Chapter 14
Sofia
By Tuesday, the world had the audacity to keep moving. Buses sighed at curbs, dogs dragged their humans past the deli, and O’Malley’s neon open sign buzzed like a tired bee in the dusty window.
I pushed through the door, and the familiar smells hit me—beer, fryer oil, and bleach that never quite masked the history soaked into the floorboards. It should have steadied me. It didn’t.
Brody gave me a chin lift. “Enjoy your weekend?”
My eyes popped wide, and my heart skipped a beat. How did he know what happened?
“W-W-What do you mean?” I stuttered, fighting for composure.
His brows pinched in the center. “I mean, it was Halloween, and your boyfriend took you out, right?”
Relief hit me and I gave a nervous laugh. “Oh! Yeah, that. We, uh, had fun. It was an amazing little festival. You should’ve checked it out.”
“Maybe next time. One of us had to work,” he teased. “Anyway, now that you’re here, I’m going to be in the office. I need to finish up payroll.”
“No worries. I’ve got things out here,” I assured him.
Getting to work, I lined pint glasses without looking, muscle memory doing the job for me while my brain stayed elsewhere. Not the alley. Not the knife. Not him.
An awareness suddenly tingled down my spine. I tried to keep my eyes down, but they slipped to the end of the bar anyway, drawn like metal to a magnet.
He was there. Of course he was. The corner of my mouth lifted of its own accord.
Black coat, plain shirt, that lethal stillness coiled in his shoulders like a held breath.
Maksim didn’t drink. He didn’t even pretend.
Like most nights when he showed up, he merely sat with a glass of vodka he never touched, gaze fixed on me as if the rest of the room were nothing but a smudge he could wipe away with his thumb.
The regulars noticed. They always did. Yankees cap Mike kept sneaking glances and tipping too much, like money could bribe safety.
José counted quarters into a neat stack, never turning his back to him.
The college kids went quiet, a rare miracle, as if instinct finally cut through cheap lager and told them a predator had entered the ecosystem.
“New boyfriend?” Debbie asked in her raspy, cigarette-roughened voice when I set down her whiskey. The word sent a sharp, ridiculous bloom of heat through me, followed by shame. Because it dawned on me that we weren’t defined like that. We just… were.
We fucked.
We went out for fancy dinners.
But he hadn’t mentioned actual commitment—at least not with a spoken label.
“He’s nobody,” I lied. It tasted like pennies or ash on my tongue.
“Interesting… because that nobody’s staring like you’re the last thing on a sinking ship.” She chuckled.
I pretended to laugh. I pretended a lot that night—smiles, small talk, the easy rhythm of “What can I get you?” and “Coming right up.” But my pulse never dropped below a sprint.
Every time the bell on the door rang, I flinched.
Every time a shadow moved in my periphery, my skin prickled.
The alley lived under my ribs now, a second heartbeat.
And I hated it.
When my shift finally ended, I wiped the bar slower than necessary, stretching what normally took minutes into something longer, hoping for a miracle with each swipe of the rag—a miracle like, oh, maybe… courage?
Despite my obvious procrastination, he didn’t move. He simply waited, patient as a storm biding its time offshore. By the time I locked the register, my palms were damp, and my mouth was dry.
Normal had left the building with the last customer. I was the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo.
* * *
Like a shadow, he was with me as I turned off the lights and secured the front door. He fell into step beside me outside, silent, hand sliding into the small of my back like it belonged there.
Tonight was obviously one where he walked me home.
Some nights he insisted on driving me; other nights we walked. I never asked what made him decide which was which.
In a deceptively peaceful silence, we walked, our breath creating little puffs before us. It had slipped into November, and with it, a deep chill at night. With a shiver, I wrapped my scarf around my neck.
He took off his jacket and rested it over my shoulders.
“Maksim.” I paused, trying to shrug it off. “It’s cold. You need your coat. It’s not like I don’t have one of my own on.”
“Leave it. I’m fine,” he insisted, his tone brooking no argument.
I huffed deeply and a massive cloud briefly separated us.
Undeterred, he returned his hand to my lower back and, with light pressure, urged me to resume walking.
My block, like my porch, was lit by the kind of street lamps that couldn’t decide if they wanted to work, halos blinking in and out on wet pavement.
Better sense told me I should have told him to go. I knew I should have said goodnight at the door of the bar with the same brisk smile I used on drunks who didn’t know when to quit.
Yet I didn’t.
Finally, we reached my stoop. I turned, keys in my fist, biting into my palm like teeth. “You can’t keep showing up at my work like that.”
“I can,” he said simply.
Anger rose, too small against a wall like him, yet fierce just the same. “This isn’t—” I stopped because I didn’t know what this was. A hostage situation with benefits? A rescue that never ended?
What were we?
He watched me for a heartbeat, then took my hand—just my hand, palm to palm.
The warmth of him pulsed up my arm, steadying my heartbeat and my breath.
Then, as if he had been reading my mind all night, he said, “You’re mine.
” It was matter-of-fact—like he was stating the weather. “No one touches what’s mine.”
The words should have sent me running. Instead, heat flooded my chest, a frightening, traitorous relief washing through me so quickly my knees went weak. I hated that it felt like safety. I hated that it felt like home.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I whispered.
“Mmm,” he hummed as his sharp gaze swept over my features.
When I remained silent, he curled his strong hand around the back of my neck.
“Then decide it,” he murmured. “Out loud.”
As I stared at the scar that cut a pale line along his jaw, I thought about the hand that had covered my mouth in the alley so I wouldn’t scream, and the same hand cupping the back of my neck like I was made of something precious.
Then, I thought about the envelope of red notices on my counter, and the way seven hundred dollars had felt like a miracle in my purse.
And I thought about the way the knife had felt when it pressed against my throat, and the way it had looked glinting on the ground when it wasn’t at my throat anymore.
I didn’t say the word. I didn’t have to. Instead, I turned the key and let him in.
My apartment was small enough that his presence filled it, heat and gravity and the sound of my own pulse in my ears.
He took his coat off my shoulders, draped it over the chair, and the domesticity of the gesture undid me more than any threat could have.
When he reached for me, I went willingly, the fight in me melting into something hungrier, needier, truer.
After removing my jacket and placing it over his, his cold hands went up under my sweater. He brought me close to him and one hand cupped my lace-covered tit.
“Tell me to stop,” he said against my mouth.
I couldn’t. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a decision any longer. There was no choice to be made. It was a current in a wildly rushing river, and I was already swept up in it.