Chapter 50
Maksim
By the time I get to the warehouse, the anger has gone cold.
That’s when it does the most damage. I kill the engine and sit there for one beat too long, hands locked around the grips, Ayla still in my head.
Her back against my desk. Her breathing too fast. Her eyes wide with that old animal fear she should never have had to wear again.
Do they want me to burn this damn thing off?
My jaw locks.
No.
They do not get that from her. They do not get one more fucking thing from her.
Katya will keep her distracted at the compound. Calm enough. She’s good at that—quiet where other people crowd.
I swing off the bike.
Vaska waits by the warehouse door, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers. He glances at me once, then drops it under his boot.
“Thought you quit,” I say.
He cracks his neck, eyes on the door. “Working on it.”
“How bad is it in there?”
“Bad enough.”
I open the door.
The room smells like oil, rust, sweat, concrete. Men already waiting. Not all of them. Just the ones tied to this. The ones who heard it, passed it along, let it sit in their mouths like something they had a right to chew on.
Pietro stands to the left, still and watchful.
Demyan is center-right, shoulders tight, face already defensive.
I step into the middle of them and let the silence stretch until somebody starts to sweat.
Then I shrug off my jacket and hand it to Vaska.
“I’m hearing her name being thrown around this room,” I say. “So let’s save time.”
I look each of them in the eyes. “Who has a problem?”
Nobody answers. Cowards.
Pietro speaks first. “Not a problem, Pakhan. Clarity.”
“Then ask for it like a man.”
His stare stays level. “Men heard that Kaya’s sister is under your roof.”
“She is.”
A shift runs through the room.
No surprise there. I let it sit.
Then I say, “Anything else?”
Demyan’s mouth twists. “Depends.”
I turn to him. “On what?”
“On whether we’re pretending blood means nothing now.”
I take one slow step toward him. “You think that’s what this is?”
“I think hidden blood rots a house from the inside.”
There it is.
The whole room tightens.
Demyan keeps going because he’s too stupid to hear his own funeral starting. “Our fathers learned that under Nikolai.”
For one second, I see blood. Old blood. My father’s floor slick with it. Men begging. Men choking. Fathers dying while sons watched and learned what kind of world they’d been born into.
Then I see Ayla again. Shaking in my office because these men—my men forgot their place.
My mouth curves. Wrong enough that Demyan’s expression flickers.
“You want to talk about fathers?” I ask softly.
No answer.
I sweep my gaze over the room. “Anybody else?”
Silence.
“Yes,” I say. “Kaya’s sister is under my roof. Yes, I knew whose blood she carried. And yes, I chose her anyway.”
That hits.
One of the men near the back frowns. “Then what is this? An alliance with Kaya?”
I laugh once.
“If I had allied with Kaya, we wouldn’t be hunting him.”
Another man says, more carefully, “Then what do we call it?”
“Mine.”
The word drops into the room like a body.
Demyan scoffs.
Big mistake.
I keep my eyes on him. “Kaya tried to use her. He put hands on what I had already chosen and thought blood would make that his leverage.”
My voice turns colder. “It didn’t.”
A younger soldier shifts. “With respect, Pakhan, men want to know if she came here under orders.”
I let the question breathe just long enough to make him regret asking it.
“She is loyal to me now. That is the part that concerns you.”
“Convenient,” Demyan mutters.
Pietro’s head turns sharply.
A warning Demyan ignores. “We’re supposed to pretend enemy blood in our home means nothing because you say so?”
“My word should be enough.”
“And if it isn’t?”
I cross the space between us.
Fast.
Now I’m in his face and the room belongs to me again.
“It means,” I say, “you forgot who you’re speaking to.”
“No.” His chin lifts. “I remember exactly who I’m speaking to. That’s the fucking point.”
Ah.
He has a death wish because he fears.
Fears that I will become the man who made fathers into monsters and sons into orphans.
Fear makes him stupid.
“When one of us wanted an Armenian girl, it was no. Now you drag a Turkish woman into your bed and we’re supposed to bow our heads and call it strategy?”
Pietro moves first. He grabs Demyan’s arm.
Ivan catches the other before he can do something stupid.
Demyan jerks once in their grip. “Get the fuck off—”
I have my gun out and across his jaw before the last word leaves his mouth.
The impact cracks through the warehouse.
Blood spills from his mouth. His head snaps sideways, one knee folding before Pietro and Ivan haul him upright again.
Silence slams down over the room.
Nobody breathes.
I grab his jaw, force his face back toward me, then shove the barrel of my gun up under his chin until his skull hits the concrete pillar behind him.
Hard.
“Listen to me carefully.” My voice so quiet it’s almost not my own. “Nikolai fed your fathers scraps and spent them like ammunition.”
The muzzle digs deeper. Demyan chokes on a breath.
“I dragged our house out of blood and ash with my bare fucking hands.”
I lean in until he has nowhere to look but me.
“I walk beside my men.”
My voice drops lower.
“They get to go home to wives. To babies. To tables full of food. To warm beds behind locked doors.”
I press harder.
“I made kings out of sons your fathers would not recognize.”
The room is dead silent.
“So do not stand there and confuse my restraint with weakness.”
Demyan’s face is pale now, blood running over his mouth, but he still has enough stupidity left to whisper, “And what happens when her blood starts making choices for our house?”
I smile.
Slow. Mean.
“I am not my father.”
The gun stays at his throat.
Then I say it softer. “Are you yours?”
He goes completely still. Now he gets it.
I pull back just enough for the room to hear me.
“If that is the blood calling you, say it now. Let me finish what I should have finished with that generation.”
No one speaks.
No one even looks at Demyan anymore. That tells me everything I need. I lower the gun from his throat, then drag the barrel down his chest before stepping back.
“She is not under debate,” I say.
I look at all of them now, one by one.
“My judgment is not under debate.” I pause. “If you have a concern, you bring it to me like men. You don’t pass her name from mouth to mouth like street rot.”
One of the soldiers drops his eyes. Another gives a single, clipped nod.
“Her blood was Kaya’s leverage. Not yours. He tried to use it. He failed.” My mouth hardens. “The woman under my roof is under my protection, under my mark, and under my name in every way that matters.”
Demyan swallows blood.
I don’t look at him when I say the next part.
“If anyone in this room mistakes that for an opening, I will bury what’s left of you where your mothers won’t find the bones.”
That lands.
Pietro is first. “As you say, Pakhan.”
Then the others. One by one.
“Yes, Pakhan.”
“Understood.”
“As you say.”
By the end of it, the hierarchy has sealed itself back into place. I tuck the gun into my waistband.
Demyan is still breathing hard, blood smeared over his chin, pride leaking out with it.
Let him keep that bruise. Let him wake up with it tomorrow and remember exactly how close he came to losing more than teeth.
I turn to leave.
Behind me, his voice comes out wrecked. “Pakhan.”
I stop.
“Is she loyal to us?”
I look back over my shoulder.
“To me,” I say. “That will be enough.”
I walk out. The cold hits my face clean and sharp, I pull out my phone and call.
She answers on the third ring, suspicious and small. “Hello?”
My chest loosens. “You eat?”
A pause.
Then, sullen, “Katya tried to force me, but I’m not doing it.”
A laugh almost slips out of me. Of course she isn’t. I’m surprised there wasn’t a fight. Katya is lethal in her own right.
“I know,” I say.
Her silence shifts. Softer now. Listening.
“I’m on my way home,” I tell her. “I’ll bring you something.”
Another pause.
This one smaller. “Okay.”
I hang up and head for the bike. The anger is still there. But now it has somewhere to go for relief.
Home.