Chapter 58
Maksim
Casimir Nowak, Polish leader and usual enemy has men undercover for Arsen.
One of his man calls twenty-three minutes before sunset and kills the plan.
A fucking flat voice over the phone and one sentence that turns everything in me to ice.
“They’re moving her before nightfall.”
Every eye in the room cuts to me.
The map is still spread across the table. The depot. The routes in and out. Sniper points. Entry teams. Fallback paths. Medical standby through the Amatos already locked in. One of Angelo’s people has a trauma team waiting at their hospital in case we get her out breathing.
In case.
I fucking hate that word.
“We go now,” I say.
No one argues.
Because there’s nothing left to argue.
Clean is dead. Quiet is dead. Nightfall is dead.
All that’s left is speed.
Gabriel is already on the phone with his men by the time I grab my weapon off the table. His voice is rough, low, controlled. Giving orders like this is business. A deal. A meet. Product moving. Nothing unusual. Nothing to make Arsen twitch too early.
Maybe it works.
Maybe it doesn’t.
I don’t care.
If I have to rip through that whole fucking depot with my bare hands, I will.
Angelo checks his magazine beside me with the kind of focus that only comes from old violence. “Hospital staff is in place.”
I nod once.
The Amatos always plan for blood.
Today, I’m grateful for it.
Vaska steps in close enough that only I hear him. “If Arsen hears the wrong thing, he moves her before we touch the gate.”
“I know.”
“You need him dead or you need her first?”
My gaze lifts to his.
The question is real. Necessary. Ugly.
A year ago, maybe even six months ago, I would’ve answered differently.
Now?
“Her,” I say.
Vaska nods once. No judgment. No surprise. Just truth.
Gabriel ends his call and looks at me across the room. “My men are in position.”
I chamber a round. “Then let’s see if yours die useful.”
***
The first shot comes from the ridge east of the yard.
One of mine.
An Armenian by the outer fence drops before the crack fully dies.
Then another.
Then another.
My snipers.
Clean. Fast. Measured.
Gabriel’s men roll up out front right on cue, two vehicles and a truck, making noise where I need noise made. Shouting. Doors slamming. One of them waving his hands like this is just another pissed-off exchange gone sideways.
It buys us seconds. Seconds are enough.
We come in from the back. Fence already clipped.
Boots hitting gravel.
Vaska to my right. Angelo to my left. Ivan and Dimitri peeling off with their teams exactly where they’re supposed to. Gunfire starts up near the front, louder now, messy on purpose. Armenians rush toward the distraction.
Good.
Run the wrong way.
Run toward the lie.
I clear the first building and find nothing but crates and old machine parts.
Second, same.
Third—two men inside. Both dead before they finish turning.
Not her.
My pulse pounds harder.
Container. Locked.
Shot off. Empty.
Next one. Empty.
Next. Fucking empty.
Something dangerous starts clawing up my throat.
He moved her.
He moved her and I’m too late and all I have left is blood and steel and empty fucking boxes—
“Maksim,” Angelo snaps.
I’m already at the next one.
Rip the door open.
Nothing.
The next.
Nothing.
I can hear more shots outside. Hear men shouting. Hear Vaska somewhere to my right putting somebody down with brutal efficiency. Hear Gabriel’s decoy doing its job.
And still no Ayla.
Every container I open without her in it makes the world go narrower.
Hotter.
Meaner.
Another burst of gunfire cracks across the yard. Someone shouts near the fence line. A body drops somewhere to my left.
I don’t look.
I’m halfway to the next container when metal shrieks over metal somewhere behind me—loud enough to cut through every shot, every yell, every fucking thing.
I turn.
One of the cargo doors is swinging wide.
For one second, all I see is blood.
Red across metal. Red on the ground. Red smeared over the edge of the door like somebody dragged a body through it.
Then she stumbles into the light.
Ayla.
Knife in one hand. Gun in the other. Covered in blood from her hair to her shirt, swaying on her feet like the whole world is tilting under her.
Everything inside me stops.
“Ayla!”
I don’t know if I say it or tear it out of my own throat.
Then I’m moving.
My hand closes around her wrist before I can think. She jerks hard, knife coming up on instinct, wild-eyed and ready to gut whoever touched her.
“It’s me.”
Her breath catches.
My free hand goes to the back of her neck, forcing her to look at me. Her pupils are blown. Face white under all that blood. Too white.
“Are you hurt?”
My eyes drag over her anyway, frantic, useless. Blood on her shirt. Blood on her hands. Blood everywhere. Too much to sort, too much to tell what belongs to who.
