Chapter 11
Maksim
Konstantin’s voice still rang in my head days later. He had popped into my apartment after I’d left Sofia’s the night he intercepted her leaving work.
You’ve truly lost your goddamn mind.
Didn’t I tell you? You don’t fuck the liability.
You erase her from the face of the earth.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was losing my mind because in all my thirty-eight years, I’d never behaved like this.
But every time I closed my eyes, she was there—her lips parted beneath mine, her body soft and wild against me.
Then there was her heated gaze that made me forget what the hell I was supposed to be doing with my life—almost.
I’d told myself it was just sex. Control. A way to measure her, see what she knew, and decide how long she’d survive. But it wasn’t control anymore—hell, I’d completely lost control when it came to her. It was hunger.
And hunger was a dangerous thing—especially for a man like me.
* * *
On Halloween night, I told her we were going out.
She didn’t argue—smart girl—but I saw the hesitation in her eyes as we left her apartment.
She knew I wasn’t taking her to some restaurant in Midtown.
She thought her boss at the rundown bar she seemed to live at had been kind by telling her she had the night off. I’d let her think that.
Little Odessa was alive, buzzing with music and lights. When I heard they were organizing a Halloween-themed midnight market, I knew it would be something Sofia, with her little Halloween heart, would love.
The street leading to the market was already filled with families and laughter.
The little market celebration sprawled down the boardwalk, with vendors hawking food, craft items, cheap masks and props, and bootleg liquor among the offerings.
Children darted between stalls in costumes, while men in leather jackets leaned against walls, eyes sharp, conversations much quieter than the music and laughter that filled the air.
Everywhere there were people in masks and costumes. Just like Popov’s masquerade, but… grittier.
“Oh my God, Maksim! This is incredible!” She clapped. The joy on her face and the way her eyes lit up did something strange to my chest.
As she stopped at every booth, I kept her close, my hand on the small of her back as we moved through the crowd. I was scanning, always scanning—and that’s when I saw him.
One of my brothers. A man I trusted. Too close to an Armenian street boss we’d marked as an enemy years ago. Their heads bent together in conversation, words I couldn’t hear drowned by the crowd.
My blood ran cold.
I leaned down to Sofia. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Just to check on something that shouldn’t be happening.”
Her gaze followed my line of sight and her hand caught my sleeve. She didn’t need to know who they were to understand that something wasn’t right. “Maksim! You can’t just walk up to them,” she hissed. “They’ll see you coming a mile away.”
I turned my head, glaring, but she didn’t flinch. “Then what do you suggest?” The question was rhetorical, yet she didn’t take it as such.
She bit her lip, thinking fast. Then her eyes sparked with something reckless. “Let me. I’ll pretend I’m drunk—just some girl stumbling around. Nobody pays attention to drunk girls.”
Every muscle in me went taut. “No.”
She stepped closer, voice low, urgent. “You need to know what they’re saying. If you go, they’ll shut up. If I go….” She shrugged, trying for casual, but I could see the pulse hammering in her throat. “They won’t think twice.”
Before I could stop her, she was moving—slipping through the crowd, weaving with just enough of a stumble to sell it.
I swore under my breath and melted back into the shadows, my gaze never leaving her.
She drifted near, swaying, pretending to study a food stall while her ears tilted toward the men. Too close. Too bold. But it worked.
Until it didn’t.
I saw it the moment the Armenian’s eyes narrowed, his smile twisting. He clocked the shift in her—how her steps straightened, her focus sharpened. She realized too late. She turned to go, hurrying toward me, but he was already moving.
He caught her before she reached the next stall, dragging her into a dark slit of an alley.
My heart dropped and my blood turned to ice.
I shoved through the crowd, fast and merciless, ignoring the shouts as people stumbled out of my way. By the time I reached the alley, the bastard had her pinned against the wall, a knife pressed to her throat.
“Who sent you?” he snarled. “Tell me, little bitch, before I cut that pretty mouth open.”
She was crying, shaking her head, swearing she didn’t know what he was talking about. “No one! I swear—I don’t know anything!”
The tip of his blade pressed deeper, and a crimson trail trickled down the column of her throat.
That was enough.
I didn’t hesitate. My hand was on the Armenian before he even sensed me, steel flashing once, twice, the sound of his breath choking off in a wet gurgle. He dropped—dead weight on the concrete.
Sofia gasped, tears streaking her face, her body trembling as I pulled her into my arms.
“You’re safe,” I rasped, my voice harsher than I meant. “I’ve got you.”
But she wasn’t safe. Not really. Not anymore.
Because she had just stepped all the way into my world, and there was no leaving now.
* * *
Later, when I had her back in my apartment, I carried her directly to the bathroom, where I stripped us of our clothes and moved us into the shower. I’d dispose of the clothing later.
