Chapter 17 Maksim
Maksim
She freezes for half a second. Just half.
Then she jerks away.
Too late.
One arm locks around her waist before she can slip past me, muscle remembering the movement before my brain bothers to justify it. She hits me hard—palm slamming into my shoulder, then my ribs. I grunt, more surprised than hurt.
For someone who barely eats, she’s vicious.
“Let me go!” she snaps, elbow driving back with intent this time.
I lift her off the floor with a little more effort than I expected, she fights like an animal caught in a trap. All teeth and instinct and refusal. Her heel clips my thigh. Her fist finds my shoulder again.
“Stop it!”
I don’t answer.
I adjust my grip, one arm hooked under her thighs, the other braced across her back, and swing her over my shoulder in one smooth motion. Her breath punches out of her when she lands against me, ribs hitting bone.
She starts kicking immediately.
Wild. Uncoordinated. Angry.
Good.
It tells me she’s still conscious. Still in this.
“This is kidnapping!” she yells, pounding her fists into my back.
I open the door, steady and deliberate, timing my steps so she doesn’t crack her head against the frame when I nudge it open the rest of the way with my foot.
“I’ll let you file a complaint later,” I say calmly. “When you can stand without shaking.”
“I just need to rest.”
“You can rest at home.”
“This is my home, you psycho!”
I step into the night with her. “I meant my home.”
She lands another solid hit against my shoulder, and this one stings. I almost smile.
Then she bites me.
Right into the back of my arm. Teeth sinking through fabric, sharp and furious.
I stop.
Slowly, I lift my arm and glance at her where she’s hanging half off my shoulder, jaw locked around my jacket sleeve like she’s decided this is the hill she’ll die on.
“Did you just bite me?”
She releases me with a glare that could strip paint. “You’re not exactly giving me many options here, Maksim.”
I stare at her for a long second.
Then I shift her higher against my shoulder, settling her weight like it belongs there.
“Bite all you want,” I say. “You’re coming with me.”
Her fist tightens in my jacket. I feel it. The tension. The preparation. Another hit coming.
I brace for it.
Because for all the scratching and kicking and teeth—
She hasn’t asked me to put her down.
“Maksim!” she shouts.
“You’re done fighting,” I tell her calmly. “You don’t have the strength.”
“Fuck you—”
“You have two options. Option one,” I continue, already moving toward the car, “I put you in the trunk.”
Her body goes still.
“Option two,” I say, opening the car door, “you get in voluntarily.”
I stop.
Wait.
She sags against me, the resistance draining out of her all at once, like someone finally cut power to a live wire. Not defeated.
Just out of fuel.
“Okay. Put me down,” she mutters.
I set her on her feet carefully, keeping one hand at her back until she finds the wall and steadies herself.
She doesn’t look at me.
But she doesn’t run.
She gets into the car without another word. I wait until she’s buckled in before closing my door, starting the engine, pulling away from the curb. The building disappears in the mirror.
I glance at her.
She’s pressed into the passenger seat like she’s bracing for impact, one hand flat against the door, breathing shallow. Every movement is measured.
“Where’s your phone?” I ask, eyes on the road.
She hesitates. “Why?”
Because someone hurt you badly enough that you stopped running.
Because you smell like blood and cheap soap.
Because your ribs are guarding themselves like they expect another hit.
“Because I’m asking.”
She doesn’t answer.
I reach across the console and slip my hand into the pocket of her hoodie before she can react.
She stiffens, swats at my wrist too late.
I pull the phone free.
“What are you doing?” she snaps.
“Checking.”
“For what?”
I don’t answer.
I scroll as I drive. Messages cleared. No missed calls.
Location services: On.
My jaw tightens a fraction at a time with each swipe. There are gaps where there shouldn’t be gaps. Silence where there should be noise.
It’s a pattern.
I don’t need more than that.
My grip tightens on the phone.
“You can’t just take that,” she says. “That’s mine.”
“And the brass knuckles were mine.”
I roll the window down and flick my wrist.
The phone disappears into the dark, vanishing behind us in a single clean arc.
She freezes.
