Chapter 27
Maksim
Pietro’s headlights stay in my rearview longer than they need to.
I should’ve told him to hang back farther. Ayla’s not stupid; she clocks shadows. But I need eyes on the townhouse, and I’m not ready to tell her she’s on a leash yet.
Not when I just fucked her over a bike like I was trying to screw the questions out of both of us.
I tighten my grip on the wheel.
She’ll scowl. Pace. Check the windows. Maybe decide she’s brave enough to step outside.
If she does, Pietro will call.
If anyone else so much as slows in front of that house, Pietro will put a bullet through their windshield.
The compound gates open without a pause, guards waving me through. The estate looms ahead, all old stone and newer money, lit up like it expects a king to actually live here instead of just haunt it between wars.
I pull up hard, kill the engine, and climb out.
My mood doesn’t improve when I step inside and hear them before I see them—my siblings, voices bleeding through the hall, too at home in a house that isn’t theirs.
I cut through the foyer and find them in the main sitting room like they own the place.
Kostya’s sprawled in an armchair, long legs kicked out, boots on my coffee table. Katya is perched on the arm of the opposite sofa, phone in hand, nails painted some dark shade that matches her patience level.
Low.
“Why are you two always in my house?” I snap, not bothering with hello.
Kostya’s mouth curls, lazy. Katya doesn’t even glance up at first.
“You’re never here,” she says, finally looking over her screen. “If it weren’t for me keeping up with the maintenance on this place, it would’ve collapsed by now.”
I snort. “Oh, you mean telling the maids what to do?”
Her eyes narrow. “Yes, Maksim, that’s called managing. You might try it sometime outside of murder and intimidation.”
Kostya barks a laugh. “Enough, always with the bickering.” He swings his boots off the table, leans forward, eyes bright with the kind of trouble that makes my teeth ache. “Where’s the pretty girl?”
My jaw locks.
He knows damn well where she is. Or where she was the last time he decided to test my trigger discipline.
I give him a flat look that should say drop it.
He doesn’t.
“What?” he says standing. “If you’re done with her, I want a turn.”
Something in my chest goes cold.
I move before Katya can sigh, before Kostya can finish breathing that sentence out. My hand is fisted in his shirt collar in a blink, the other forearm slamming across his chest as I drive him back into the wall hard enough to rattle the frame behind his head.
Kostya’s taller; it’s infuriating. The wall takes some of it away.
His breath leaves on a laugh anyway.
“There he is,” he says, grinning down at me like an idiot. “I was starting to worry you’d gone soft, brother.”
I shove harder, my forearm digging into his throat now.
“Say that again,” I murmur. “About taking a turn.”
His hands stay loose at his sides. A trust I’m not sure he deserves.
“I’m kidding,” he croaks, still amused. “Mostly.”
Katya’s voice slices through the tension like a blade.
“Can we not redecorate with brain matter today?” she snaps. “We need to discuss actual things. Are you two fucking done?”
I don’t look away from Kostya.
“This is an actual thing,” I tell her. “If he keeps talking about Ayla, they’re going to be scraping him off this wall in strips.”
Kostya’s eyes flicker, something sharp sliding behind the humor. “Touchy,” he says quietly. “We always share, why not her?”
“We don’t share, you take my left overs and I’m not done.”
I push my forearm harder before pushing off of him hard.
He rubs his neck. “Surveillance says otherwise,” he mutters gesturing toward the cameras above. “You fucked her already, what’s the problem.”
“You’re fucked up for watching.”
He chuckles dark. “Never said I wasn’t.”
“Enough!” Katya shouts, her face pulled in disgust. “Nikolai called, he wants to know why this house is empty. Why you’re not running the Bratva from it.”
Nikolai. Our fucking father.
“If Nikolai has questions he has my number.”
Katya sighs her shoulders slumping. “When are you going to get over that shit. You’re the head of the organization you wanted, move the fuck on.”
“You’re one to talk about moving the fuck on, Princess.”
Kostya chuckles. “I say bulldoze the place. If dad has a hardon for this house, burn it.”
“No!” Katya’s hand presses to her chest. “The memories...”
“Of?” Kostya and I echo.
“Beatings?” Kostya mutters.