Her eyes finally lock on mine.
“Maksim?”
My name hits me like a fucking tidal wave. I can’t even breathe through it.
“Are you hurt?” I demand again.
She shakes her head fast, dazed, adrenaline making her sloppy. “No. No, this is—” Her hand twitches vaguely back toward the container. “A guard.”
“Maks! We gotta go!” Angelo’s voice cuts through the gunfire.
Then I hear it too.
Sirens.
Not close yet. Close enough.
I rip the gun from her hand and shove it into my waistband, grab her by the hand, and start tugging her with me.
“Can you run?”
She nods once. “Yes.”
“Then run.”
I drag her with me.
Gunfire still cracks across the yard behind us, sharper now that the first rush is over. Someone shouts near the front gate. Another body hits gravel somewhere off to my left. I don’t look. I don’t care.
All I care about is the hand in mine.
Ayla stumbles once, catches herself, keeps moving.
My grip tightens.
We cut between containers fast, using steel and shadow for cover while my men finish cleaning up what’s left of the yard. Angelo is ahead of us by the time we hit the fence line, one hand up, waving us through.
“Move!”
Like I need the fucking reminder.
I shove Ayla through the gap first, then come right behind her, gun up, scanning, every nerve in my body still lit raw.
One of our SUVs is already waiting beyond the clipped fence, engine running, back door open.
Dimitri starts toward us from the driver’s side.
“No,” I bark.
He stops.
I’m already hauling Ayla forward.
“I’ll drive her.”
I get her to the passenger side, grab her by the waist, and lift her in. She makes a small sound at the movement—too soft, too breathless, but I’m already slamming the door and rounding the hood before my brain can catch up to it.
Then I’m in the driver’s seat, engine snarling under my hands, tires spitting gravel as I throw the car into gear and tear us out of the yard.
The gate blurs behind us.
Then the depot.
Then the whole fucking world.
I drive like I’m trying to outrun death itself, one hand locked on the wheel, the other going straight to the back of her neck.
Mine.
Still here.
I drag her toward me and kiss her hard enough to bruise.
Her lips are cold, dry, but I don’t give a fuck because she’s here.
I kiss her again anyway, reckless and starved, the kind of kiss a man gives when he’s still half-convinced he hallucinated the woman beside him and needs to taste her to make sure she’s real.
“You are never doing that shit again,” I say my eyes back on the road, still driving too fast. “You hear me?”
The road blurs under the headlights.
Sirens fade somewhere behind us.
I keep one hand at the back of her neck and glance at her just long enough to make sure she’s still upright, still there, still breathing.
“You are never leaving the house again. I swear to God.” My voice breaks into something rawer, half laugh, half threat. “You’re going with me everywhere. I don’t care if it’s business, war, or the fucking bathroom. Where you go, I go.”
Ayla makes the faintest sound beside me. Not a laugh.
Not quite a word.
I take it anyway. Take everything she gives me like it’s enough.
Because right now, it has to be.
“I love you,” I say.
The words tear out of me before I can stop them.
No pride left. No mask left. No room for anything except truth and speed and the woman in my passenger seat covered in blood.
“God, I fucking love you.”
I shake my head once, breath coming too fast, grip bruising on the wheel.
“You are never scaring me like that again, Beda. Never.”
Her head lolls lightly toward the window.
Wrong. Too loose.
My smile dies.
I look at her properly for the first time.
“Ayla?”
No answer.
Just her breathing—shallow now. Too shallow.
Something cold opens up under my ribs.
“Beda?”
My hand leaves her neck to catch her jaw, turn her face toward me.
Her skin is cold.
Too cold.
My eyes drop. Her shirt is soaked.
Not splattered.
Soaked.
Black shirt darker and wet at the stomach.
For one second, my brain refuses to understand what I’m looking at.
Then I see it.
Blood still coming.
Fresh.
A hole torn through fabric. Everything inside me comes apart.
“No.”
The word rips out of me.
I jerk the wheel hard, taking the next turn too fast, my hand flying from her face to slam against the wound.
She flinches.
That’s worse.
That’s so much worse.
“No, no, no—”
My voice is gone now. Destroyed. I press harder, driving one-handed like a man possessed, the car fishtailing just enough to scream under me before I force it straight again.
“Stay awake.” I’m shouting now. At her. At God. At the fucking universe. “Stay awake, Ayla. Look at me.”
Her lashes flutter. Blood slicks hot between my fingers.
Too much.
Way too much.
The hospital. The team. The Amatos. Ten minutes. Maybe less if I drive like I mean it.
