45. Chapter 36
Z asha
As soon as Maksim sees his mother, he bolts forward, with arms flailing, and bare feet slapping against the floorboards as he races into her.
She doesn’t brace herself.
She drops to her knees before he even reaches her, arms stretched out, eyes wide with disbelief and a love so raw it steals the breath right out of my lungs.
He crashes into her, nearly knocking her backward with the force of his hug.
She curls around him like a shield, burying her face into his hair, her hands clutching his little back as if anchoring herself to reality.
His fingers fist into the fabric of her bloodstained clothes, and the boy makes a soft noise—half sob, half relief.
I stay back.
I watch it unfold like I’m outside my own body, like my soul’s not ready to witness something this pure after all the blood I’ve spilled tonight.
Mara’s shoulders are shaking. I can see her jaw trembling, and her lips brushing against the boy’s temple as she mumbles something, and he babbles back in Spanish.
The knot in my throat is a slow, hot burn. Mara lifts her eyes. She looks over Maksim’s head, straight at me.
“Thank you,” she mouths.
I step forward and pull her into my arms, careful not to cause her more pain. I kiss the top of her head and pull back to look into her eyes.
“Why didn’t you….” I start to ask about Maksim, but the sobs coming from her make me stop.
I slide my hand gently to her back. My voice is low, raw with something I don’t know how to name. “It’s all over now,” I murmur. “You’re safe. Both of you. And I’ll make damn sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Her tear-filled eyes open, and when she looks at me, I know something’s still wrong. The sorrow in her gaze doesn’t let me breathe. It cuts straight through the adrenaline and the fleeting peace I thought I’d earned tonight.
“Thank you,” she whispers, voice cracked and broken. “For rescuing us both.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“But we’re not the only ones in danger.”
The words hang in the air like smoke.
She shifts her gaze from me to Viktor, then Lev, then the other men standing around the room—Roman, Yuri, Anton, and the rest of our Bratva crew. No one says a word. No one moves. We know that tone. We’ve heard it too many times.
“There are others,” she says, each syllable weighted. “That monster—Cristóbal—he was never just circling our family. He was nesting in it.”
A cold chill moves through the room. Viktor’s jaw ticks as he takes a step closer. “How deep?”
Mara’s eyes flicker toward him, and I see the war behind them. She’s not just shaken. She’s furious. Haunted. And she’s holding something back—trying to say it right.
She doesn’t waste time.
“When I visited my father at the estate, I saw things I didn’t want to believe at the time.
” She draws in a breath and hugs Maksim tighter to her chest. “Cristóbal didn’t act like a subordinate.
He moved like he owned the place. The guards didn’t look surprised to see him—they nodded.
Greeted him first. Some avoided my eyes.
And when he spoke… he acted like he was already in charge. ”
She pauses, and her next words come like a slow bleed. “He told me the doctor would never find a match for my father because he is on his payroll.
I see Viktor’s posture change—straightening, sharper. I glance at Lev, who crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. Roman mutters something under his breath in Russian.
Mara’s voice gets quieter, but not weaker. “Cristóbal made himself look like the only stable option. My father’s condition was getting worse, and people started betting on what came next. Some guards switched sides, thinking Cristóbal is, after all, like a son to my father.”
She looks at me then, and the weight of it feels like someone’s pressing a steel rod into my spine.
“They’ll kill him,” she says. “They’ll kill my father. Once word spreads that Cristóbal is dead, others will come for the last person standing in the way of seizing power.”
A low hum of rage builds under my skin, this It’s not just betrayal. It’s a coup. And they nearly used her—used Maksim—as leverage to finish it.
Viktor exhales slowly. “You’re sure?”
“I saw it,” she says. “In their eyes. Their silence. In Cristóbal’s arrogance. He wasn’t just acting alone. He thought he had the numbers.”
Maksim nestles closer into her chest. She brushes a hand over his hair but doesn’t stop talking. Her voice cracks, but her spine stays straight.
“Cristóbal himself told me that my father would die slowly. That he wouldn’t need to lift a finger to make it happen. That all he had to do was wait.”
It feels like the walls are closing in.
I step closer, crouch beside them again. My hand rests lightly on her back. “Mara,” I say quietly, “you think they’ll try tonight?”
She nods. “Yes, as soon as they know Cristóbal is gone.”
