Chapter 26 Makari
Makari
We’ve been out in the forest since dawn, following prints that cut through a stretch of land miles from anything populated. Whoever has been moving through our territory knows what they’re doing. Clean paths. Heavy gear. Not local.
And yet for the first time in weeks, something inside me feels like it’s aligning.
The pattern is becoming clear, a shape forming beneath scattered pieces.
The raids weren’t random. The stashes they hit first weren’t the most valuable, but the ones that fed into the larger operations, the ones they could learn from.
They’ve been severing lines one by one, circling inwards, gathering information.
Destroying the small arteries so the heart bleeds slower.
A deliberate tactic. A patient one. It’s admirable, and infuriating, and I need to cut the head off the snake.
I crouch beside the newest set of tracks, fingers brushing the edges of a deep boot tread. Fresh. Within the last twenty-four hours.
Jesse comes to stand behind me. “They’re getting bolder.” He’s agitated, just as annoyed as I am at this snarl in our business. If the supply runs are compromised, that means the legitimate side of the business is, too. We haven’t booked any guests in the past week—on my orders.
“They’re getting predictable,” I correct, rising. “And predictable men make mistakes.”
He gives a grunt that conveys agreement, though he keeps scanning the trees. The men have been tense for weeks—ever since the last encounter, ever since blood hit the dirt. But today, even with danger pressing in around us, the forest is vibrant enough to cut through some of that heaviness.
It feels alive in a way that reminds me of childhood, of summers spent tracking game and learning the terrain inch by inch at my father’s side. He used to tell me the woods would give its secrets to anyone patient enough to look closely and quiet enough to listen.
Maybe that’s why we saw the lynx.
It stepped out onto the ridge above the camp an hour ago, watching us with pale silver eyes, tail twitching once before it faded back into the trees. No sound. No fear. As if it chose to be seen.
A good sign, one of my men—Nash—said. A sign this land hasn’t given up on us yet.
I let myself believe him. At least until the sound of an engine breaks the stillness.
It’s distant at first—an ATV, one of ours, but all the men I requested are already out here. Which means it’s likely bad news. Jesse stiffens. I turn toward the break in the trees just as the vehicle rolls into view, and he exhales under his breath.
“Ah, shit.” He says it quietly, but it’s too late.
I see who’s on the ATV.
Roxy.
My chest goes tight. The feeling is so sharp I don’t recognize it at first—fear, anger, something tangled between them. She’s sitting behind one of my men, hair flying around her face, eyes fixed straight ahead with a determinedness that makes my pulse spike.
Before Jesse can speak, I’m already moving.
I storm across the clearing. The men—seasoned professionals who’ve spent years learning not to react to my temper—shift their attention away so fast it’s almost comical. They look at the trees, the sky, the dirt at their feet, anywhere but at the woman climbing off that ATV.
Roxy hops down, dust on her jeans, expression steady but shaken around the edges. She glances once at the hunting knife strapped to my thigh, then focuses on eye contact. My steward, who almost never sets foot in the forest, dismounts behind her, his jaw tight.
“Before you explode,” he mutters, “she made me bring her.”
I barely hear him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demand, voice low, too controlled. “This is a restricted zone, Roxanne. You have no escort, no weapon, no—”
“Eric threatened my daughter.”
Her words slice the air clean open.
Everything inside me stops.
“My daughter,” I repeat slowly, the rage starting to coil, but not winding tight enough to hold back the next realization. “Our daughter?”
Roxy’s throat moves on a swallow, eyes darting to see if the men heard. I can see her wondering when I stopped caring who knows. “Mak—”
“Where is she?” The question tears out of me sharper than any blade. “You brought her here?”
“She’s safe,” Roxy says quickly. “She stayed with the ATV.”
My heart slams against my ribs so hard it hurts. I turn, scanning the clearing—just in time to see a small shape scrambling out of the vehicle, dark curls bobbing as she hurries across the grass.
Straight toward Dima.
Of course.
“Bozhe moi,” My God, Dima groans as Andrea reaches him, wrapping herself around his leg. “Little fish, you’re going to get me killed.”
I’m already moving. My body acts faster than thought. I sweep Andrea up in my arms, lifting her clean off the ground. She squeals in surprise, then bursts into delighted giggles, her small hands clutching at the collar of my shirt.
“Hi,” she chirps, breathless, as if she didn’t just nearly stop my heart.
