Chaos (The Sovereigns #3)

Chapter 1

Maksim

BLOOD.

The squelch under my boots is like stepping on fucking eyeballs.

Iron floods my mouth. I’m drowning in the taste of pennies, choking on metal and marrow.

The smell hits like railroad spikes hammered straight through my sinuses.

Rage crushes my windpipe. I can’t breathe.

Can’t fucking breathe. Sledgehammers beat against my skull, grinding bone into brain matter, while sirens scream behind my eyes—souls ripping out of bodies. Mine. Theirs. I can’t tell anymore.

BLOOD.

BLOOD.

BLOOD.

My fists are fire, burning, splitting, cracking skin open with every blow. I feel bone give—his. Maybe his jaw. Maybe his ribs. I don’t fucking care. I keep hitting because I can, because he’s still breathing.

I’m steadier than I feel. Or maybe I’m just too far gone to fall. My vision tunnels—black around the edges like the world’s closing in, but I don’t stop. Not until I reach the end of this.

My father.

The one who started it. The last one I’ll kill.

My boots land hard on the gravel of the compound, my father’s home in my sights.

A shadow eclipses me.

My father’s enforcer.

I drop to a knee, swipe my knife from my boot, and stand.

“Maks—”

That’s all he gets out before the blade slices his throat clean.

He gurgles. Crumples. I step over him before he hits the ground.

The front door is already open.

Father always did love a challenge.

The foyer stretches before me, marble and blood money. I used to run through here as a boy, before I understood the screams that echoed from the basement weren’t part of some game. Before he built the monster that will take him out.

“Maksim.”

Her voice stops me cold.

Mother.

She stands at the top of the staircase, backlit by the setting sun through the window. A ghost in designer clothes. Her hands clutch the railing like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.

Maybe it is.

“Don’t,” she whispers. But there’s no force behind it. No hope. Just resignation.

I see it in her eyes—those same blue eyes I inherited.

The defeat.

The knowledge that this was always how it would end.

“Where is he?” My voice sounds like gravel. Like the bodies I’ve left behind.

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes drop.

The study.

I move toward the hallway.

The shot cracks through the air.

Fire explodes in my back, punching through muscle and lung. I stumble forward and catch myself on the wall.

Behind me. The bastard shot me in the back.

Coward.

Rage fills my lungs, hot and insistent.

I turn, I lunge, and the second shot takes me in the chest.

The world tilts.

My knees hit marble.

When did I get this far?

The impact reverberates up my spine, joining the fire spreading through my torso. But I’m still moving. Still crawling.

My vision’s red now. Everything’s red.

Blood in my eyes or just pure fucking hatred—I don’t know which.

Father steps into view. His expensive loafers click against the floor. Not a speck of dirt on them, because he never does his own dirty work.

Until now.

“You never know when to stop, little juggernaut.” His voice is calm, measured. Like he’s discussing quarterly earnings.

I cough. Taste iron. More blood.

“Fuck you.”

His face doesn’t change. No remorse. No regret. Just calculation.

He raises the gun again. Points it at my head.

This is it.

This is how it ends.

Not in glory. Not in victory.

On my knees like every other poor bastard who crossed Nikolai Korsakov.

But I’m smiling.

Because I see it now—the tremor in his hand. The sweat on his brow.

He’s afraid.

“Do it,” I rasp. Blood bubbles at my lips. “Pull the trigger.”

His finger tightens.

Mother screams.

Everything goes black.

***

White.

Too white.

The air smells like bleach and plastic and something wrong.

My eyes slit open—light stabs through the haze. Where am I? My tongue is sandpaper. My throat’s been razed.

I move.

No.

Straps. Across my chest. My arms. My legs.

Panic slams into my ribcage. I thrash. The bed squeaks. Metal groans.

I growl, animal-low, teeth clenched.

“Shh… S toboy vse v poryadke.”

The voice cuts through the fog.

Russian. Soft. Familiar. Perfume follows her, gardenias and guilt. I blink hard, focus—Brown hair. Pale eyes. Dr. Moronov.

Vaska’s mother.

Her gloved hand touches my face.

Gentle.

“S toboy vse v poryadke,” she whispers again. You’re fine.

“I know you’re scared,” she says, switching to English. “And I’m sorry. But you need to listen.”

I try to speak; my jaw clicks, throat raw.

She leans closer.

“There was no way to hide the massacre, Maksim. Not this time.”

My stomach sinks.

“No prison,” she says quickly. “No trial. No jury.”

Then softer, like a secret. “You’re not going to prison… but you can’t stay.”

I shake my head.

Don’t understand. Don’t want to.

“You have to go away for a little while. Play the part. Then come home.”

I don’t get it.

I don’t want to play.

I fight the straps again. A wild, useless struggle.

“No,” I rasp. “No, no, no—”

Her face tightens. I see it in her eyes—regret, pity.

“I’m sorry, Maksim.”

The pinch in my neck is small. The heat after it is not.

“No—”

My voice slurs. The ceiling swims.

Home.

She said I could come home.

But the world is slipping, sliding—Gone.

***

My body aches.

I groan as I sit up, my breath shuddering on the effort. Breathing fucking hurts. My ribs are splintered glass. My back burns like raw fire—skin tight over shattered muscle. My chest feels tight, burning, wrong.

I blink.

Once. Twice.

White.

Too much of it.

Ceiling. Walls. Floor.

Padded.

My head throbs like it’s been split in half and glued back together by someone with shaking hands.

I shift, and that’s when I notice it: beige.

Beige shirt. Beige pants. Thin, scratchy fabric. No laces on the shoes.

What the fuck?

I stagger to my feet. Vision swims. Muscles scream. My hand flies to the wall to steady myself.

There’s a door with a small, square window.

I shuffle to it and press my face to the glass.

People.

Patients.

Slouched. Staring. Pacing.

An orderly walks past with a clipboard and doesn’t even glance at me.

My blood starts to boil. Adrenaline spikes. The pounding in my head merges with the fury crawling up my spine.

They sent me here.

They caged me like some broken fucking animal.

I clench my fists and feel it rising, rage building, ready to rip through the walls.

I can’t be here.

I won’t be here.

I draw back my fist. Ready to destroy—

Then I hear her voice in my head.

Play the part.

Dr. Moronov. Her hands on my face. The needle. The lie.

Play the fucking part.

I freeze.

Fist trembling in the air. My chest heaves. My teeth grind.

Slowly…

I lower myself to the ground, back against the padded wall.

I bury my face in my hands.

He sent me to a fucking asylum.

My father.

He won this round. But I’m not done.

Not by a long fucking shot.