Viktor turns to me, face stone-hard. “Take them to the hospital. We’ll handle Thiago’s house.”
I rise without hesitation, already moving.
But Mara grabs my wrist, her fingers tight. “Please,” she chokes. “Don’t let them kill him.”
“No one will. The bratva will make sure your father is properly protected.”
She slumps against me, relief rippling through her like an earthquake finally settling. Her shoulders sag, and she breathes out a thank-you, but it’s nearly drowned by the roaring vengeance already rising in the room.
Viktor turns to the others. “Gear up. We leave in ten.”
“Thank you,” Mara whispers.
“Viktor looks at her and gives her a rare smile. “You don’t have to thank me. Your father once saved me when I was flown into New York half dead. Besides, you are the mother of my nephew.” He says, looking at Maksim, and a small gasp escapes Mara.
The doctor slips off his gloves and steps back from the bed. “No internal bleeding, no broken bones. Just soft tissue trauma—contusions, swelling. It’ll hurt, but you’ll heal,” he tells Mara gently.
She nods, her expression composed, but I see the exhaustion behind her eyes.
He sets a small paper bag of medications on the side table—ointment, painkillers, muscle relaxants—and quietly exits the room, leaving us in the soft hush of fluorescent lights and quiet breaths.
Mara straightens slowly, gathering her shirt and carefully sliding her arms into the sleeves. Her movements are practiced, so I instinctively move to her. I lift her off the examination table and help her get dressed again, all the while feeling angry about the bruises on her ribs and arms.
Maksim’s tiny voice cuts through the tightness in my chest. “Mama’s okay now?”
He’s standing beside me, clutching a half-finished juice box the nurse gave him, his wide eyes flicking between the two of us. He tugs gently on the leg of my pants.
I crouch in front of him, brushing a hand through his dark curls. “She’s going to be just fine,” I say, steady and low.
He leans his head into my palm and smiles—a small, tired smile that knocks the breath right out of me.
Behind him, Mara gives me a look. It’s quiet and loaded, something between gratitude and sorrow. I hold her gaze for a long second and then rise to my feet, slipping the medication bag into my pocket.
“We’re done here,” I say quietly, more to myself than anyone.
She nods once, then reaches for Maksim’s hand.
I open the door and guide them into the corridor, one hand at Mara’s back, the other hovering near the boy. Whatever comes next—whatever storm is waiting outside—I will walk through it first.
They’ve had enough. No one’s touching them again.
The streets are mostly empty as I guide the car through the sleeping city, the sky bleeding slowly into soft shades of pink and blue.
Streetlamps flicker above us, casting long shadows that melt away as we drive past. It’s the kind of stillness that only comes after a storm—the world holding its breath before the next breath begins.
In the rearview mirror, I can see Mara and Maksim curled together in the back seat.
He’s wrapped in a blanket the nurse handed us on our way out, small chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, completely knocked out. One tiny fist rests in his mother’s lap, still loosely wrapped around two of her fingers like he’s afraid to let go. And Mara... she hasn’t moved in a while.
Her head leans against the window, eyes closed, lashes casting shadows over her cheeks.
There’s a bandage at her temple now. Ointment smeared over the bruises that still stain her wrists and ribs.
And even though her posture is slumped with exhaustion, there’s something unbreakable in the way she holds her son—like her body might be battered, but her soul? Her soul is steel.
They both refused to sit apart. I offered Mara the front seat, but she just shook her head without a word and slid into the back with her son. I didn’t argue. After everything they’ve been through, who the hell was I to come between them?
An unlovable husband and an absentee father.
I glance at them again, and my hands grip the wheel tightly.
I think of the way she’d looked in that exam room.
Those bruises, the tremble in her hands—haven’t left me.
I could see how hard she was trying to hold herself together.
And even now, I can feel it, the quiet weight of her pain sitting in this car like a fourth passenger.
I want to take it from her. I want to pull all of it into my own chest and lock it away where it can’t touch her anymore.
But I know I can’t erase the past. All I can do is fight for what’s left of the future.
The road curves, and I ease onto the familiar stretch leading to my house. Dawn is fully breaking now. The horizon glows with the start of a new day—clean, brutal, and honest. The kind of day that doesn’t hide what came before, but dares you to survive it anyway.