Chapter 15 #2
The last word drips with condescension and unspoken meaning. As much as I want to accuse him, I know he’s right. I’ve seen what he did to the girl they brought in with me and it wasn’t subtle.
“Has your memory been refreshed?” Maksim asks the soldier again, his tone sharp and unyielding.
“I didn’t know we weren’t allowed to touch her,” the man stammers through his tears.
Seconds pass, each one stretching longer than the last as I hold my breath. At the end of the day, I’m just a piece of meat to them. No one expects Maksim to protect me or care about what happens to me. And deep down, I know he can’t afford to show any weakness.
I glance at the only person who seems to care whether I’m still breathing in the next few minutes. Maksim crouches over the soldier, whose face is pale and slick with sweat from blood loss.
“When did it become acceptable for anyone to touch what’s mine?” Maksim growls coldly, his words slicing through the air like ice.
For a fleeting moment, the soldier glances behind him, and my eyes instinctively follow his line of sight…straight to Akim. But I know it couldn’t have been Akim who sent him. Akim and Maksim are the only ones who’ve ever treated me like more than a pawn in this twisted game.
Maksim’s words settle slowly in my mind, their weight sinking deeper with each passing second. He’s sending a clear message, but his tone is so detached and devoid of emotion that it twists my stomach into knots.
He speaks about me like I’m property, a thing displayed behind glass, not a person with feelings or autonomy.
You’ll get out of here, Julia , I tell myself firmly.
Then Maksim pulls out his phone and dials someone without hesitation.
“Gather all the soldiers at the base of the stairs,” he orders curtly before slipping a knife from behind his jeans.
The man on the floor swallows hard, squeezing his eyes shut as though willing himself to wake up from a nightmare.
I wish I could say my stomach churns at this scene, that after today, I’ll see Maksim differently.
I wish I could say that. But instead, all I feel is an undeniable sense of power, a strange satisfaction knowing that this stoic Russian soldier is unleashing his fury because someone dared to harm me.
Oh, Maksim… What am I going to do about you and my treacherous heart when I leave this place?
“Maksim,” Ivan calls from the top of the stairs in a tone that carries more warning than authority.
Within seconds, soldiers flood into the house like a tide rolling in. Without thinking, I straighten my posture and take a step closer, just a few feet, to the only person who makes me feel safe amidst this chaos.
In the corner of the room, I catch sight of Akim, his brows furrowed as he takes in the scene. There’s anger in his eyes too, and I can tell he’s piecing together what happened, likely noticing the bruises on me.
Four soldiers stand nearby, their eyes fixed on my legs.
I’m only wearing a pair of shorts, and without meaning to, the confidence and strength I felt earlier vanish.
Their stares make me feel exposed, like I’m being appraised or auctioned off, and a shiver runs down my spine, and not the good kind.
Maksim doesn’t miss my reaction or their curious gazes. Within ten seconds, all four soldiers drop to the floor, each with a bullet hole in their forehead.
No one moves. The silence is deafening. I’m pretty sure I let out a gasp after the first two shots, but no one seems to notice.
“That’s what happens to anyone who so much as breathes in her direction,” Maksim declares coldly.
He glances down once at the man who attacked me before shooting him between the legs without warning. The man’s scream is muffled, and judging by how much blood he’s losing, I doubt he’ll last more than a minute.
Without another word, Maksim strides toward the stairs. When he reaches Ivan at the top, an entire conversation seems to pass between them in silence, just through their eyes.
I could say there’s pride in Ivan’s expression, and somehow that realization dulls my emotions. Maksim didn’t do this outrageous act to prove something to me; he did it to prove something to him .
“JULIA!” Maksim’s shout jolts me back to reality, and I nearly trip over myself as I scramble up the stairs after him.
I want to yell at him for walking so fast, but I’m already out of breath trying to keep up, so I hold back. I’ve caused him enough trouble already.
The moment we step into his room and the door shuts behind us, we both exhale deeply, releasing breaths we didn’t realize we were holding.
“Are you okay?” I ask hesitantly, shifting from foot to foot as an overwhelming urge to throw myself into his arms takes over.
For a few seconds, he stands there with his hands on his hips, pacing back and forth across the room. There’s such a dark energy radiating from him that even I feel like leaving the room.
“Am I okay? NO, JULIA! I’m NOT okay!” he snaps, his voice raw with fury. “You were almost raped! What if I hadn’t come home early? What if you hadn’t managed to escape him at first?”
I can feel his anger; it’s palpable, and I wish I could physically take it from him with my hands because I understand it all too well.
Now that the adrenaline has worn off, I realize how close I came to something horrific.
Maybe I would’ve made it to Akim…or maybe that man would’ve caught me again with no way out.
“But I did escape,” I say softly, taking a step closer to him. “And you came back early.”
There’s so much regret in his eyes that it makes my chest ache. Before I can stop myself, I move closer and take his hands in mine. He studies my face like he’s trying to figure out why I’m so calm, why I’m not trembling with rage like he is.
“If something had happened to you…” His voice trails off; he doesn’t need to finish the sentence.
I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. So erratic. So uneven. Remembering that he had heart issues as a child makes me whisper into his shirt, “Please calm down. Your heart is beating way too fast.”
“The damn thing’s broken from birth, Julia,” he mutters bitterly.
Something inside me cracks at his words because it doesn’t feel like he’s just talking about anatomy, it feels deeper than that. Emotional scars layered over physical ones.
I wish I could show him how my heart beats differently when he’s around, how it races just because he walks into a room. And it’s that storm of emotions that pushes me to say something that freezes him in place like a statue.
“No, Maksim,” I whisper gently. “It’s not broken…just incomplete.”