Chapter 38
Maksim
She’s wearing those fucking clothes again.
I look over from the driver’s seat and feel something ugly drag its nails down the inside of my chest.
The sweater is stretched out and thin, one cuff frayed, a hole near the side like it got caught on something and never got replaced.
The jeans look worse—faded, worn at the knees, one rip blown wider from age instead of style.
And the boots are those same beat-up things she came to me in, the ones I should’ve thrown in the trash months ago.
Not mine.
That’s what I see.
Not fabric. Not shoes. Not some woman getting dressed.
A message.
She went straight to the room the second we got back to the townhouse. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t say a word. Just disappeared down the hall with that stiff-backed silence she’s been wearing since Russia, and when I followed, she was already changing.
Out of my shirt.
Out of the things I bought her.
Out of me.
Like she thought she could put on those ragged little scraps and become someone I hadn’t already gotten my hands on.
Then she tried to leave.
I stopped that too.
Now she’s in my car, body turned toward the window, arms folded hard across her chest, jaw locked, acting like if she sits still enough she can somehow detach herself from everything I put on her.
The tattoo.
The townhouse.
Me.
It pisses me off more than it should.
No.
That’s a lie. It pisses me off exactly as much as it should.
I drum my thumb once against the steering wheel and look back at the road. Traffic crawls around us, city lights smearing against the windshield in long wet streaks. My jaw is so tight it aches.
She still doesn’t understand.
That’s the part eating at me.
It would be one thing if she hated the pain. Hated that I did it while she was passed out. Fine. I can understand anger. I can understand violence. I can understand her wanting to put a gun in my face and squeeze until one of us stops breathing.
What I can’t understand is how she looks at that mark and sees filth instead of what it is.
A claim.
A vow.
My version of putting something permanent where words would’ve sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth.
I marked myself too. That should mean something to her.
It means something to me.
More than I’ve ever given anyone. And she looked at it like I was insane.
Maybe I am.
Doesn’t change the fact that she’s mine.
Or that she keeps acting like I did something unforgivable when she’s been sleeping in my bed for months, taking my cock for months, walking around in my clothes, under my roof, with my smell all over her skin like she wasn’t already halfway claimed before I ever touched ink to her body.
I don’t get it.
I understand that to her it was an assault.
I do. I’m not stupid.
I know what the word means. I know what line she thinks I crossed.
What I don’t understand is why she can’t see the other side of it. Why she can’t understand what it meant that I put my name on her and hers on me. Why she can’t feel what I was trying to say without saying it.
Temporary is never going to be enough.
Not for this. Not for her. Not for me.
Beside me, she shifts, sweater riding up for a second before she yanks it back down like even her jeans are pissed off at the world.
I look at the exposed strip of her leg through the tear. At the old denim. At the fucking boots.
“Those clothes are disgusting.”
Her head turns slowly. There’s nothing soft in her face. “Good.”
That one word makes my grip tighten on the wheel.
“Take them off when we get back.”
Her laugh is short and mean. “When we get back from where?”
I don’t answer.
Because I don’t know.
I got in the car because I needed movement.
Needed to get her out of the house before she tried to disappear again.
Needed the city under us, tires on pavement, something steady enough to drown out the fact that Nikolai wants me at the compound and duty in the form of a text is already pulling at my throat the second I get back.
I don’t know where I’m taking her. I just know she’s not fucking leaving.
My phone vibrates against the console.
I glance down.
Angelo.
Fucking Angelo Amato. I forgot his father just passed and the damn text when I landed about the Armenians.
Fuck.
I answer on the second ring.
“I got the text,” I say before he can start. “I’m on my way.”
Ayla turns her head sharply. “Who is that?”
I ignore her.
On the other end, Angelo goes quiet for half a beat. Then, “You sound preoccupied.”
I glance at her again.
Her arms are still folded, eyes narrowed, mouth set in that angry little line that makes me want to bite it until it softens.
“I have… a visitor,” I say. “But I’ll swing her by my safe house.”
Her hand slams into my arm.
Hard.
I don’t look at her.
Angelo huffs something that might be a laugh. “Don’t bother. Drop her here. We’re keeping the women together anyway.”
“No,” Ayla snaps immediately. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ayla,” I murmur, but keep driving.
The silence on Angelo’s end says he heard that.
“Fine. I’ll drop her there. Ivan can pick her up after.”
I end the call.
