Chapter 12 – Maxim
Eleanor was sleeping upstairs. I’d heard her footsteps on the stairs an hour ago, soft and defeated, and the sound had twisted something sharp in my chest. The memory of her face across the dinner table haunted me.
The way she’d looked when I’d walked away from her romantic fucking gesture, from her attempt to build something real between us.
I was a coward. A goddamn coward who couldn’t handle the way she made me feel human again.
The link loaded, and ice flooded my veins.
Then a figure emerged from the shadows.
One moment of recognition before the gunfire started.
Clean shots, professional execution. Akim dropped instantly, his skull painting the brick wall behind him in crimson streaks.
Boris tried to run, caught a bullet in his thigh, and went down hard.
He crawled maybe three feet before the second shot punched through his chest, and he stopped moving.
The killer moved like water, like fucking death itself. No hesitation. No wasted motion. Checked the bodies with cold efficiency, then melted back into the shadows like he’d never been there at all.
Bratva muscle memory. I’d seen enough kills to recognize the style, the instinctive way he’d handled the weapon. This wasn’t some street punk or rival gang member taking shots at us. This was family. This was betrayal carved in blood and bullets.
My grip tightened around the phone until I thought the screen might crack. Within five minutes, my office door swung open without a knock. Lev and Cassandra filed in, their faces grim. They’d seen it too.
“Fucking hell,” Lev muttered, dropping into the leather chair across from my desk. His usually perfect hair was disheveled, like he’d been running his hands through it. “How many of our own are we looking at?”
Then, he added, “Could be Beaumont,” but his tone said he didn’t believe it. “Hiring someone to make it look like an inside job. Divide and conquer bullshit.”
Cassandra didn’t even blink as she pulled up the video on her tablet, replaying the moment of execution with clinical detachment.
“You don’t fake Bratva muscle memory,” she said, her voice flat and certain.
“The way he moved, the precision of the shots, the post-kill protocol. That’s instinct, not training. ”
Lev’s eyes narrowed. “How the fuck can you be so sure about that?”
A smile curved Cassandra’s lips, cold as winter steel. “Because I was trained by Rafael for three years. I know what we look like when we kill.”
The admission hung in the air like smoke. I’d known Cassandra was dangerous, but I’d never realized just how deep Rafael had pulled her into our world. It explained the efficiency, the way she could watch death without flinching, the loyalty that went beyond simple employment.
“Someone from inside knows our routes,” I said, my voice calm despite the rage burning in my gut. “Our schedules. Our safe houses. This isn’t random violence.”
Lev leaned back in his chair, dragging both hands down his face. “We’re getting hit from all sides. Beaumont playing games with the media, now our own people putting bullets in each other. This is fucked, Maxim.”
The door swung open again, and Rafael walked in without ceremony. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, no pleasantries or small talk. Just business.
“I saw the footage,” he said, moving to lean against the wall with his arms crossed. “Clean work.”
I nodded, pushing the phone across the desk so he could see the video again. He watched without expression, those dark eyes taking in every detail. When it finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
“Professional. Efficient. Someone who knows our protocols intimately.” His voice was measured, but I caught the edge of steel beneath it. “This isn’t about money or territory. This is personal.”
“Personal how?”
“Someone with a grudge against the organization. Against you specifically, maybe. The timing isn’t coincidental. Your marriage, Beaumont’s media circus, now this. Someone’s trying to destabilize your position.”
Cassandra pulled up another screen on her tablet, fingers flying over the surface. “I can have surveillance on all known associates within six hours. Phone taps, digital tracking, the works.”
“Do it,” I said. “But keep it quiet. If we have a rat, I don’t want them knowing we’re onto them.”
Lev cracked his knuckles, a sound like breaking bones. “What about Eleanor? She’s exposed up there.”
The question hit me like a physical blow.
I’d been so focused on the immediate threat that I hadn’t considered how this would affect her.
She was already struggling with the isolation, the way I’d been keeping her at arm’s length.
Now I’d have to lock down the house even tighter, restrict her movements further.
She’d hate it. She’d fight me on it. And I’d have to let her because keeping her alive mattered more than keeping her happy.
