Chapter 39
Ayla
The blonde.
Vasilisa.
That’s the one Vera asked about.
I see it now—the resemblance. Same hair. Same blue eyes. Same delicate kind of beauty, except younger. Softer in the face.
But she’s a bitch.
She asked if Maksim was keeping me against my will, then immediately started circling around whether I liked him.
I hate that my face gets hot at the question.
Then she asks again, less like she wants an answer and more like she’s already decided she knows it.
“You like him?”
The brunette asks it kinder. “Do you… like Maksim?”
Before I can answer, Vasilisa cuts in again. “He’s not a nice man.”
Nice.
Like that matters.
Like any man in our world is nice.
“Neither is Santo,” I shoot back.
That gets her.
She takes slow steps toward me, those stilettos clicking against the floor until she’s close enough to look me straight in the eye. Maksim’s gun is still in her hand.
“You know my husband?” she challenges, jealousy sparking bright in her eyes.
Adriana slips the gun from Vasilisa’s fingers.
Jealousy.
Over a man like Santo Amato.
Scythe.
A brutal killer with a reputation sharp enough to cut from across a room.
She must be as deranged as he is.
But I’m the one who’s fucked, because I do know her husband.
And he knows me.
One late meeting Gabriel had with the Amatos, and I was hidden behind a curtain, listening.
Santo saw me. I know he did. But he never said a word.
He knows I was in Gabriel’s house. And now he’s alone with Maksim.
I’m fucked.
I cross my arms. “I’ve seen him around.”
“No one just sees my husband around,” Vasilisa bites. “Either you know him or you don’t.”
She steps fully into my space now.
“Or are you a whore from Opulent.”
Opulent.
The Amatos’ strip club. She thinks I’m a stripper?
The thought is almost funny.
Almost.
“Everyone knows your husband,” I say. “Santo Amato. Underboss of Cosa Nostra. A killer. Scythe.”
I let that sit there a second before I add,
“And if he’s sleeping with the staff, I feel bad for you.”
Vasilisa’s eyes frost over in a way that reminds me so much of Maksim it almost makes my stomach turn.
“Oh, and Maksim’s any better?” Her voice climbs. “Pakhan of the Bratva. Psychopath. Juggernaut—he’s not looking for love, sweetheart. He’s looking for a hole to fuck.”
That lands.
Hard.
Because she’s probably right.
Adriana claps her hands once, sharp enough to cut through the room, tells blondie to go grab a snack, then orders me to sit.
I track her automatically.
She’s bigger than me, wearing a dress, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t put me on the floor if she wanted to.
I choose to sit.
***
Ivan drops me off at the townhouse and leaves without a word.
Taillights disappearing down the street while I stand there with the door half-open staring at the house like it belongs to someone else.
Maksim isn’t here.
The silence tells me that before I even step inside.
No boots by the door. No glass on the counter. No furious man sitting somewhere in the dark waiting to decide whether to scream at me or drag me into his lap and act like that fixes anything.
Just quiet.
I lock the door behind me and stand there for a second, listening to my own breathing.
Santo recognized me.
That thought has been chewing through me since the Amato house.
He recognized me.
He looked at me too long, too carefully, and I know he remembers Gabriel’s house.
I know he remembers me as the girl behind the curtain who should not have been there.
Maybe he already told Maksim. Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe he’s waiting. Maybe Maksim already knows and that’s why he left me here instead of dragging me back into another fight.
My pulse jumps.
I need to go.
Now.
If I’m leaving, I need something.
The thought comes dark and fast.
Something for Gabriel.
Something that buys me enough time to survive the part where Santo Amato may have already signed my death warrant without saying a word.
I go to Maksim’s home office first.
It feels wrong being in here without him.
Because everything in this house feels like him—clean, expensive wood, the low smell of smoke and spice and whatever dark thing lives under his skin. His office is the worst of it. His desk. His books. His chaos. His control.
I start opening drawers anyway.
Paper.
Receipts.
A gun magazine.
Nothing.
Then the lower cabinet. Books. Not novels or anything he’d read. Ledgers.
My fingers close around the first one and my stomach drops.
Smash and Sugar.
The second.
Exile.
I freeze for half a second, staring at the covers, at the tabs shoved between pages, at the numbers and names inside that I don’t even need to fully understand to know this matters.
This is enough. Maybe more than enough.
I hold the books tight as I head to the bedroom.
The room looks wrong without him in it.
The credit card is still where I threw it earlier. My phone still on the bed. I stare at both.
Then I pick up the card and set it on the bed too.
