Chapter 8 Anton
Anton
I’m staring at the corner of my desk. The place her heel hit the wood when I had her. The ghost of her scent—citrus and sex and her—clings to the air, a torment. She’s been gone for ten minutes. An elevator ride to the penthouse.
Ten minutes is too long.
My phone buzzes. Daniil. Not a call. A text.
She's in the lobby.
A cold spike of... something... hits my gut. Irritation. She’s not following the plan. I'm about to text back Escort her up, when the phone buzzes again.
She's left the building.
The spike becomes a void. A vacuum. "What?" I say it out loud. My finger is already hitting his number. He answers on the first ring.
"Dima, where the hell is she?"
"She exited the south entrance, Anton." Daniil's voice is impassive. Professional. It pisses me off. "Headed for the subway."
"Did you follow her? Is someone with her?" I growl at him. My voice shattering decibel levels.
A pause. A beat of pure silence. "You didn't tell me to do that.
Your standing orders are to guard your office and the penthouse.
To have your back, always. And that's what I do, every damn day.
Not to track Ms. Brooks. Not to help you hang on to a woman who's trying to get away from you.
But I'm calling you because I figured you'd want to know. You're welcome by the way."
A sloppy, amateur mistake.
FUCK.
The same carelessness that had her walking into my office in Friday's clothes. This is what she does to me. She makes me forget. This isn't Daniil's failure. It's mine. I didn't give the order. I assumed she would... what? Just obey?
"Track her phone. Now."
"Already done. She's on the C train. Moving uptown. The route will pass by her apartment."
"Her apartment." My lip curls automatically. The place she was being evicted from. The place that represents everything I'm trying to erase. "Get the car. Now. You and me."
I don't grab a coat.
The ride is torture. The train is a straight shot, underground, efficient. We are in a ten-ton armored Maybach, trapped in the gridlock of a Monday night. Every red light is a personal insult. Every taxi that cuts us off is a threat.
Daniil is silent, driving with an aggressive, focused calm that’s the only thing keeping me from climbing into the front seat and ramming us through traffic.
My hands are fisted on my knees. Why did she leave?
Was it the lesson? The spanking? Too much, too soon?
No. She... she leaned into that. She took off her own skirt.
The gifts. It was the gifts. The "hostile takeover" of her closet.
She's still trying to be that girl. The one from foster care, the one who asks for nothing, who can't accept a gift because she's spent her whole life being told she isn't worthy of one.
Did I not do a good enough job? I told her she was mine. I showed her. I branded her, inside and out. And she still left.
The wound in my chest—the one that never healed, the one that festers every December—rips open. I'm thirteen again. It's two days before Christmas. The smell of pine and burning tires. The sound of sirens in the snow. My parents, gone. Ripped away. Not a goodbye. Just... an emptiness.
I have family. My cousins. Uncles. Dima, in the front seat. They love me. They helped raise me. But I don't belong. Not really. Not in the way that matters. I am the Pakhan. I am the center of the wheel. But I am not… anchored.
Until her.
She walked in, and for the first time since I was thirteen, the world didn't feel... hollow.
And now she's on a train, running back to the hollow.
"She's exiting the station," Daniil says, his voice pulling me from the memory. He turns the final corner.
"There."
I see her. She's walking fast, collar pulled up, a small, defiant figure against the dark, grimy street. She disappears into the foyer of her building.
"Stop here," I command. "Wait."
"Anton—"
"Wait." I get out. I'm not going to storm in. I'm not. I'm going to... talk to her. I'm going to bring her home.
I yank open the heavy glass door to the foyer, a cold, prepared speech on my lips.
And I see it.
The filth from the Christmas party. Alex. He's lunged. He has his hand on her. His dirty, worthless hand is clamped on her forearm.
She's screaming.
He's yanking her toward the stairwell door.
The arctic void opens. The world goes pristine, clear, and cold. All the noise—the traffic, the city, my own panic—it all vanishes. There is only one, simple, logistical problem.
A piece of garbage that needs to be taken out.
"Let. Her. Go."
The words are quiet. I hear them, a low vibration in my own chest.
The filth freezes. He looks at me. He's drunk. Ruined. And he doesn't let go. That's his first mistake.
"Mr. Ismailov," he stammers. "I… I… we were just talking…"
He's still touching her.
"You put your hands on her," I state. It's not a question. It's his death sentence.
"No, I… she… she's lying… she's a slut…"
That's his last mistake.
I don't lunge. I don't run. I simply... close the space.
My first punch is a short, brutal, piston-jab to his throat. The larynx.
A wet, gagging, gurgling sound. His eyes bulge. His hand flies from Talia's arm to his own neck.
Good. She's free.
My second punch is to his nose. I feel the crack and grind of bone and cartilage collapsing under my knuckles. It's so loud it echoes in the small foyer. Warm blood, thick and hot, sprays across my hand, my cuff.
He goes down, a sack of loose, unstrung meat.
He's not a man. He's an it. A thing that hurt what is mine.
I don't stop. I'm on him. My knee is on his chest, pinning him. He's on his back, trying to scream, but only choking on his own blood.
And I hit him.
It's not a fight. It's destruction. It's work.
My first fist connects with his orbital. Thud.
My second finds his jaw. Crack.
My third is a pulping, wet sound as it splits his lips and I feel his teeth give way. Thwack.
One. Two. Three. Four.
The sound is obscene. The wet slap of my fist on flesh that is no longer resisting. The coppery, metallic smell of his blood, so thick it's clogging the air. He is nothing. He is a lesson. He is a message to any other man who ever thinks her name.
I am gone. This is the Pakhan. This is the cold, clean, empty part of me that is necessary.
And he touched her.
I raise my fist again, this time for his temple. To finish. To end this.
"Anton, stop!"
