Chapter 37
Ayla
The first thing I register is that Maksim isn’t in bed.
The second is that he’s still in the room.
I don’t open my eyes all the way at first. Just enough to catch the shape of morning through the hotel curtains, pale light cutting weak stripes across the floor and the end of the bed.
My body feels heavy, loose with leftover vodka and sleep and the deep, boneless exhaustion that always seems to follow him.
Then I turn.
Something pulls low on my side.
A sharp, hot sting, wrong enough to tear me all the way awake.
I suck in a breath and freeze.
For one second, I just lie there, heart starting to pound for reasons my body understands before my mind does. The sheets are twisted around my legs. His shirt has ridden up one side of me in the night. Something on my hip feels tight. Covered. Tender in a way that doesn’t belong to sex.
My hand slides down instinctively.
Smooth.
Plastic.
My stomach drops.
I push up onto one elbow too fast and the room swims into focus around me—the open suitcase by the door, another one beside it, zipped shut. Dark clothes. Packed.
And Maksim.
He’s sitting in the chair by the window like he’s been there a while.
Dressed.
Awake.
Watching me.
Just watching me wake up.
A horrible, sick little chill works down my spine.
My fingers catch at the edge of the clear bandage on my hip. Under the film, something dark blurs beneath trapped fluid—ink, maybe blood, maybe both. My pulse is so loud now it drowns everything else out.
“What the fuck—”
The words barely make it out.
He doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t move either. That’s what does it. That stillness. That waiting.
My eyes snap to his pillow.
Then I’m moving.
I lunge across the bed, yank the pillow up, and wrap my hand around the grip of his gun.
“Maksim—”
I whirl back toward him, dragging the sheet with me, already bringing the gun up. By the time I’m on my knees in the middle of the mattress, hair wild, shirt shoved up my thigh, arm locked straight, the barrel is aimed right between his eyes.
My chest heaves.
He looks at the gun. Then back at me.
And says nothing.
His silence burns through me like acid.
I’m trembling now, hands unsteady on the gun but not enough to matter at this range. Every part of my brain is screaming, racing to catch up while adrenaline floods my system.
“What did you do to me?” My voice sounds strange in my ears—thin, cracking at the edges. “Maksim, what the fuck did you do?”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink. Just watches me with those cold blue eyes, tracking every shake, every breath.
“Why don’t you look at it,” he finally says.
The words land like stones. Flat. Final.
“No.” I press the muzzle of the gun harder into the air between us. “Tell me what you did while I was sleeping.”
His mouth curves, just barely. Not a smile. Something worse.
“You weren’t sleeping,” he says quietly. “You passed out.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
“The vodka.” He nods once toward the empty bottle on the nightstand. “You drank too much, even you said you were drunk.”
I feel the color drain from my face. My finger twitches against the trigger.
“Did you drug me?” The words come out hollow with disbelief. “Did you fucking drug me?”
He doesn’t say anything. Just steps closer.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Until the barrel is nearly touching him.
My breath catches. “Maksim—”
He plants both palms on the mattress, one on either side of my knees, and lowers himself into my space like he’s closing the distance on purpose. His forehead lines up with the gun.
Then he pushes into it.
Firm.
My stomach drops.
“Do it,” he whispers.
My finger tightens instinctively. “You think I won’t?”
His eyes lock on mine. “I think you can.”
The words hit harder than if he’d laughed.
Harder than if he’d mocked me.
Because there’s no doubt in them. No patronizing edge. No attempt to talk me down.
Just truth.
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
He stays there, forehead pressed to the gun, hands flat on the bed, caging me in and offering me the shot at the same time.
“If you want out,” he says, voice flat, almost calm, “take it.”
I stare at him.
He goes on like each word costs him nothing. Like that’s the lie he’s choosing.
“Take the card. Empty what you can. Get on a plane. Don’t go back home. Don’t come back here.”
My mouth parts.
He means it. Or wants me to think he does.
“You wanted to disappear,” he says. “Do it.”
The gun feels heavier all of a sudden.
I hate him.
I hate that he sounds like he knows me.
I hate that he sounds like he’s handing me a future with blood already all over it.
I hate that some ugly, vicious part of me understands exactly why he’d rather offer me an exit than ask me to stay.
“You don’t get to decide that for me either,” I snap.
Something shifts in his face. Small. Quick.
Gone.
Then I see it.
White gauze under the collar of his shirt.
At first I think it’s nothing. A bandage. A scrape. Something from last night, maybe. Then he moves, and the edge of it pulls.
Too low.
Too wide.
My eyes narrow. “What is that?”
He doesn’t answer.
His silence cuts through me like another betrayal.
I lunge forward, grabbing at his collar before I can stop myself. The gun stays trained on him in one hand while the other yanks the fabric down.
White gauze. Clean. Fresh. Covering his chest in a patch that’s too deliberate to be random.
“Take it off,” I demand, voice shaking. “Show me what you did.”
He catches my wrist before I can rip the bandage away myself. His grip is firm but not cruel. It makes me want to shoot him more.
“Are you sure you want to see?”
My voice rises despite my efforts to control it. “Take it off. Now.”
His jaw tightens, but he releases my wrist, pulls off his shirt and slowly peels back the edge of his bandage. I catch a glimpse of raw, reddened skin beneath.
