Chapter 7 #3
The realization made me sick. Made me hate myself. Made me wonder what kind of person felt anything except terror in a moment like this.
But I couldn't unfeel it. Couldn't pretend it wasn't there.
Maksim was watching my face. Reading me the way he always did. Seeing too much.
"We should go," I whispered. "Before someone comes."
He nodded once. Put the car in gear. Pulled away from the bodies without looking back.
And I sat in the passenger seat with blood on my shoes and tried to figure out what kind of person I was becoming.
The rest of the drive was silent.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't look at him. Couldn't do anything except sit rigid in my seat and try to keep breathing while Ghost whimpered behind me and the city lights blurred past like streaks of paint.
Red, gold, white. The endless luminescence of Manhattan at night, beautiful and terrible and completely meaningless.
Maksim drove with the same focused precision he'd shown before the attack. Checking mirrors. Watching other cars. Taking turns that seemed random but probably weren't. I didn't ask where we were going. Didn't ask anything at all.
The words had dried up somewhere between the bodies on the pavement and the blood on his hands.
His apartment was in Tribeca. A converted industrial loft with floor-to-ceiling windows and the kind of minimalist architecture that cost more than my entire building.
We took a service elevator that required three different keys and a code.
The hallway smelled like nothing—not antiseptic, not stale air, just the deliberate absence of scent that came from very good ventilation and very expensive cleaning.
I followed him inside on numb legs. Ghost pressed so close to me that I nearly tripped over him twice.
The door closed behind us.
Heavy. Reinforced. The sound of locks engaging like a vault sealing shut—multiple deadbolts, something electronic, something that clicked with the particular finality of serious security. And suddenly I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.
The adrenaline crash. I recognized it distantly. The particular collapse that came after prolonged stress, when the body finally admitted it couldn't sustain the crisis response any longer and just . . . stopped trying.
"You're safe here."
Maksim kept his distance. Stayed on the other side of the room, giving me space, his bloody hands held carefully away from his body like he knew the sight of them would make things worse.
The apartment stretched between us—hardwood floors, leather furniture, windows that looked out over a city that had no idea what had happened in its streets tonight.
"No one knows about this place except my brothers," he continued. His voice was calm. Measured. The voice of someone delivering important information, not the voice of someone who'd killed two men less than an hour ago. "The security system is military-grade. You can stay as long as you need to."
"I don't—"
I wrapped my arms around myself. The shaking wouldn't stop. My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely form words.
"I don't know what's happening. I don't know who you are. I thought—I thought I knew, but—"
"You do know me."
He took a single step toward me, then stopped when I tensed. Reading my body. Giving me control.
"Everything I told you as Lis was true. Everything I felt in your studio was real. This—"
He looked down at his hands. At the blood drying in the creases of his knuckles, darkening from red to brown.
"This is also me. I wish it wasn't. I wish I could be only the version of myself you wanted. But I can't protect you if I'm not willing to do what's necessary."
Ghost had moved.
I noticed it suddenly, the absence of his weight against my legs.
My ridiculous, anxious, traumatized dog had crossed the room and was standing beside Maksim.
Leaning against his legs. Looking up at him with the same expression he'd worn in my studio, when he'd decided in thirty seconds that this stranger was safe.
Some part of my brain whispered: Ghost knows. Ghost is never wrong about people.
His instincts were better than mine. His judgment was cleaner, unclouded by logic or rationalization or the complicated mess of human emotion.
And Ghost had chosen Maksim.
"I'm scared of you."
The words came out before I could stop them. Raw. Honest. The kind of admission I usually only made in the dark, through a screen, to someone I trusted not to see my face.
Maksim's expression crumpled. Just for a moment. A flash of something devastated before he pulled it back behind the mask.
"I know," he said. His voice was raw. "I'm sorry."
"But I still—"
I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't admit the thing underneath the fear, the impossible contradictory thing that had watched him destroy those men and felt protected. That looked at his bloody hands and thought about how gentle they'd been when he caught me in the gallery.
I couldn't admit any of that. Couldn't make sense of it.
So I just stood there. Shaking. Silent. A mess of blood and shock and confusion.
"I'm going to wash up," Maksim said quietly. He was giving me an exit. Giving me space to fall apart without an audience. "There's food in the kitchen, a guest room down the hall. Take whatever you need. I'll be here if you want to talk, and I'll leave you alone if you don't."
He paused at the doorway. His profile was sharp against the city lights beyond the windows—all angles and shadows and the particular beauty of dangerous things.
"I swear on my life, Auralia."
He turned to look at me. Those warm brown eyes, anguished and certain and absolutely sincere.
"I will never hurt you. And I will never let anyone else hurt you either. Whatever else you believe about me—believe that."
Then he was gone. Down the hallway. A door closing somewhere in the depths of the apartment.
And I was standing alone in a stranger's home.