“What the hell did you just do?” Her voice is sharp now. Angry.
“Removed a problem,” I say.
She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You threw my phone out the window.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because whoever touched you doesn’t get to find you again.
Because I know what happens when someone thinks they still own a body that escaped them.
Because if they come looking—
I tighten my grip on the wheel.
“No one can track you now,” I say instead.
Silence stretches between us, thick and brittle.
She turns toward the window, jaw set, shoulders tight. I catch the way she winces when the car hits a bump. The way her breath hitches before she smooths it out.
I memorize it.
Every bruise I can’t see yet. Every injury she’s pretending doesn’t exist.
I don’t say anything else. If I do, I’ll stop driving. And if I stop—
Someone dies.
So I keep my eyes on the road and my mouth shut, and I drive her straight to Moronov’s clinic with murder coiled tight in my chest, waiting for a name.
I pull into the lot of Dr. Yeva Moronov’s clinic; Vaska’s mother is always on call for me. Luckily tonight is no different.
I don’t wait for the engine to cool before I’m out, rounding the car in three long strides. She’s still sitting there when I yank her door open, staring at nothing through the windshield like she’s calculating how much fight she has left.
Not enough.
I know that before she does.
“Come on,” I say.
She doesn’t move.
I reach in, slide one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. She tenses immediately, hands coming up to push at my chest, but the movement is sluggish. Weak.
“I can walk,” she mutters.
“No, you can’t.”
I lift her out of the car, and this time she doesn’t fight. Just goes rigid in my arms, jaw clenched so tight I hear her teeth grinding.
The clinic door swings open before I reach it.
Yeva stands in the doorway, red hair pulled back, white coat pristine despite the hour. Her eyes sweep over Ayla once, clinical and sharp, before landing on me.
“Examination room two,” she says without preamble. “It’s clean.”
I carry Ayla inside.
The smell hits immediately—antiseptic and old blood, exactly like I remember. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh white. Ayla’s breathing picks up, shallow and quick.
She doesn’t like it here. I don’t blame her.
“No hospitals,” she groans softly.
“This isn’t a hospital.”
I push through the door to exam room two and set her down on the table as carefully as I can manage. She winces anyway, hands immediately going to her ribs.
“Don’t,” I say, catching her wrists. “Let Moronov look first.”
She glares at me. “I said I’m fine.”
“And I said you’re not.”
Moronov enters, closing the door behind her with a soft click. She moves to the sink, washing her hands with methodical precision.
“Name?” she asks without turning around.
“Ayla,” I answer when she doesn’t.
“Can she speak for herself?”
Ayla’s eyes flash. “Yes.”
Yeva dries her hands, turns to face us both. Her gaze settles on Ayla with the kind of assessment that misses nothing.
“I’m going to need you to remove the hoodie,” she says gently.
Ayla doesn’t move.
“Ayla—” I start.
“No I’m not removing clothes with you in here and I don’t need anything, but sleep I told you,” she snaps.
Yeva wraps a hand around my arm and switches to Russian.
“Maksim, where did you find her? If she’s been assaulted she may not want—”
“She hasn’t,” I fire back quickly and freeze.
The word lands wrong.
Ayla’s glare cuts to me, sharp enough to draw blood. And suddenly I don’t know. The possibility twists low and ugly in my gut.
I switch back to English.
“She needs a full workup,” I demand. Flat. Final.
Ayla’s head snaps toward Moronov “I don’t. I just need—”
“Full,” I repeat, sharper. “Top to bottom.”
Moronov’s brows rise slightly. “Maksim, maybe—”
Ayla opens her mouth.
“She’s obviously been battered,” I cut in.
“I have not, I fell. Down some stairs,” she snaps, but her eyes shift.
I turn to her slowly. “Did you? Because I’ve seen people fall. This isn’t from a fall.”
Her jaw tightens. She doesn’t look scared. She looks insulted.
“I don’t need a doctor,” she says.
There it is. That flicker of pride. That refusal to bend. Ayla looks away. Just for a second.
And that’s enough.
My chest tightens—sharp, unwelcome. I don’t name it. I crush it.
“You’re getting checked,” I say firm. “All of you. Right now.”