“Getting shot,” I add.
“Oh!” Kostya chimes throwing himself on the couch “The time dad took the cat—”
“No!” Katya cuts off, her hands on her ears. “Stop.”
She takes a breath, composing herself. “We all grew up here. It deserves to have good memories. Maksim what if you have kids—”
I snort “Fucking kids? Hell no.”
Kostya laughs. “Maksim with children? You mean an army of tiny sadists he’ll create?”
Katya opens her mouth, but I interrupt.
“Cut the daddies princess act, turns out you’re not the only one.”
Katya gasps and Kostya sits up straight.
“You got the results?” Katya whispers, her eyes already threatening to spill.
I nod. “Yes we have two more sisters. Congratulations to us.”
Kostya shakes his head. “Blyad!”
“Are we telling them?” Katya asks.
“No. Let them be.”
Kostya slumps back into the couch. “Let them be? Those are our sisters, Maks.”
“Half-sisters,” I correct, heading to the bar cart across the room. “And they’re better off not knowing who their real father is.”
I pour a generous splash of vodka into a glass, not bothering to offer any to my siblings. The liquid burns pleasantly going down, dulling the edge of my irritation.
“Nikolai wouldn’t want them to know anyway,” I add. “He kept that secret from all of us.”
Katya’s face softens. “Are they at least safe.”
I nod once. “One’s married, one’s in school. Both have money. Both have guards.” I take another swig. “They don’t need to know anything different.”
“And what if they find out?” Kostya asks. “What if—?”
“Then they find out,” I say flatly. “But I’m not revealing family fucking secrets to everyone. It weakens us.”
The room falls silent for a moment. I can feel my siblings watching me.
“What’s going on with Ayla?” Katya asks suddenly.
My glass pauses halfway to my lips. “What do you mean?”
“What is she? What are you doing with her Maks?” She’s studying me with that piercing look she gets when she thinks she’s seeing more than I want her to. “I’ve heard around the compound that you’re keeping her close. Stabbing your men. That’s not like you with women.”
“You don’t know shit.” The words come out harsher than I intend.
Kostya exchanges a look with Katya that makes me want to break something.
“What?” I snap.
Kostya shrugs. “Nothing. Just... you’ve never kept a woman this long before. Usually it’s fuck and forget. You won’t share her, are you bringing her in?”
Him and fucking sharing.
I snap. “What she is or isn’t to the Bratva is none of your fucking business.”
Katya sighs dramatically. “Everything about the Bratva is our concern, Maksim. If you’re making her something more than a distraction—”
“I’m not.”
Kostya rises, stretching like a lazy cat. “I think he’s telling the truth, he let Vaska touch her,” he says, grinning, all teeth. “I watched it on surveillance.”
My body goes cold.
“What?”
“Yeah, knives out and everything.”
For a second, I don’t breathe.
With Vaska, knives only ever mean two things—blood or pleasure, and I don’t know which picture makes me sicker.
Did he test her? Train her? Put a blade to her throat the way he does when he’s playing with someone he wants to break slow?
Or did he press steel to her skin when he fucked her?
Heat roars in my ears.
Either way, he’s dead.
Kostya saunters toward the door, Katya following with a last backward glance at me. “Don’t kill Vaska.”
The door clicks shut behind them.
I pour another glass of vodka and toss it back. It hits my stomach like ice instead of fire.
I set the glass down carefully, because if I don’t, I’ll shatter it. The room feels too small, walls pressing in with memories I don’t want. I roll my shoulders once, then head for the back door.
The night outside is cool, air biting at the sweat on my neck. The compound is quiet in that false way—guards on patrol, cameras humming, engines cooling somewhere in the distance. Vaska’s place is next door, close enough that if either of us calls out, the other will hear it.
I take the path between the houses, boots grinding gravel. Every step, my mind drags up another reason to turn around.
Vaska wouldn’t touch Ayla.
Not like that.
He’s my right hand. The first one who chose me when everything went to shit. When I slit his father’s throat in this very compound—steel deep, blood everywhere—he didn’t even scream.
He came to visit me in that ward. Eyes bright with something like relief.
“Spasibo,” he’d said, voice steady. “You did what I couldn’t.”