I stare at her, trying to keep myself from crushing her too tightly, from letting her see how close to panic I just came. “What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for Dima,” she says simply, pointing at him. “He said he’d teach me how to whistle with grass.”
Dima looks both pleased and mortified.
“Later,” I tell her, voice calmer than I feel. “Right now you stay with us. Understood?”
She nods solemnly. Then immediately tucks herself against my chest like she belongs there.
I force myself to breathe.
Jesse clears his throat. “What do you want us to do?”
“Same as planned,” I say, shifting Andrea to my hip. “Set the traps. Sweep south. Cover the ridge before dusk.”
A chorus of acknowledgments ripples through the men. They move out, purposeful and quick, leaving us with the soft hush of the forest closing in again.
I turn back to Roxy.
She’s watching me with a look that says she’s bracing for the storm.
“Come,” I say quietly. “We’re going to the cabin.”
The walk isn’t long. The cabin sits half-hidden behind a stand of white pines, its cedar siding gleaming faintly in the filtered light. It’s one of the private lodges—the kind used for foreign partners or high-tier guests. Luxury tucked into wilderness.
I push the door open and set Andrea down once we’re inside. She wanders toward the enormous window, tracing a small hand across the glass while she examines the view of the river below.
Roxy shuts the door behind her, then leans back against it, looking as wrung out as I feel.
“She should rest,” I say.
Roxy nods. They move down the hall together, and when they reappear minutes later, Andi is wrapped in a soft blanket, already drifting. Roxy lays her on the couch and tucks the edges close.
Only when the child settles into sleep does Roxy step away.
We face each other across the room.
“Tell me,” I say.
And she does.
She tells me everything Eric said in that lot—the Chicago group, the debt he owes, the desperation twisting him into something dangerous, the way he asked for information about land surveys and safehouses.
She tells me how he stepped close enough to corner her, how his voice sharpened when she refused him, how he invoked Andrea’s name.
How he threatened the little girl asleep ten feet away from us. My little girl.
I don’t interrupt. I don’t breathe for a long stretch of it. When I do, something inside me feels different—heavier, colder, older. Not the kind of cold I used to live in, but something far less stable.
“You should have told me immediately,” I say.
“I wanted to. But I was afraid if I did it in front of your men, Eric—”
“You should have told me,” I repeat, not raising my voice but feeling it cut clean through the space between us.
Her jaw tightens. “I am telling you now.”
The silence that follows is long.
Then, with no warning, the dread hits. It settles in my chest, low and slow, like sinking into water too deep to see through.
Roxy stands there wringing her hands once before forcing them still. “I didn’t know what to do,” she admits quietly. “And now I’m scared.”
The admission guts me. I’d do anything, anything, to take away her fear. I’d raze this whole forest and everything in it.
I move to the chair opposite her and lower myself into it, elbows braced on my knees. I look at the door to the living room where Andrea sleeps and try to assemble thoughts that aren’t soaked in violence.
“This isn’t just about my business anymore,” I say slowly. “It isn’t just my lines they’re cutting or my land they’re crossing.”
I look up at her fully. “It’s you. And it’s her. I didn’t expect that.”
She searches my face with an expression that makes something twist hard in my chest. She looks ashamed, sorry.
“I shouldn’t have taken the job—"
I shake my head, continuing before I lose my nerve. “I thought I knew what I would protect without hesitation. My men. My work. The structure I built over decades. But now—”
The words knot in my throat.
Now I have something else to lose.
Someone.
Two someones.
Roxy swallows, her voice soft when she finally speaks. “Mak…”
It’s all I can do to keep the fear from rising again.
Is this how my father felt all those years ago, when my mother wanted to leave?
When she couldn’t sleep at night for fear that something would happen to her, to me?
Of course, he’d bargained with her: set her up for a new life…
as long as she left me here. And she had.
“I won’t let them touch her,” I say, and the certainty in my voice surprises even me. “I don’t care who they are. Chicago, Moscow, hell itself—I don’t care.”
Roxy closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them again, they shine with something that looks dangerously like trust.
The dread settles deeper. Trust is fragile, and I am not a man known to be gentle.
“Get some rest,” I tell her quietly, pushing to my feet. “I’m not leaving the perimeter tonight. I’ll come back here, later, and we’ll stay over; in the morning I’ll bring you both home.”
She nods, shoulders relaxing the smallest bit.
But as I walk toward the door, I’m certain of something in a way I’ve never been sure of anything before.
This isn’t just my war anymore.
It’s ours.