Shock was setting in, and she simply stood there mute as I washed her hair and then her body. Afraid she might pass out but not wanting to let her get out on her own, I watched her like a hawk as I quickly washed myself.
By the time I shut off the water and dried us, she was pale, and I was starting to get worried. Except the adrenaline crashed into something else—something hotter, hungrier, unstoppable.
She kissed me first, desperate and shaking, but I kissed her back harder, needing to claim her, needing to remind myself she was still here, still mine. Not breaking the kiss, I scooped her up and carried her to my bed—a place no other woman had ever graced.
As my hands roved over her soft curves, I tasted her. The scent of my body wash all over her skin filled me with such primal triumph, it was unreal.
“You k-k-killed him,” she whispered right as I entered her body.
I froze, debating whether continuing this was the right thing to do. The lump in my throat was uncharacteristic and difficult to swallow.
“I did,” I confirmed as I held myself still above her.
“For me,” she went on.
“Yes,” there was no use denying it.
She wet her lips with her tongue, then bit her lip. For a moment, she simply stared at me as my heart dropped.
Then she reached for me, and my breath stopped. One hand cupped my cheek and the other rested over my heart. Still, I waited.
Her fingertips trailed down the side of my neck before she gripped the back of my neck and pulled me in. When the tip of her nose slid up the side of mine, I breathed her in. When she tilted her head and her lips found mine, I groaned.
My cock throbbed once in her heat, and she wrapped her legs around mine. She rotated her hips, and I lost it. Our kiss went wild, and I thrust deeply into her tight pussy, over and over.
Her nails scored my back.
My teeth found the sensitive spot at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
We became nothing but two lost souls, eager and desperate for release.
By the time the night ended, there was no line between fear and desire, no line between possession and obsession. She was tangled in my sheets, her body marked by my mouth and hands, and I knew the truth Konstantin had warned me about.
No, I hadn’t erased the liability. Instead, I’d killed for her with complete and utter reckless abandon.
She’d become my priority.
Killing a man had never shaken me. It was routine, part of the life I chose, the life that chose me. Blood spilled, problems erased—that was my world.
But tonight was different.
The Armenian’s body was nothing more than another ghost added to the long list that trailed behind me. Yet when I looked at Sofia’s tear-streaked face in that dark alley, then the way she shook in my arms as we made our way to my apartment, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years.
Rage. Not at the kill. At the thought of her being touched—hurt.
What I’d done should have been a warning to her about who and what I was.
A reminder of what happened when you stepped too close to the flames.
But when I pressed her against the wall during our second shower of the night, when her lips crashed into mine with desperation instead of fear, I knew it had gotten complicated.
Because I’d claimed her.
* * *
After she finally collapsed into sleep, I sat in the chair across the room, the glow from the city painting her skin in gold and shadow. Lying there, lost in her dreams, she looked so angelic. I knew damn well she was too young for me and far too innocent. My chest was tight, my mind racing.
I found myself facing the reality that she wasn’t just a distraction—she was a weakness.
Konstantin’s words echoed. Cut the thread. Don’t fuck the liability.
But what if the thread was already stitched and woven through me? What if cutting her loose meant tearing myself open too?
Frustrated, I rubbed a hand over my face, exhaling slowly. I’d been up too many nights thinking about her—her laugh, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the fire that blazed in her when she should’ve been begging. No one had ever looked me in the eye like she had.
And now she’d seen blood. Blood of my making. There was no turning back.
By the time dawn edged into the sky, I was still awake, pacing my balcony facing the riverfront—a cigarette burning low between my fingers.
My phone buzzed. Konstantin. I’d messaged him when Sofia had been marching her cute ass toward danger. He’d been blowing up my phone since. Truth be told, I was surprised he hadn’t shown up banging on my door.
“You’re not answering my questions,” he said flatly. “That worries me.”
“I handled it,” I told him.
“You handled it,” he repeated, voice sharp. “By killing an Armenian in the middle of a crowded festival? By dragging that girl deeper into this mess?”
“She’s not a problem.” The words came out too fast. Too defensive.
“Christ, Maksim. She is the problem. Do you think Boris will let this slide if he finds out you’ve lost your edge over some goddamn bartender?”
I stared out over the water, jaw locked. “She’s mine. That’s all you need to know.”
There was silence on the other end. Then, a long, low sigh. “Obsession gets men killed, brother. Don’t let her be the bullet you put in your own skull.”
The line went dead.
With a curse in Russian, I stubbed the cigarette on the railing, watching the ember die.
He was wrong. Maybe it had started as an obsession, but it wasn’t anymore. It was clarity.
For the first time in years, I knew exactly what I wanted. And I wasn’t going to let anyone—Konstantin, Boris, or the Armenians—take her away from me.
Not while I was still breathing.