Chapter 7
Maksim
The office reeks of perfume and power. Velvet couch, mirrored ceiling, and a painting on the wall I’d burn if it didn’t belong to the Amatos.
My favorite strip club, Opulent, belongs to the Amatos, but this couch I’m sitting on might as well be mine.
Candy’s kneeling between my legs, fingers working my belt with practiced ease. Blonde, big tits, fake in all the ways men like and I don’t mind. She smells like cheap perfume and desperation.
“You all healed now, Maksim?” she asks, lips brushing the edge of my jeans.
I smirk, fingers threading through her hair. “More than healed, detka.”
She giggles, throaty and rehearsed, and works the zipper down. Her nails scrape against denim, teasing.
I lean back, let my head fall against the velvet. Four months. Four fucking months since I got the piercing. Worth every second of pain to see the look on women’s faces when they realize what’s waiting for them.
“Bet you missed me,” she purrs.
“Sure,” I lie.
Truth is, I don’t think about her when she’s not around. Don’t think about any of them. They’re warm bodies, fuck fun. Nothing more.
Candy tugs at my jeans, sliding them down my hips. Her breath hitches when she sees the bulge in my boxers.
“Someone’s eager,” she whispers.
I grunt. My mind’s already drifting—to the shipment coming in next week, to the Turks sniffing around our territory.
Candy’s fingers hook into my waistband. That’s when the door slams open.
“Maks—” Vaska’s voice cuts through the room like a blade.
I don’t even flinch. Just sigh.
Candy scrambles back, eyes wide, hands flying to cover herself even though she’s always half naked.
“Really?” I ask, not bothering to look at him. “Right fucking now?”
Vaska stands in the doorway, hand still on the knob, face unreadable. He’s wearing his usual black-on-black, knife holster visible at his hip. His dark eyes flick to Candy, then back to me.
“We have a problem,” he says flatly.
I exhale through my nose, adjust myself, and pull my jeans back up. “This better be good.”
Candy looks between us, frozen.
“Out,” Vaska tells her.
She doesn’t need to be told twice. Grabs her purse and bolts.
I zip up, buckle my belt, and stand. “What?”
“You’re not supposed to touch the girls. Amato—”
“Fuck Amato, their stupid rule is, don’t touch the broken girls. Candy was never trafficked, she’s just a whore.”
Vaska exhales, closes the door and locks it. He steps closer. I don’t flinch. He wants to do this now, over a pair of tits? I’ll kill him where he stands.
“We have a fucking war on our hands. You’re at the helm and I will walk with you through every second of this war, but I will not sacrifice an inch of my life for you to fuck around. You’re the fucking Pakhan, be the Pakhan.”
“Watch yourself Vaska. If you start me I won’t stop.”
“And I’ll make sure you reap what you sow.”
I stare at him. Hard.
My jaw clenches so tight I hear my molars grind. The muscle in my neck jumps, and I feel the heat crawling up my spine—that familiar burn that says I’m about to do something stupid.
Vaska doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. Just stands there with his arms crossed, waiting for me to prove him right.
“You think I don’t know what I am?” I ask, voice low. Dangerous.
“I think you’re acting like you’ve got nothing to lose,” he says. “And that makes you reckless.”
“Reckless kept us alive.”
“Reckless got you locked in an psych ward for two years.”
My fist connects with his jaw before I realize I’ve moved.
He staggers back, hand flying to his face, but he doesn’t go down. Of course he doesn’t. Vaska’s taken worse.
He spits blood onto the expensive carpet and straightens, eyes blazing.
“Feel better?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
He laughs; short, bitter. “Go ahead then. Hit me again. Won’t change the fact that the Turks are currently on our territory while you’re getting your dick sucked by—what was it you called her again? A whore?”
I exhale roughly, fists still clenched.
He’s right.
I fucking hate that he’s right.
“The Turks,” I say finally, forcing my hands to unclench. “Where are they?”
***
I roar up to the corner on my motorcycle, engine snarling like a beast.
The Turks are sitting in a black SUV just down the block from Smash and Sugar like they belong here. Like they fucking own it.
I don’t wait.
I draw my Glock, aim, and fire. Glass shatters. The SUV jerks. Screams erupt from inside. One of them jumps out, gun raised. They open fire.
I swerve hard, the bike screaming beneath me as bullets tear through the air where my head was half a second ago. Concrete explodes beside me. I feel the spray of debris against my cheek. My heart slams against my ribs, but my hands stay steady.
Always steady when it matters.
I fire back—once, twice, and one of them drops hurt but not dead. The other ducks behind the open door.
More gunshots crack through the night. One catches my back tire.