She twists toward me fully now, anger burning hot enough to feel. “Ivan can get me from where?”
“The Amatos.”
That does it. She goes still. Not angry still.
Worse.
The kind that makes me look at her twice.
Her face doesn’t change much, but something in her body pulls tight all at once, every muscle locking under that ragged sweater like she just got dropped into ice water.
I look back at the road.
Their name scares some people. Everyone knows who the Amatos are.
Everybody in this world with any sense knows better than to relax around men like Angelo and Santo.
So that’s what this is, I tell myself.
Fear.
“Can’t you just let me out here?” she asks, voice flatter now. Restrained. “I’ll walk home.”
I laugh once. There’s no humor in it. “Home is the townhouse.”
Her jaw ticks. “I mean my home.”
“That is your home.”
Her head whips toward me. “Fuck you.”
“Maybe later if you cut your shit.”
“Let me out.”
“No.”
“Maksim—”
“No.” I cut across her words hard enough to shut the rest down. “You’re going to the Amatos. Ivan will pick you up. He’ll take you back to the townhouse. And you’ll stay there until I get back.”
She stares at me.
Then folds her arms tighter and turns toward the window again with a furious little huff like that’s supposed to end the conversation.
It doesn’t.
It just makes the pressure behind my eyes worse.
Everything is scraping at me at once now—Nikolai, the compound, the shipment, the fucking Armenians, her silence, those clothes, the mark on her skin that she wears like an insult instead of the promise that it is.
I drag a hand down my face.
She’s driving me insane.
I marked her.
I carved myself open for her. And somehow I’m still the only one in this car acting like any of that means something.
I pull up in front of the Amato estate and park.
The house rises out of the dark like it always does—too big, too polished, too full of men with guns. Security lights catch on stone and black iron. The front windows glow warm, soft. A lie from the outside.
Inside, it’s still the Amatos.
Ayla doesn’t move when I kill the engine. Maybe she finally understands this isn’t a negotiation.
She reaches for the handle, testing it.
Locked.
I look over at her. She doesn’t look back. Just sits there arms folded tight across her chest like if she makes herself hard enough the world will stop trying to close around her.
In those fucking clothes.
I’m still not over it.
“Don’t start,” I say.
She finally turns her head. Slow. Flat-eyed. “I wasn’t.”
Lie.
Everything about her right now is a fight waiting for somewhere to land.
I get out before I say something worse and walk around the front of the car. By the time I open her door, she’s already glaring at me like she’d rather bite than breathe.
“Out.”
“No.”
That fucking word.
I brace one hand on the top of the door and lean down enough to make it clear I’m done with this conversation before it starts.
“You are not doing this here.”
Her chin lifts. “Then let me go home.”
“Ivan will take you home.”
Her laugh is small and mean. “Your townhouse isn’t my home.”
Something in me goes hard at that.
I catch her wrist before she can pull away and haul her out of the seat.
She stumbles once on the gravel, then jerks against my grip immediately, trying to wrench free.
“Let go of me.”
“No.”
“Maksim—”
“No.” I slam the car door shut with my free hand and start steering her toward the front steps. “You’ve been fighting me since Russia. I’m tired, Beda. Save it.”
She digs her heels in for half a second.
I stop and look down at her. Really look.
Hair a mess from dragging her hands through it all day. Mouth set. Eyes bright with anger she still hasn’t spent. And those clothes. The Amatos are going to meet her in tatters. Not mine. Not matching.
She looks like she’s trying to crawl back into the version of herself that existed before me.
Too late.
“You want to do this on the lawn?” I ask quietly.
Her nostrils flare.
Then she yanks her arm once more, sharp and furious, and when I don’t let go, she finally starts walking.
Good.
I keep my hand on her all the way to the door.
One of Angelo’s men opens before I can knock.
He looks at me, at Ayla, at my hand still wrapped around her arm, and has the good sense not to say a word.
I step inside with her beside me.
Warmth hits first. Then voices.
Santo’s.
Angelo’s.
And Vasilisa’s—tight enough that I can hear the fear in it before I even turn the corner.
I let Ayla go.
Only because we’re inside now.
Her arm slips out of my hand immediately, and for a second I feel the absence of it like a missing weapon.
Santo’s voice carries clearer from the sitting room ahead, low and controlled in that way he gets when everything around him is one wrong breath from turning ugly.
Then her. Vasilisa.
“It’s a house, Santo. Just like ours. I wasn’t safe there.”