“I don’t need—”
“I need to know you’re clean before I fuck you,” I spit.
The room goes silent.
Moronov stills. Ayla goes rigid. She doesn’t flinch. She glares.
Good.
Anger I can handle. Anger keeps things simple.
Her mouth opens, then closes again. She says nothing.
She just looks at me like I’m something she stepped in.
“Take off the hoodie or I’ll rip it off.”
I don’t look away.
Moronov studies us both, then nods once. “Ayla. Just the hoodie for now.”
Ayla exhales sharply and pulls it over her head. She’s wearing a plain bra. Nothing pretty. Nothing inviting. I barely register it.
What I see instead stops me cold.
Bruises.
Everywhere.
Yellowed ones. Fresh ones. Deep purples along her ribs, her shoulders, the curve of her arms. Finger-shaped. Boot-shaped. Some faded, some angry and new.
My vision narrows.
I move without thinking, circling her slowly, eyes tracking each mark like a ledger. Her back is worse—dark blooms across her spine, one shoulder blade mottled like it took the brunt of something heavy.
My jaw locks.
Who the fuck would do this to her?
Why?
Moronov’s voice stays calm, professional. “Ayla, I’m going to need you to remove the leggings as well.”
Ayla’s head stays down, but she nods once.
I don’t.
Something inside me finally gives.
I turn away before she can move, before I see anything else, before I lose whatever control I’m still holding onto.
“I’ll be outside,” I say.
It comes out rougher than I intend.
Moronov meets my eyes. She understands immediately.
I leave the room without another word, the door closing softly behind me.
The hallway feels too small. Too bright.
I brace my hands on the wall and breathe through my nose, slow and controlled, counting until the images stop flashing behind my eyes.
Because if I stay—
I will kill someone.
It takes two agonizing hours of tests and imaging before Moronov steps out of the room for good.
“So?” I ask voice rough from disuse.
Moronov’s expression doesn’t change, but her eyes tell me everything.
“Blood work’s clean, but she’s malnourished. Dehydrated. Multiple contusions in various stages of healing. Two cracked ribs—old injuries, partially healed. Bruising consistent with repeated blunt force trauma.”
My hands curl into fists.
“Sexual assault?” The words taste like acid.
“No evidence of that,” she says. “But she’s been systematically beaten. This wasn’t random violence, Maksim. Someone does this to her regularly.”
The hallway tilts. I force it straight again.
“How long?”
“Weeks. Maybe months. Some of these injuries are old. She’s been living with this.”
I don’t respond. Can’t.
Moronov continues, her voice softening just slightly. “She also has old fractures that healed improperly. Her left wrist. Two fingers on her right hand. A collarbone. These are years old.”
Years.
“Is she okay to walk on her own?” I ask.
“Yes. But she needs rest. Real rest. And food. Actual meals, not whatever she’s been surviving on.”
I nod once.
“I gave her something for the pain,” Moronov adds. “She refused anything stronger. She’s a stubborn girl.”
“Yeah.”
“Maksim.” Her hand touches my arm. “Whoever did this to her—if you find them, make sure they can’t be patched up after.”
I meet her eyes. “I will.”
She nods, satisfied, and steps aside.
I push the door open.
Ayla sits on the examination table, hoodie back on, arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes find mine immediately—wary, defensive, waiting for whatever comes next.
I don’t say anything.
I just move toward her, careful and deliberate, and lift her off the table. She doesn’t fight this time. Just lets me carry her out to the car, silent and small in my arms.
The drive back to my place is quiet.
She stares out the window, breathing shallow, lost somewhere I can’t follow.
I glance at her every few seconds. Checking. Making sure she’s still conscious. Still here.
“Will you tell me who did this to you?” I ask finally.
Silence.
“Ayla.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
She turns her head, meets my eyes for just a second before looking away again.
“Why?” she asks quietly. “Why do you care?”
I don’t have an answer that makes sense.
I don’t have words for whatever the fuck this is between us.
So I tell her the only truth I know.
“Because I’m keeping you.”
Her breath catches. “You’re not—”
“Yes, I am.”