Chapter 28
Max
Morning comes quietly, the scent of roses and soft warmth dragging me from sleep. I’m so disoriented, I’m not even sure I’m awake. But even in my dreams, I’ve never experienced anything like this.
Nika’s leg drapes over my hip. Her head rests on my chest, my scars peeking through her white strands. Two people who should be enemies entwined with each other like we’re the only ones in the world.
I should get up and stoke the fire. Start planning my next step and figuring out what the hell happens now.
Warm breath glides over my chest. I flex the arm she’s lying on and tug her closer, relishing in these foreign sensations.
I don’t want this to end.
Still, I know it has to.
Nika’s Roman’s daughter, but she’s also my enemy.
She’s a victim but essentially Sasha’s murderer.
For the past year, she’s tormented my family. Driven Roman mad, nearly gotten several people killed, and forced me to shoot an innocent man.
But she was also a child when she lost everything, just like me. Even if Roman didn’t kill Lilia, Nika believes he did—and had nothing but vengeance to fuel her for fifteen years.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think of or do with her. At this point, just lying here in her bed is more than enough to keep my brain buzzing.
Her hand slides across my ribs, over scars she applied salve to while I was unconscious.
A killer soothing a killer.
Who would have thought a woman like her could be so nurturing? This chick’s got layers, but not all of them are anger and pain. Not when you get closer to her core.
She shifts in my arms, and I glance down to find dark eyes staring up at me.
For several moments, the silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, just heavy with what we’ve done. Words we haven’t said. Everything that’s been building for days and finally fractured last night when she kissed me.
Her voice breaks through, cracking at the edges. “I had it all once.”
I don’t respond because I’m not sure how to. This sounds deeper than anything I know how to deal with, but I can still listen if she wants to talk.
“Before Isla de Huesos. Before everything went wrong. I had…” Her hand tightens against my ribs, and her breathing becomes shallower.
Faster. Like even discussing this costs her.
“I had the kind of childhood people write stories about. The kind that feels like a dream when you reflect. Too perfect. Too good. Like it couldn’t have been real. ”
I can’t relate. My childhood was broken as they come.
I reach up and card my fingers through her hair in a small gesture of comfort.
“My mother was incredible. Beautiful. Kind. She smelled like flowers. She’d tuck me in every night and share stories. Not fairy tales. Real stories about her childhood in Moscow. About how she met my father. About the kind of woman I’d grow up to be.”
Her voice cracks slightly on the word father. I file that away but don’t interrupt. My palm itches with the need to touch her more, but I don’t want to screw up. So I just press her closer, my hand still on her hair. She offers me a small smile before resting her face against my chest.
“She’d brush my hair. A hundred strokes every night before bed.
She said it would make it strong and healthy.
That when I was older, I might have hair like hers.
Dark, thick, and gorgeous.” Her laugh is bitter and short.
“Instead, I got this. My pale blond hair lightened, turning white as snow, like all the color eventually drained out.”
The fire pops out in the living room as a log settles against the grate.
I wonder if the trauma she endured contributed to that notable change.
I press my lips to the top of her head. “You don’t have to—”
“She told me bedtime stories about a princess in a tower.” Her breath puffs against my neck.
“But not the kind who needs rescuing. The kind who’s safe, protected, and loved.
The princess had everything she could ever want.
And every night, that princess would go to sleep knowing she was safe.
That nothing could hurt her. That she’d wake up and everything would still be perfect. ”
That does sound like an ideal childhood. I had the same wishes for my siblings, back when I thought dreams mattered.
Nika goes on. “She gave me certainty. That feeling of being wrapped in something so solid that nothing bad could ever get through. I was nine years old, and I actually believed that my life would always be like that. I’d always be safe.
Nothing could touch me as long as I had her.
” Her smile is crooked, shattered, and my heart aches for the little girl she once was and the wounded woman she is now.
Because that’s what all kids should have. That’s what Roman worked so hard for and what he wasn’t able to give her. In the end, that failure broke him.
How can she not see that?
