression cracks—control slipping just enough to reveal the panic beneath.
His hand remains on my ribs. He doesn't pull away.
We are close enough that the water between us feels like a thin, constant curtain. I can see the pulse in his throat.
"You can't be replaced," Ivan says, his voice rough. "Do you understand me? I am not swapping you out like a guard on rotation. I am not filling your place with some other man because you decided your life is disposable."
The words hit my chest hard. They don't feel like praise; they feel like a claim.
"Ivan—"
"You are mine," he asserts.
He steps closer.
Steam, water, and the sharp awareness of how little space remains.
"You've been mine since I chose you," Ivan says. "And I am not losing you because you decided your life matters less than mine."
Air won't fill my lungs properly.
His hand slides from my ribs to my jaw, fingers curving around my face with a certainty that blurs my vision. His thumb wipes water from my cheek, and his eyes stay locked on mine.
I've been assessed by dangerous men. Evaluated. Checked for weakness. Treated like a tool.
Ivan is looking at me like he needs me.
Heat rises in my body, low and sharp. My hands itch to grab him. I want to close the last inch. I want my mouth on his. I want to feel him against me instead of this almost-contact that makes my skin crawl.
Want is a dangerous word for me.
I have spent most of my life killing it on sight. The facility made sure of that. Wanting made you easy to control.
Ivan's fingers tighten on my jaw as he tilts my head slightly.
My body leans forward—
And I pull back.
It's a small movement—barely a space. But it breaks the line. It snaps the momentum in half.
Ivan's hand falls away.
His eyes flicker with surprise. Then something closes down fast, like a door being locked from the inside.
Water keeps falling, indifferent.
My heart pounds hard enough that I feel it in my throat. Every instinct screams at me to undo the retreat, to grab him, to take what he was offering.
My training screams louder.
If I kiss him now, everything shifts. The structure changes, the roles flip, and the rules that keep Ivan alive morph into something I can't grasp. I know how to protect, obey, and be useful.
But I don't know how to be anything else.
The fear that rises isn't about what I want; it's about failing him.
"Maksim," Ivan says.
"I can't." The words scrape out of my throat. "Not like this."
I try to say more, but it tangles in my mouth—too much blood, too much shock, too much power wrapped around the fact that he can order my entire life into place with a single sentence.
Ivan's gaze remains fixed on me.
"Not like this," he repeats. "Not when I'm what?"
I shake my head as water runs down my face.
"You should get dry," I say instead. "Your clothes are ruined."
Ivan watches me for a long moment.
Then control returns to him, sliding back into place. His face smooths, his eyes cool. The crack seals over.
"Finish cleaning up," he says, his voice even again. "There are clothes in the closet for you." A pause. "I expect you in the bedroom soon."
He steps out of the shower.
The door closes behind him.
The only sound left is the water beating down on my shoulders and my own breathing, too rough for my liking.
I press my forehead against the cool tile.
The blood is gone. The water runs clear.
That doesn't matter.
I can still feel his hand on my jaw. I can still remember how close we were. I can still sense my body leaning forward before I dragged it back.
I shut off the water when it turns cold enough to sting.
I dry myself without thinking, my movements automatic. The clothes are where he said they'd be—soft cotton that feels wrong after the tactical fabric.
I dress.
The bruise shows through the thin shirt, dark and ugly.
I look at myself in the mirror and see a man trying to pretend nothing happened.
I leave the bathroom and walk to the bedroom, where Ivan is waiting.