My stomach twists. “You tattooed yourself too?”
“Look at yours first.”
I shake my head, the gun wavering but not dropping. “No. Show me yours.”
For a moment, I think he’ll refuse. Then he rips the bandage off in one quick motion.
My breath catches.
Raw letters slash across the blank space over his heart.
My name.
AYLA.
Angry and red and uneven against his skin, the cuts swollen at the edges, nothing like the clean precision of a tattoo. He carved it there. Deliberately. Deep enough to scar.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, horror crawling through me. “You carved my name into your skin!”
“With your knife.” His fingers brush the edge of the wound. “It’ll scar.”
My breath hitches.
“Now you,” he says, voice flat but eyes burning into mine. “Look at what I’ve done to you.”
I shake my head again, unable to look away from my name etched into his skin. “You’re insane.”
“Look at yours.”
His tone leaves no room, and despite myself, despite the gun still in my hand, I hook two fingers under the edge of the clear film on my hip and yank.
The seal tears loose with a wet sting.
Fluid slips free immediately—ink-dark, tinged red, running warm down my thigh and onto the sheets.
My stomach turns.
“What the fuck—”
Maksim doesn’t even flinch.
“Don’t worry,” he says, maddeningly calm. “I have another one.”
I look up at him in disbelief.
“Another one?”
“Another film.”
I look down at what he’s done. It’s small. Black. Professional.
In cyrillic.
My head snaps to him. “Is that your fucking name?”
“Da.”
“Wait, another film? Did you what? Bring a tattoo gun with you? How fucking long did you plan this?”
“Since I knew you weren’t temporary.”
He says it immediately, his eyes locked on mine.
For a second, all I can do is stare at him.
Temporary.
Like that explains anything.
Like deciding I mattered gave him the right to put his name into my skin while I was passed out.
My finger tightens on the trigger.
“Not temporary?” My voice cracks. “So you marked me like property?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No shame.
Then he touches the raw letters over his chest. “And now you’re part of me too.”
“That is not your decision to make!” I scream it, voice ricocheting off the hotel walls. “You waited until I was out and you did it anyway—”
“Yes.”
That slams into me harder than any excuse would have.
Not confusion. Not denial. Not some twisted attempt to soften it.
Just yes.
A jagged laugh tears out of me, wild and breathless. “Oh my God. You’re fucking insane.”
“I am.”
I look down at my hip again, at the black letters under smeared fluid and torn film, the skin around it red and angry and his.
Forever.
The word hits so hard I nearly choke on it.
“You know what this is?” I snap. “This is assault.”
His face doesn’t change.
“No,” he says. “It’s not.”
That knocks me sideways for half a second. He sounds so goddamn certain.
Like I’m the one saying something stupid.
My grip tightens on the gun. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Yes.”
Damn him and that same brutal certainty that makes me want to pull the trigger and kiss him until he bleeds in equal measure.
“I could kill you for this.”
His gaze flicks to the gun, then back to my face.
“If that’s what you need.”
Not bravado.
Not a challenge.
Worse.
Permission.
I’m breathing too fast now, adrenaline making my hand shake around the grip. I’m hyper-aware of the fluid from the tattoo, warm and disgusting, spotting the sheets beneath me.
His eyes drop there.
“It needs to be covered again.”
I let out a laugh so sharp it almost hurts. “You do not get to stand there acting like this is normal.”
“It is to me.”
“It’s not to me, Maksim—”
“Then shoot me.”
The words cut straight through mine.
The room goes dead still.
He leans in.
Not enough to grab the gun or to touch me. Just enough to make it worse.
“You’re this fucking furious,” he says, voice low, steady, eyes locked on mine, “then do it.”
My finger tightens again.
He sees it.
Doesn’t flinch.
“Or put it down,” he says, “and let me fix what’s mine before you ruin it.”
Mine.
The word hits so hard my stomach twists.
At his chest. At the carved letters. At the blood.
At the maddening stillness on his face. At the man who crossed a line I drew with both hands and is still standing there like he put a ring on my finger instead of ink in my skin while I was out cold.
I hate him.
I hate that some sick part of me understands exactly what this was to him.
I hate that he expected me to understand it too.
I hate that my hip burns.
I hate that he’s right about one thing—it does need to be rebandaged.
Slowly, I lower the gun. Not all the way. Just enough to stop aiming at his face.
Something shifts in his eyes. Something darker.
Quieter.
Like disappointment with teeth.
That pisses me off too.
“Don’t touch me anywhere else,” I say, my voice raw. “Just fix it. And if you try anything, I’ll put a bullet through your throat.”
“Da.”
He says it like he believes me.
Like that’s the only reason he’s being careful.
I set the gun on the bed beside my knee without taking my eyes off him.
“Don’t mistake this for forgiveness.”
His jaw tightens. “I don’t need your forgiveness.”
That lands harder than I want it to.
He moves then.
No smirk. No triumph. No apology.
Just that same terrible steadiness as he reaches for the torn film hanging from my hip.
I flinch anyway. His mouth hardens. But his hands stay precise.
Controlled.
Almost reverent in a way I hate immediately, because reverence is too close to tenderness, and tenderness would be easier to survive than this.
This is worse.
This is a man handling my skin like he thinks he gave me something sacred.