A voice. A scream. It's just... noise. Irrelevant.
"Anton."
A hand. On my arm. On my shoulder. It’s like a fly landing on a block of granite. I shake it off. I'm going to finish.
"Please! Stop! You're killing him!"
Da. That is the point.
"Anton!"
She's sobbing. Hysterical. Pulling on me.
"Please… please, you're scaring me… please…"
She throws herself in front of me. Her hands are on my chest, on my fists. Her small, warm, clean hands are now covered in his blood.
"He doesn't matter," she screams, her voice raw. "Look at me. Anton, look at me. He doesn't matter. I'm yours. I'm yours… You can stop… please."
Her. She’s... she’s here. Between me and the target.
My fist is still raised. My body jerks back reflexively, appalled that I'd ever point violence in her direction. I'd never hurt her. Fucking ever.
The arctic void shatters, and the roaring sound of my own blood floods my ears. I’m breathing like I’ve just run a marathon. My chest is heaving.
My eyes… my eyes hold death. But they’re… focusing.
On her.
Talia.
Her face is a mess of tears and mascara. Her body is trembling so hard her teeth should be chattering. And she is looking at me.
Like I'm a monster.
Like I am the thing that just crawled out of the darkness.
"Talia," I rasp. It's not my voice.
I look down. At the thing I've made. The... man. Alex. His face is... gone. A ruin of blood and broken angles. Then I look at my own hands. They are red. Dripping.
The sickness hits me. Not for what I've done.
For what she's seen.
She saw the Pakhan. She saw the killer.
She’s going to run.
My parents. Gone. Ripped away. Everyone I've ever cared about.
I get off him. I stumble back. Alex... he’s breathing. A low, wet moan. I don't care.
I look at her. And the terror that fills me is a thousand times colder than the void I was just in.
The Pakhan is gone. The monster is gone.
And I am... terrified.
"Why did you leave?" I whisper. The words are torn from me, raw and broken. "You told me... everyone leaves. But then you... You left me."
"I… I was just checking my mail," she says. It's a lie. An excuse. She left. She was safe, and she left.
"You left." I'm backing away from her, toward the door, my hands held up. Bloody. "I can't… I can't have you leaving. I can't."
Alex stirs, groaning. He's… dragging himself out the door. Daniil will get him. I don't see him. My eyes are only on her.
"Anton…" She's crying, but she's moving. A step toward me.
"I know it's quick," I say. The confession bursts out, a desperate, last-ditch attempt to make her stay. To anchor her. "I know you believe it's random. But it's not. It's… It's you. You're the gift… the gift I've been waiting for. To make Christmas right."
"What…?" Her brows pinch. She doesn't understand. She thinks I'm insane.
"It hasn't been right… not since I was thirteen.
" I'm rambling, my eyes wild, the words a flood I can't control.
The dam is broken. "My parents... they were killed.
Two days before. Ripped away. Christmas.
.. it's always been... empty. A reminder of what I lost. Of not belonging.
But then I met you… and I just… I knew. You. And…"
My eyes drop. My hand—my bloody, trembling hand—reaches out. Not for her face. Not to hold her.
For her stomach.
I press my palm flat against her belly. A new, different, primal certainty floods me. This is the real reason. This is the anchor.
"You… and my child," I whisper. "You're my family. You're my everything. You're not walking away from that. And neither am I."
"Anton, we don't even know if I'm pregnant," she whispers, her hand covering mine. She doesn't pull it away. She covers it.
"Doesn't matter." My eyes snap to hers. She has to see this. She has to know this isn't a game. "You're mine. And if you're not… if you're not…" The next words tear my soul from my body. "You have to tell me now. Because I can't… I can't have another person I love ripped away from me."
Love.
The word hangs in the bloody air.
Her. Heart. Stops. I see it. Her eyes go wider. Her lips part on a single, silent breath.
"...love me?" she whispers. She sounds... broken. Like my words, not my fists, are the things that finally shattered her.
My face crumples. It's the only word for it. The great, terrifying Anton Ismailov… I… I break. "Since the first moment I saw you," I confess, my voice a guttural rasp. "In your stupid, broken boot. I wasn't… I wasn't going to tell you that for months. Because you already think I'm insane."
A harsh, broken laugh rips from my chest. "And I fucking am. I am… crazy as hell over you, Talia."
I stare at her, exposed. The killer. The monster. The broken, terrified man. I've put all my cards on the table. The past. The violence. And my heart.
She can pick any of them up.
She just stares at me. She's not running. She's... breathing.
"Then I'm just as crazy," she whispers.
She takes my bloody hand in hers. She laces her clean, warm fingers with mine. She doesn't flinch from the blood. She doesn't flinch from me.
"I… I came here not to leave you. I just… I came to check on… on… nothing." Her gaze sweeps the dusty, sour-smelling foyer of her old life. "I don't need to check on anything. I don't need my mail. My plants… they can die. I don't… I don't need anything here."
She turns back to me, and the terror in her eyes is gone. It's replaced by a fierce, terrifying certainty that mirrors my own.
"My world shifted, Anton. The second I walked into your office. It's yours now."
She lifts my hand. My bloody knuckles. The hand that just destroyed a man.
And she presses her lips to them.
A shudder rips through me. It's absolution. It's a brand. It's acceptance.
My world, which had stopped, starts again.
"You're my world," she whispers against my skin. "And we'll just… We'll be crazy in it together."
Da.
I pull her to me. I don't care about the blood. I don't care about the sirens I can now hear in the distance. I bury my face in her hair, her scent—citrus and fear and her—chasing the copper from my lungs.
Daniil's car door slams outside. He'll clean this up.
She saw the monster.
And she stayed.
Now we'll return to the penthouse and build something neither of us have had for a very long time…
A home.