Chapter 23 - Maksim
Self-pity tastes like twelve-year-old scotch and regret, but I keep drinking it anyway.
I slouch deeper into my office chair, staring at the glass in my hand while my brain replays every mistake I made with Alyssa on an endless loop.
The whiskey burns going down, though not nearly as much as the memory of her walking away from me last night.
Harrison knocked an hour ago to inform me that lunch was ready, but food feels impossible when my stomach is twisted into knots.
Every room feels too large, too quiet, too empty without her laugh bouncing off the walls or her footsteps padding across the marble floors. Even the staff moves differently, like they know something vital has been extracted from Ravenshollow’s heart.
“Pathetic,” I grumble to my reflection in the window. “Absolutely fucking pathetic.”
Weeks of building something real with her, only to destroy it all in one jealous rage.
Weeks of watching her bloom in my world, of seeing her integrate with my family, of falling deeper for her every single day.
All of it was ruined because I couldn’t trust her judgment about a phone call.
The irony would be amusing if it weren’t so devastating.
She was trying to tell me something was wrong.
Looking back now, I can see all the signs I missed; the way she started pulling away after that trip to the mall, the tension in her shoulders whenever her phone rang, the fear that crept into her eyes when she thought no one was watching.
But instead of asking what was troubling her, I demanded answers like some kind of interrogator.
My phone goes off with another text from Dmitri asking if I’m coming to the family meeting, but I ignore it, just as I have the previous five messages. How am I supposed to discuss business strategy when I can’t even figure out how to fix my own disasters?
The woman I’m falling for thinks I’m just another controlling bastard who can’t tell the difference between protection and possession.
She probably spent last night planning her escape route, figuring out how to get as far away from me as possible.
The thought makes me want to put my fist through the nearest wall.
I pour another three fingers of whiskey and consider calling her, but what would I say?
That I’m sorry for proving every fear she had about dangerous men?
That I understand why she can’t trust me when I’ve shown her exactly how quickly I can turn into the kind of person she’s spent her life running from?
But then the front door slams so hard the sound reverberates through the entire house like a gunshot, and I sit up straight. Footsteps pound across the foyer, followed by Harrison’s voice calling for help.
I vault from my chair and sprint toward the commotion, taking the stairs three at a time. What I find in the main hallway stops my heart cold.
Diane is standing in the center of the living room, swaying on her feet like she might collapse at any moment. Blood streaks her face and arms, her clothes are torn, and her eyes hold the kind of terror that comes from staring death in the face and somehow surviving.
“Diane?” I reach her just as her knees buckle and catch her before she hits the ground. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
“They took her,” she gasps, clinging to my shirt. “Maksim, they took Alyssa.”
The words punch through my chest like a bullet. “Who took her?”
“Some man named Troy. He… He had me tied up in some warehouse, using me as bait to get her to come.” Tears stream down her face as she struggles to get the words out between ragged breaths.
“Start from the beginning,” I command, though every instinct screams at me to grab my weapons and start hunting. “Tell me everything.”
Harrison appears with a first aid kit and begins tending to the cuts on Diane’s arms while she explains how Troy grabbed her outside her studio last night. How he used her as leverage to force Alyssa into some twisted reunion, and Alyssa agreed to go back to him in exchange for Diane’s freedom.
The timeline makes bile rise in my throat. While I was drinking myself into a stupor and wallowing in self-pity, Alyssa was making the most difficult decision of her life.
“She saved my life,” Diane whispers, and her voice breaks on the last word. “She sacrificed herself to protect me, and I couldn’t stop her.”
“You said Troy grabbed you last night? When exactly?” The details matter now; every timeline could be crucial for tracking them down.
“Around eight o’clock. I was leaving the studio late, working on a new piece for the gallery show next month.
He was waiting in the parking lot.” Diane shudders at the memory.
“I thought he was just some random mugger at first, but then he said your name. Said he knew exactly who I was and what I meant to your family.”
“What else did he say?”