He never held it against me. Never once used it as leverage, never turned on me. Not when Nikolai pushed. Not when others thought I couldn’t lead.
Loyal to the bone.
Loyal to me.
My jaw flexes. I shove my hands into my pockets before I decide to break them on a wall.
Vaska wouldn’t hurt what’s mine.
He wouldn’t put a blade to her just to see how she bleeds. He wouldn’t put his hands on her throat and call it fun.
He wouldn’t touch her.
He wouldn’t—
My feet are already on his porch.
There’s a light on inside, strip of it glowing at the base of the door. Curtains drawn. The cameras above the eaves follow me as I climb the steps.
I don’t knock.
My hand closes around the handle, and I crank it hard. The lock gives with a sharp, satisfying protest as I shoulder through the door.
The house smells like oil, leather, and steel. I step into the living room, every nerve wired for blood.
He’s there.
Waiting.
Vaska’s sprawled in a chair like he has all the time in the world, one ankle resting on his knee, elbow hooked over the back. There’s that damn knife in his hand, lazy between his fingers, spinning slow.
He smiles when he sees me. A sharp, knowing curl of his mouth.
“Took you long enough,” he drawls.
My gaze cuts to the knife, then back to his face. He’s not surprised. Not even close.
Fucking Katya.
Of course she warned him.
“Ask what you want.”
I don’t answer right away. I study him.
“What happened?” I demand.
Vaska leans back, studying me with that analytical stare that makes most men confess before he even asks a question.
“We sparred,” he says simply. “She’s quick. Smart. Has good instincts.” He pauses, twirling the blade once more. “She drew blood.”
My chest tightens with something like pride. “She what?”
“Not much.” He shows me his forearm where a thin red line is still visible—shallow, healing. “Just enough to make a point.”
“And then?”
“And then nothing.” He shrugs. “We talked.”
“You interrogated. About?”
“About what she wants.” His eyes lock on mine, searching. “What she plans to do now that she belongs to you.”
The word ‘belongs’ slides under my skin like a barb. It’s what I wanted. What I demanded. What I told her when I pinned her against that wall.
But hearing it from Vaska makes it feel different. Like it’s not just between us anymore.
“What did she say?” I ask, voice lower now.
Vaska’s smile fades. “Nothing useful. That woman of yours deflects well.” He sets the knife down on the table between us, a deliberate gesture. “But she’s hiding something.”
“Everyone’s hiding something.”
“Not like this.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You know I ran her background. Orphan. Three jobs. Petty theft record from when she was a teenager.” He pauses. “It’s clean. Too clean.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that it feels constructed.” His voice drops. “Like someone built it.”
The implication hangs in the air between us. My jaw tightens.
“You think she’s working for someone?”
It’s not a question. It’s the fear that’s been gnawing at the back of my skull since I first saw her. Since I first wanted her.
Vaska doesn’t answer right away. He’s watching me too carefully.
“I think,” he says slowly, “that you’re in too deep with her too fast. And I think that makes you vulnerable.”
I move before I can stop myself, crossing the room in three strides. My hand slams down on the arm of his chair, face inches from his.
“I’m not vulnerable,” I growl.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just looks at me with the same calm stare he’s had since we were kids.
“You are,” he says quietly. “And that makes her dangerous.”
For a second, neither of us speaks. The only sound is our breathing and the distant hum of the security system.
“If she’s playing you,” Vaska continues, voice still low, “you said you’d handle it.” He hesitates. “If she isn’t, then we need to protect her, bring her in.”
I straighten slowly, taking a step back. The anger is still there, simmering under my skin, but it’s directed somewhere else now. Not at him. Not at her.
At the possibility of bringing her in. Moving her into the compound. Part of the Bratva.
A title.
“What did you see when you were with her?” I ask, forcing the words out.
Vaska tilts his head, considering. “Someone who knows how to survive. Someone who’s been watching and learning every second she’s been with us.” His eyes meet mine again. “She quiet Maks, but she studies.”
“Keep watching her,” I say finally. “But don’t touch her again.”
My phone rings. Pietro. I swipe it to answer.
“What?”
“She left. Want me to tail her?”
“No. I’ll hunt her down.”