The bike lurches. I feel it—that split second where physics decides whether I live or eat pavement.
I lean hard into the slide, boots scraping asphalt, sparks flying.
The world tilts sideways. My shoulder hits the ground first, then my hip, pain exploding through every nerve.
The bike skids away from me, metal shrieking against concrete.
I roll, come up on one knee, Glock still in hand.
My ribs scream. Blood runs warm down my arm—road rash or worse, doesn’t matter.
The Turks are advancing, guns raised.
I fire.
But they keep coming.
I need cover. Now.
My eyes snap to the only option—a car parked at the curb. Small sedan. Engine running. Someone inside.
I sprint, ignoring the fire in my side, and yank the driver’s door open. A girl stares up at me, eyes wide, hands frozen on her phone.
Dark hair. Dark eyes. Terrified.
“Get out,” I bark.
She doesn’t move. Just stares at me.
Bullets whizz by me.
“GET OUT!” I roar.
“No!” she screams back.
No time for this shit.
I holster my gun and grab her by the shirt, haul her across the center console into the passenger seat. She fights me—claws at my arms, kicks at my ribs, but I’m bigger, stronger, and running on pure adrenaline.
I shove myself into the driver’s seat, slam the door.
More gunshots hit the car.
I throw the car into drive and punch the gas.
This car is a piece of shit.
It groans like a dying animal but it moves.
The fucking Turks follow.
Bullets punch through the back windshield. Glass explodes inward. She shrieks, ducking low.
I check the rearview. The SUV’s on our ass, close enough I can see the driver’s face. He’s young. Angry. Probably thinks he’s going to impress the fucker Kaya by taking me out.
Not today.
I yank the wheel left, cutting through an intersection. Horns blare. A taxi swerves, nearly clips us.
The sedan handles like a drunk elephant, but I make it work.
“You’re going to get us killed!” she shouts.
“Just sit still.”
I reach for my gun, but my hand’s slick with blood. The adrenaline’s starting to fade, and I feel every inch of road rash burning across my shoulder and arm.
I need to shoot out their tires and end this. I roll down the window, twist in my seat—
That’s when I smell it.
Marshmallows?
What the fuck?
The scent hits me hard, sweet and wrong in the middle of a firefight. My focus splits for half a second.
The car drifts right.
“Stay in your lane!” she screams.
I jerk the wheel back, but we’re weaving now. The Turks fire again. My side mirror explodes in a shower of glass and plastic.
The girl grunts—angry, not scared. She lunges for the glove compartment, pops it open, and pulls out a gun.
A fucking gun.
“What the—”
She doesn’t answer. Just slides halfway out the passenger window, braces herself, and fires.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The SUV swerves. One of their front tires blows. The vehicle lurches, fishtails, and slams into a parked car.
She drops back into her seat, breathing hard, gun still in her hand.
I stare at her. “Who the fuck are you?”
She stares back, eyes blazing. “Get off the main road before the cops show up.”
I don’t argue.
I yank the wheel hard, take the next right down a side street. The engine whines like it’s begging me to stop. Blood’s still dripping down my arm, soaking into my shirt, and my ribs feel like someone took a sledgehammer to them.
“Where are we going?” she demands.
“Away from here.”
“That’s not a fucking answer.”
I glance at her—really look this time.
Dark hair spilling loose around her face, sharp eyes like cut glass, her jaw locked tight like she’s one wrong word away from biting.
She’s all angles and defiance. Her shirt hangs off one shoulder, the seam split clean down the fabric like it gave up trying to contain her, a flash of skin there that feels accidental and dangerous all at once.
And that smell.
That goddamn marshmallow scent is everywhere—sweet, soft, completely wrong for a girl who looks like she’d stab first and ask questions never. It clings to the car’s interior, seeps into my lungs, like she bathed in it and brought the trouble with her.
It’s distracting. Makes my head fuzzy in a way bullets don’t.
“You always keep a gun in your glove compartment?” I ask.
“You always carjack random people during shootouts?”
Fair.
I take another turn, checking the mirrors. No headlights. No sirens yet. We might’ve actually lost them.
My shoulder screams. I shift my grip on the wheel, feel the warm slide of blood on my skin.
“You’re bleeding,” she says flatly.
“I’m aware.”
“You need a hospital.”
“No hospitals.”
She laughs—sharp, bitter. “Of course not. Why would a Korsakov who just stole my car and got me shot at want medical attention?”
“No one shot at you. They shot at me.”
I pause.
“You know who I am.”
She glances at me. “Your hair is blue. There’s no other gangster walking around with neon hair.”
I can’t argue with that logic.