“Double the security detail,” I said. “No one in or out without my approval. And I want eyes on her at all times.”
“She’s not going to like that,” Cassandra observed.
“She doesn’t have to like it. She just has to be breathing.”
Rafael pushed off from the wall, straightening his cuffs. “There’s something else. Word’s already spreading through the network. People are scared. When Bratva starts killing Bratva, everyone starts looking over their shoulders.”
“Good,” I said, and I meant it. “Fear keeps people honest. Makes them think twice before they decide to play both sides.”
“Or it makes them desperate,” Lev pointed out. “Desperate people do stupid things.”
“Then we’ll deal with the stupid things as they come.”
I stood up, moving to the window that overlooked the grounds.
Security lights cast long shadows across the manicured lawn, and I could see the shapes of guards patrolling the perimeter.
How many of them could I trust? How many were watching for threats from outside while planning betrayal from within?
“There’s one more thing,” I said, turning back to face the room. My voice carried the weight of absolute authority, the tone that had made men twice my size step aside without question. “Spread the word that we’re at war.”
The silence that followed was heavy with implication. Cassandra’s fingers stilled on her tablet. Lev’s jaw tightened. Even Rafael, who’d seen more violence than most men could imagine, looked grim.
“Full mobilization?” Cassandra asked.
“Full mobilization. I want every asset activated, every safe house secured, every contact monitored. No one moves without authorization. No one breathes without permission.”
“What about the girl?” Lev asked, and I knew he meant Eleanor.
“What about her?”
“She’s going to ask questions. She’s not stupid, Maxim. She’ll figure out something’s wrong, and she’ll want to know why she’s suddenly got bodyguards following her to the bathroom.”
He was right, and I hated him for it. Eleanor had already been pushing against the boundaries of her situation, fighting for normalcy in a world that would never be normal. Now I’d have to take away even more of her freedom, and she’d resent me for it.
But better she resent me alive than love me dead.
“I’ll handle Eleanor,” I said.
“Will you?” Rafael’s voice carried a note of challenge. “Because from what I’ve seen, you’ve been handling her by avoiding her. That’s not going to work anymore.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means your wife is trying to build something with you, and you’re too scared to let her. But scared or not, she’s in this now. She’s a target because of who she married, and she deserves to know what she’s facing.”
The words hit too close to home, and I felt my temper flare. “Don’t lecture me about my marriage.”
“Someone needs to. You’re so busy protecting her from your world that you’re not preparing her to survive in it.”
“She shouldn’t have to survive in it. She should be designing pretty dresses and living her safe little life.”
“But she’s not,” Cassandra interjected quietly. “She’s here. She’s one of us now, whether you want to admit it or not.”
The truth of it settled in my chest like a stone. Eleanor wasn’t the innocent I’d kidnapped anymore. She’d adapted, evolved, and found her place in the chaos I’d dragged her into. She’d married me knowing what I was, knowing what it would cost her.
And I’d been treating her like she was still that terrified girl in the basement instead of the woman who’d looked me in the eye and promised to make my life hell.
“Meeting’s over,” I said, suddenly needing them all gone. “Get me those surveillance reports by morning.”
They filed out without argument, leaving me alone with the weight of blood and betrayal and the impossible complexity of loving someone in a world built on violence.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the security feeds until I found Eleanor’s room.
She was sitting up in bed, needle in hand, working on something with the kind of focused intensity that meant she was upset.
Her hair fell in waves around her shoulders, and even in the grainy black and white feed, she looked beautiful.
She looked like everything I wanted and couldn’t have.
The fabric she was working with was white. Wedding dress white. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, watching my wife sew her dreams into silk and lace while I planned for war.
My phone buzzed with a text from Rafael: Stop watching her through cameras and go talk to her. Like a husband.
I wanted to ignore it, to stay in my office where emotions were simpler and the only thing that mattered was strategy and survival. But the image of Eleanor sitting alone, working by lamplight while I hid behind surveillance feeds, made something crack in my chest.
I’d spent so many years building walls, creating distance between myself and anyone who might matter. It had kept me safe, kept me focused, kept me alive in a world where attachment was weakness and love was a liability.
But it had also kept me alone.