Chapter 31 Maksim
Maksim
Beda’s already up here when I turn, wind in her hair, city lights behind her like a crown she didn’t earn.
The skirt I bought her sits on her hips like a dare.
Black. Short. Mean.
Fishnets climb her thighs in a pattern that makes my mind go dark on instinct, and the boots—heavy, ruthless, make her look like she could kick a man to death and laugh while she does it.
The purple streaks threaded through her hair catch the street lights when she shifts, violet bruising in the brown, and I want to fist it just to see if she’d whimper or bite.
My gaze drags down her body slowly, deliberately, so she knows exactly what I’m doing.
Because I already said it.
Because she already heard me.
Mine.
Not a question. Not a wish. A fact.
Her throat moves when she swallows, and the little flash of tension in her posture tells me my stare lands where I want it to.
Her hands are tucked into her sleeves like she’s trying to hide them. Like she’s trying to hide something else, too.
I don’t trust calm on her.
I hear her shift. A soft inhale, sharp like she’s swallowing a nerve.
“Hey,” she says.
I tilt my head just enough. “Hey.”
Her eyes flick up, then away, like she’s pretending she’s not staring at my face to see if I’m in a mood.
She’s gotten good at reading mine, which is a problem I haven’t decided how to solve yet.
I take one slow step toward her. Not close enough to touch.
Close enough that she has to decide whether she’s going to back up.
She doesn’t.
Her voice comes up casual, too casual—“That laptop that fell in your office.”
The words slide into my chest sharp.
I keep my expression flat. “What about it?”
Her shoulders lift in a shrug that’s rehearsed. “Is it broken?”
A normal question. A small question. A nothing question.
But her voice is too careful.
I move again—quiet, deliberate—until she’s within my space. Until the wind that’s been between us isn’t there anymore.
I don’t grab her. I don’t need to.
I angle my body around hers like I’m circling prey that already belongs to me, and her chin lifts a fraction on instinct, throat exposed like she’s bracing for impact.
I meet her eyes, letting her feel my attention land. “Do you need a laptop?”
Her eyes flash. “No.”
“Then why are you asking about mine?”
Her mouth opens like she’s about to bite back, then she catches herself. A pause. A fraction too long.
I watch it. Store it. Pin it to the wall inside my head.
I lean in, my nose skims along the line of her jaw, slow, possessive. I breathe her in like I’m taking inventory. Like her scent is proof of ownership.
Her breath catches anyway. Betrays her.
My mouth brushes her ear when I speak, voice low enough to be private, sharp enough to be a warning.
“Why are you lying to me?”
She stiffens, then snaps like she’s offended. Like she’s not the one who just circled something sharp.
“Why are you asking me extra questions?” she says. “Get back to your usual banter.”
I pull back just enough to look at her.
Hungry.
My gaze drops, fishnets, skirt, boots—then returns to her mouth.
“You want banter,” I murmur. “Or you want me to stop paying attention?”
Her chin lifts, defiant. “I want you to stop interrogating me.”
“I’m not interrogating.” I tilt my head, slow. “I’m listening to what you’re not saying.”
She rolls her eyes, but her pulse jumps at her throat. “You’re insane.”
“I am.” My lips brush her neck, my tongue tracing her pulse. She shudders until my touch. “Answer me.”
“I was curious,” she breathes out, too fast again. “That’s it.”
I hum low, unimpressed. “Curious about where my things go.”
“Curious about the laptop,” she snaps. “You swiped it off the desk. It hit the floor. It made a sound like you killed it. I wanted to know if it’s broken.”
My mouth twitches with something darker. “Do you need a laptop, Beda?”
“No.”
“Then why do you want mine?”
“I don’t want your—” She cuts herself off, irritation flashing. “God. Stop twisting everything.”
I lean closer, crowding her by an inch. “If you want a laptop, I’ll buy you one.”
Her eyes narrow. “I didn’t ask you to buy me anything.”
“I’m not asking.” My gaze holds hers. “Use the card I gave you.”
She steps back, taking all her sweet scent with her like she’s punishing me for wanting it.
“It was just curiosity, Maksim,” she says, quick. “Don’t make it a thing.”
I stare at her long enough that the wind fills the space between us. Her breath stutters. She hates silence. She fills it with attitude because it’s the only armor she has.
I don’t give her what she wants right away.
Then I say, flat and final, “Nothing broken from my office goes in the trash.”
Her body betrays her.
Not much. Just a microscopic release—like a fist unclenching inside her ribcage. Like her lungs remember they’re allowed to work.
I watch it happen, and something cold settles in my gut.