I weave through traffic like death’s riding my bumper and she’s bleeding out beside me. My palm is slick. I can’t think past the smell of iron.
She shifts. Barely.
“Stay awake,” I whisper. “Stay with me.”
I press harder, hand shaking so badly I can barely keep pressure on the wound and the wheel straight at the same time.
“Beda.” My voice breaks around the name. “Beda, we’re almost at the hospital, okay? We’re almost there.”
“No hospital,” she whispers, and a ghost of a smile pulls at her lips. “No hospital.”
It’s our thing. Our joke.
It breaks me.
“I know, baby,” I say, rough and shaking. “No hospitals. But not this time. This one—we need this one, okay?”
Her head tilts toward me. Her eyes are barely open.
“I’m tired.”
“No.”
“I just need… sleep.”
My voice cracks. “No. No, no you don’t.”
I press harder on the wound. She gasps, jerks under my hand, and I feel like the fucking devil for it, but her eyes snap open again.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, then louder when her gaze slips. “Stay with me.”
She blinks, slow. Fading.
“You’re the one who said—” My throat closes hard enough to hurt. “You said wherever I go, you go.”
Her lashes flutter again.
“So don’t do this,” I choke out. “Don’t you fucking do this to me.”
Her breathing catches shallow. Wrong. Too light. Too far apart.
“Because if you go now, Ayla…” My voice tears apart on her name. “I can’t follow. I can’t go where you’re going.”
The road blurs in front of me. Red lights. Headlights. Horns. None of it matters.
“And I won’t survive it if you leave me.” My grip slips on the wheel and I nearly lose the turn, wrench it back at the last second. “I won’t.”
She’s closing her eyes.
“Ayla!” I shout. “Don’t you fucking leave me. Don’t you close those eyes. Ayla!”
I’m screaming by the time I tear into the hospital lot. The brakes squeal as I jump the curb, tires jerking hard over concrete. I park. I don’t kill the engine. I’m immediately out of the car.
I yank her door open and haul her into my arms.
She’s limp.
Her head drops back. Her arm hangs. Blood smears hot across my shirt, my hands, my arms.
No.
No no no.
“Beda.” The word comes out wrecked. “Beda, look at me.”
Nothing.
I carry her like I’ll break the fucking earth if it gets in my way, slam through the ER doors hard enough to rattle glass.
“Help!” I roar. “I need fucking help!”
Everything explodes at once.
Voices.
Footsteps.
Gurney wheels screaming over tile.
Hands reaching.
Someone says something sharp and clinical. Someone else curses under their breath at the amount of blood. A nurse points. A doctor is already moving. They reach for her.
I don’t let go.
“Sir—”
“Don’t fucking touch her!”
“Maksim.”
Vaska’s voice cuts through the chaos, close and hard.
Hands clamp onto my shoulders. More than one pair. I don’t even know who. I only know Ayla is being pulled from my arms and every part of me is trying to kill the people taking her.
Then I look at her face.
White.
Still.
And I let go because I have to. Because she’s not breathing right and they need her more than I do in this second.
They get her onto the gurney. One of the doctors is already shouting orders while they run.
“She’s crashing.”
“Move!”
I take one step after them and somebody catches me again.
Vaska.
“She’s going to need surgery,” he says, grip like iron on my shoulder. “You can’t follow.”
I shove him back on instinct, teeth bared, vision red and broken at the edges. “Get the fuck off me.”
He doesn’t.
Neither do the others around me.
I can’t think. Can’t breathe. Can’t hear anything except the blood in my ears and the last weak shape of her voice saying no hospital.
I turn away because if I don’t, I’m going to start shooting.
I walk.
No direction. No plan. Just movement.
A hallway. A door.
An empty room.
I slam it shut behind me, lock it and beeline for the bathroom.
I brace both hands on the cold sink and stare at the blood staining my skin.
Hers.
It’s under my nails. In the lines of my palms. Drying at my wrists.
There is so much of it.
My chest caves in once, sharp and violent, like my body forgot how to breathe without hurting.
If she dies—
The thought detonates inside me so hard I grip the sink until I think the porcelain might crack.
If she dies, I’ll burn this whole fucking city to the ground.
Arsen. Every Armenian still breathing. Every man who touched her. Every man who knew. I’ll wipe them off the map and leave nothing behind but ash and bone.
They’d have to kill me to stop me.
Because there is no goddamn world where I keep living in it without her.
Not one.
And if this world thinks it gets to take her after putting her in my hands—
After letting me hear her voice.
After letting me say I love you.
Then it can choke on the man it leaves behind.