He can keep his money.
His clothes.
His gifts.
His fucking claim.
My gaze catches on the closet, on all the things he bought me, and for one weak second I think about taking some of it.
The boots. The leather jacket. Something warm. Something useful.
Something that still smells like him.
My breath catches.
No.
I don’t let myself touch anything.
I grab a bag from the closet shove the ledgers in there and zip the bag shut and leave with exactly what I came in with.
By the time I’m three blocks away, I already know walking was a stupid idea.
My hip stings every time my stride pulls wrong.
My throat feels dry. The bag strap is digging into my shoulder.
The city is too loud, too big, too alive around me, and every step farther from the townhouse feels less like freedom and more like the kind of mistake you only recognize once it’s too late to turn around.
Maybe Santo didn’t say anything.
Maybe he didn’t remember me.
Maybe Maksim would’ve been furious, but not—
I cut that thought off.
Not what?
Not kill me?
Not hand me over to Gabriel?
Not look at me like I’m something disgusting?
I stop so abruptly my hip throbs.
Because that’s when it hits me—sharp, breathless, undeniable.
I trust him. Even after marking me. I trust him.
Worse than that, somehow, I love him.
I love the violent, impossible man.
I should have got out of my car when he wanted it.
Fuck.
By the time I get to my building, my legs ache and my mouth tastes like metal.
I’m already reaching for my keys before I remember.
I don’t have them.
The door opens under my hand. Unlocked.
I go still.
For one stupid, helpless second, relief hits me so hard my knees almost give.
Maksim.
Of course he came after me.
Of course the first thing my body does at the thought of him standing inside my apartment is loosen, like I’m safe.
The realization lands a beat too late.
Safe. With him.
The lights snap on.
Not Maksim.
Gabriel steps out from the dark like he owns the room. Emir behind him, silent and watchful.
Every bit of air leaves my lungs at once.
“Gabriel.”
His face doesn’t change. “Where the fuck have you been?”
My throat tightens.
I grip the bag strap harder against my shoulder. “I don’t have anything for you.”
Gabriel’s face doesn’t change. He steps forward once, fast enough that I barely register the movement before his hand closes around the strap and yanks the bag clean off my shoulder. The force spins me half sideways.
“Gabriel—”
He tosses it to Emir without looking.
His hand comes back so fast I don’t have time to duck. A brutal backhand cracks across my face and snaps my head sideways sending me crashing into the edge of the counter before I hit the floor hard enough to jar my teeth.
Pain bursts white behind my eyes. For a second all I can hear is ringing.
I taste blood.
Above me, Gabriel’s voice cuts through it, sharp and disgusted. “That was the wrong answer.”
I push up on one elbow, breath sawing in and out of me, cheek already throbbing, vision swimming just enough to make the room tilt.
Emir unzips the bag.
I freeze.
No.
No, no—
His hand disappears inside. Comes back out with one of the ledgers then the second.
He glances at Gabriel. “She got them.”
Gabriel looks down at me. There’s no satisfaction in his face. No relief.
Just contempt.
“So you’re a liar too”
My stomach drops.
He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me upright so hard a cry tears out of me before I can stop it.
“Get up.”
I stumble on my feet for half a second, one hand clawing at his wrist, but he’s already dragging me across the kitchen by my hair like I weigh nothing. My boots skid uselessly against the floor.
The kitchen chair scrapes loud against the tile when he kicks it out.
He shoves me into it hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
“Emir,” he says, not even looking away from me. “Rope.”
Only then do I see it.
A coil of rope sitting on my kitchen counter like it belongs there.
My blood goes cold. They came expecting this.
My heart stutters.
Did Maksim send him?
Emir sighs once through his nose, like I’m making his night inconvenient, then reaches for it and brings it over.
Gabriel’s hand leaves my hair only to force my arms behind the back of the chair.
I jerk once on instinct.
Useless.
“Don’t,” he says. Quiet.
Deadly quiet.
Emir starts wrapping rope around my wrists. Tight.
The fibers bite almost immediately.
I twist anyway, breath ragged, cheek on fire, every muscle in my body strung so tight I feel like I might snap apart.
“Gabriel,” I choke out, “I got what you wanted—”
The rope jerks tighter.
Gabriel crouches in front of me, one forearm braced over his thigh, his expression calm enough to make me nauseous.
“You disappeared,” he says. “You went quiet. You got comfortable.” His eyes flick once, deliberately over me. “And now you expect me to believe that doesn’t matter?”
My pulse pounds harder.
He knows.
Of course he knows.