“Isla de Huesos was supposed to be a vacation. A meeting of families. Roman had to deal with business, but we could enjoy ourselves with the others who were going to be there. We went and bought new swimsuits because we were going to swim in the ocean. I’d meet other children.
It would be beautiful.” The joy that rose with each sentence cuts off abruptly as her eyes go flat.
“That’s not how things happened, though.” Everyone knows the general details, even if Roman rarely discusses the events that transpired on Chaos Island that night. Hell, the whole world knows about the combination of disasters that struck the place.
She shakes her head. “The storm came fast. One moment the sky was clear, the next it was black clouds. We had to leave the beach. I went with my nanny while Mom tried to find Roman. She wanted him to know where we were. Then the power went out. Everything went dark except for the lightning that flashed. My nanny…” She stops, frowning.
“I was so young…I can’t even remember her name. I just knew Mom said she was my nanny.”
Because she wasn’t the normal nanny. She was an au pair hired for the trip. At home, Nika was raised by aunts, uncles, and cousins, the same way all Kozlov children are. The village that we created together and protect without question.
Now isn’t the time to bother her with that detail, though.
“When the gunshots started outside, the nanny left to check on things. I was so scared, and I waited for what felt like hours.” She swallows hard. “She never came back.”
Her grip on me tightens, and her body goes rigid. Slowly, I thread my fingers through her hair.
No one can lie this convincingly. The emotions in her voice, in her eyes, are too complex. Her body language is too perfect.
This is her truth.
“It was dark, I was scared, and I didn’t know where anyone was. So I wandered away from the nanny’s room to search for Mom. And I found her.”
Her heart hammers against my ribs. Her gaze is distant, far away on a tropical island.
I know what’s coming next.
“I don’t remember exactly how I got there, but I was walking down a path in the dark.
Men were running back and forth. Gunshots still rang out in the distance.
I’d hide whenever people came. That’s what I was doing when I heard Roman’s voice.
I raced through the bushes to reach him, but thankfully, I saw it before revealing myself.
Mom was lying on her back, the rain washing away her blood. Dad was leaning over her.”
That matches with what I know happened that night, but Roman never talks about what came next.
I hold my breath as she continues.
“I watched her die.” Nika’s hand shakes on my chest. Not just from fear or pain, but with fury.
“While Roman stood over her with blood on his hands. I could hear him talking, but I couldn’t make out the words.
The tone scared me, though. As did his expression.
His hands on her neck… He was furious. I barely recognized him.
He looked like a monster when he ripped my necklace off her throat. Then he started shouting my name.”
Her fingers curl into a fist against my ribs, her nails digging in hard enough to draw blood. I don’t stop her.
“He shouted, ‘Nika! Nika!’ over and over. But it didn’t…
sound like he was looking for me. He sounded so angry.
He’d killed my mother, and now he was coming for me.
So I hid in the bushes. Pressed into the ground and tried not to breathe while Roman sprinted past shrieking my name and my mother’s body just… lay there. Alone. In the rain.”
She’s still staring at nothing, her eyes shifting as if she’s watching her past play out on her bedroom wall. A few heartbeats pass in silence. This is the part no one in the Bratva knows. “What happened next?”
Nika shakes herself and blows out a heavy breath.
“Dima found me crying in the bushes. Picked me up, held me against his chest, and shielded me from the sight of Mom’s body even though it was too late.
Asked me what I saw. I told him everything.
How Roman stole the locket from her. How he screamed for me.
Dima had such sad eyes. He said, ‘I’m sorry, little one.
Roman is a monster.’ And then he promised he’d help me make sure that monster never hurt anyone again. ”
So Dimitri found her, took in a traumatized child, and raised her to hate her father? I already know he’s the one who trained her.
But who is he? And why would he tell a child her father is a monster? Several families had a meeting. Is Dimitri from another organization? Could we dig up information on him?
She looks at me, her eyes red but dry. “That’s who I am, Max.
That’s what I’m made of. Fifteen years of refined hate, focused and aimed at one target.
Roman Kozlov. The man who killed my mother and stole what was mine.
The man who destroyed my perfect life and left me with nothing except the need to make him suffer. ”
The conviction in her voice is absolute.
She believes every word.