She wasn’t curious.
She was checking.
“Okay,” she says, too light. “So where does it go?”
“To Dimitri.”
Her eyes flicker. “Dimitri?”
“He handles it.” I keep my voice bored, like this is ordinary—because it is. “Wipes it. Strips it. Fixes it or kills it.”
She nods like she doesn’t care, but she swallows hard after, and her gaze drifts past me to the ledge.
The city yawns beneath us.
My attention snaps to her feet. To the angle of her body. To the way she’s standing like she’s thinking about edges.
I take another step closer without meaning to.
“Why do you look relieved?” I ask.
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
She scoffs, thin. “Maybe I’m relieved you’re not going to complain about a laptop for six months.”
“I don’t complain.”
She rolls her eyes hard. “Why’d you tell me to come up here anyway—trying to end me?”
Her smirk hits, and my stomach tightens like a fist.
“No, Beda, if I wanted to end you, you’d know it.”
Her body stiffens.
“I brought you up here because I use to jump between buildings when I was younger.”
She looks around the city skyline. “You would jump? Do you own these buildings?”
I move around her slowly, a predator with time, until I’m behind her. Close enough that my chest brushes her back when the wind shifts. I let one hand slide down her arm, capture her wrist, lift her hand like I’m teaching her how to aim a gun.
Her breath hitches. Her body goes tight and alive.
“Da, all except that one,” I breathe by her ear guiding her hand to point to a building in the distance. “That one I share with a Beaumont.”
Her head turns back and up sharply. “You? Share?”
I can’t stop the chuckle that escapes. She turns in my arms. Her eyes lock on mine, swallowing me for a moment before catching my lips, she steps back.
“Why jump? Not afraid of the fall? Of dying?”
I shake my head slow. That’s an easy answer. “No. Death is part of life.”
I step around her, closer to the ledge.
The wind whips my face as I lean over, peering at the rooftop across the alley like it’s just another sidewalk crack to step over. Forty feet down is concrete and blood-splattered headlines. Between here and there? A jump and muscle memory.
I’ve been jumping off things since I was ten—back when falling meant scraped knees instead of broken necks.
She stands behind me, arms folded, skeptical as hell.
“Are you trying to say you’re what—willing to die?” she asks, voice sharp.
I glance over my shoulder. Smirk. “Life’s about living. If you die, you die. Shit happens.”
She narrows her eyes. “So nothing and no one matters?”
I shrug. “People are as temporary as things. Even family. There’s always a replacement.
They’ll survive without me. Parents make extra kids for spares.
The Bratva has a hierarchy for when the Pakhan gets his brains blown out.
” I lift one shoulder. “No one’s irreplaceable.
You live, then you die. Everything in between… that’s the only part worth anything.”
She nods once, slow. “So no one matters.”
The way she says it, no outrage, no tears, just calm. Accepting. Like she’s filing it away.
I wait for the usual reaction from women. The lecture. The savior look.
She doesn’t give it to me. She kicks off her boots.
My smirk curves automatically. “You gonna hop to the next roof, Beda?”
She steps up onto the ledge instead.
Barefoot. Wind teasing her hair. Arms loose at her sides like she’s weightless, or reckless, or both.
Then she turns—
Toward me.
My chest tightens. Just a twitch. But enough.
She shakes her head. “No,” she says, quiet. “I’m going to fall.”
It takes half a second to register. Then she leans back. Everything in me snaps.
“Ayla!”
I lunge and catch her by the waist, yanking her off the edge so hard we crash to the rooftop. Gravel bites my spine. Doesn’t matter. I’ve got her pinned to me, arms locked like restraints, like I’m the only thing between her and the drop.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” The words come out rough, ugly—rage trying to cover panic. I bury my face in her hair without thinking, inhale like I’m checking she’s real. “What the hell were you trying to do?”
She’s shaking. I can feel it.
Shaking with laughter—soft, breathless, insane, into my chest like I just told the funniest joke in the world.
I jerk back, hands gripping her shoulders hard enough to leave marks. “Why the fuck are you laughing?”
She lifts her chin.
Her eyes meet mine, steady, shimmering, unapologetic.
“I thought people don’t matter,” she murmurs, that smirk like a razor. “Guess I do.”
My jaw locks.
I want to be furious. I want to shake her. I want to drag her away from this ledge and lock her in my bedroom and never let her near open air again.
But my heart is still hammering like a weapon, and her mouth is carved into the moment.
Because the truth is brutal and simple:
She matters.
And I already told her she’s mine, which means if she falls, she takes something out of me with her.