“That Alyssa belonged to him and that she’d made a mistake thinking she could build a life with someone else. He talked about her like she was property.” Fresh tears spill down Diane’s cheeks. “Not like someone he loved, but like something he owned.”
Rage builds in my chest like a wildfire, consuming everything rational in its path. Troy has taken the woman I love, threatened my family, and turned Alyssa’s compassion into a weapon against her. The bastard signed his own death warrant the moment he laid hands on someone under my protection.
“Where?” I grind out between clenched teeth.
“I don’t know exactly. Some industrial area near the docks.
I was blindfolded most of the way there, and I was in such a hurry to leave that I didn’t really pay much attention to where I was.
” Diane grabs my arm and pleads, “Maksim, you have to help her. She was terrified, but she went with him anyway because he threatened to hurt more people if she didn’t. ”
The warehouse district. Of course that’s where a coward like Troy would take her; somewhere isolated, somewhere he could control every variable. Somewhere, he could play his sick games without interference.
“She should have come to me,” I snarl, though even as I say it, I understand why she didn’t. After our fight last night, after I proved I could be just as controlling as the man she was running from, she probably thought I’d make everything worse.
And maybe I would have. Maybe she was right to handle this on her own, right to think I couldn’t be trusted with something this delicate.
“Call my brothers,” I tell Harrison. “All of them. Tell them it’s an emergency and they need to get here now.”
“Already done, Sir. They’re en route.”
The guilt eats at me while we wait for my family to arrive.
Alyssa was handling threats against people she cared about, and instead of being someone she could turn to for help, I became another source of pressure in her life.
The woman who trusted me enough to learn combat techniques, who integrated so beautifully into my world, felt like she had to face this nightmare alone because of my stupidity.
Within thirty minutes, my living room looks like a war council.
Aleksei paces near the fireplace while Grigor studies maps of the industrial district on his laptop.
Dmitri coordinates with our contacts in the police department, and Akim reviews surveillance footage from traffic cameras.
Nikolai tends to Diane’s remaining injuries while she provides every detail she can remember about her captivity.
“The warehouse where they held me was old,” Diane continues, pressing an ice pack to her bruised cheek. “Rusted metal walls, broken windows, smelled like motor oil and decay. There were shipping containers stacked outside, and I could hear water in the distance. Maybe the harbor?”
“That describes half the buildings in the industrial district,” Grigor complains as he highlights potential locations on his screen. “We need more specifics. The Serpents have a dozen warehouses they’ve used for various operations over the years.”
“We’ll hit them all,” Aleksei declares. “Simultaneous raids to prevent them from moving her if they spot us coming.”
“No,” I counter, surprising everyone in the room. “We do this smart, not just hard. If Troy feels cornered, he’ll hurt her out of spite.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Dmitri asks.
“Reconnaissance first. We locate her, assess the situation, then extract her with minimal risk.”
“That could take days,” Akim protests. “Every hour she’s with him increases the danger.”
“And going in blind could get her killed,” I snap back. “We do this right, or we don’t do it at all.”
The argument that follows tests every bond of brotherhood we’ve built over the years.
Aleksei wants to use overwhelming force.
Grigor advocates for negotiation. Dmitri considers involving law enforcement even more than we have.
Everyone has an opinion about the best way to save the woman I love, but none of them understands what I do about Alyssa’s psychology.
She won’t just be sitting somewhere waiting to be rescued. She’ll be planning, scheming, and looking for ways to turn the situation to her advantage.
“You realize she might not want to be rescued,” Nikolai points out. “If she went willingly to protect Diane, she might refuse to come back if it puts more people at risk.”
“Then we eliminate the risk,” I respond. “We end Troy permanently so he can never threaten anyone again.”
Aleksei shakes his head. “Maksim, personal feelings can’t drive tactical decisions. We need to be smart about this.”
“My personal feelings are what’s going to motivate me to get her back safely. Everything else is just logistics.”
We spend the rest of the day gathering intelligence, calling in favors, and tracking down anyone who might know where Troy would take a high-value prisoner.
The hours crawl by with agonizing slowness while I imagine all the ways he might be manipulating her, all the psychological games he’s probably playing.