Chapter 13 Maksim
MAKSIM
I remove my cufflinks with deliberate precision. First the right, then the left. The gold catches fluorescent light as I set them on the metal table beside me. Two soft clicks echo in the warehouse silence, small and final as a judge's gavel.
The man kneeling in front of me bleeds from his nose.
The blood runs over his lips, drips onto concrete already stained dark from previous conversations held in this space.
This warehouse on the Calumet Docks has hosted many such discussions.
The walls have absorbed screams. The floor has darkened with confessions.
Tonight will be no different.
"You're doubly unlucky tonight," I say, voice measured and calm as I begin rolling up my shirtsleeves.
The fabric is crisp against my forearms, the ritual soothing in its familiarity.
Right sleeve, then left, folded precisely three times each.
"Not only did you get caught stealing from the Severyn Bratva, but you had the misfortune of doing it on a night when I'm in a particularly foul mood. "
I hit him before the last word fully leaves my mouth.
Clean strike to the jaw. Professional. Efficient. His head snaps to the side with satisfying force.
The impact travels up my arm, through my shoulder, grounds me in the physical world.
Pulls me away from the phantom sound of piano keys that's been haunting me since we left the Palmer House.
Away from the memory of Chopin's Nocturne played with technical perfection that felt like a knife sliding between my ribs.
Away from the ghost of who I used to be before fire and blood and broken bones rewrote my future.
There are two ways to purge this particular rage coiled in my chest like ash from a funeral pyre. A good fuck or fucking something up.
And since the first option became impossible the moment a certain sensual brunette walked into my life and made every other option fade to irrelevance, violence it is.
I need this. Need the simplicity of flesh meeting flesh, of problems that can be solved with fists instead of strategy.
Need to feel the sting in my knuckles instead of the uncomfortable pressure in my chest that appeared when Victoria leaned toward me in her bedroom, lips parted, eyes half-closed, offering a kiss I wanted so badly I had to reject it or lose myself entirely.
We'd barely walked through the door, coming back from the Gala, when Alexei called. Mission successful. Target acquired. Caught red-handed with Severyn property in his possession.
And I was more than happy to get back in the SUV and drive to the docks in the middle of the night. Grateful for the excuse to channel this restless, destructive energy into productivity.
Violence is an excellent outlet for emotions I refuse to name.
For weeks now, certain crates from our shipments have been going missing.
Not enough to cripple operations, but enough to be noticed.
Enough to be insulting. Small losses that add up to substantial theft over time, and more importantly, suggest someone inside our organization is feeding information to outsiders.
I put Alexei in charge of finding who was responsible. Gave him resources, manpower, and explicit permission to use whatever methods necessary.
Tonight, he and his team caught this piece of shit red-handed, loading Severyn merchandise into an unmarked van at three in the morning.
The warehouse reeks of oil and salt and iron.
The particular smell of industrial spaces near water.
Rust and brine and the metallic tang of old blood that never quite washes away.
Fluorescent lights flicker overhead, casting strobing shadows across concrete that make everything look like broken film footage.
Somewhere in the darkness, water drips in steady rhythm. A leaking pipe or condensation from the ceiling, marking time like a metronome.
I study the man kneeling before me. He's wiry, young, with the kind of muscle you get from hard labor.
His eyes carry defiance even through the pain. Tough. Used to taking hits. This won't be easy, but I prefer it that way.
"Who are you working for?" I ask, keeping my voice conversational. Polite, even.
He spits blood on the floor between us. The gesture is deliberate. Contemptuous.
"Get fucked," he says.
"I wish I could," I reply honestly, and hit him again.
Right fist to the face, connecting with his cheekbone. Then left to the gut, driving air from his lungs with the kind of precision that comes from years of practice.
The second strike forces a wet exhale from his throat. He doubles over, gasping.
The pain in my hands feels good. Clean. Simple. Each impact grounds me further in the present, pushes the piano music further into the background where it belongs.
"Easy, brother," Alexei says from somewhere behind me, his voice carrying that particular amusement he gets when violence is imminent. Like he's watching a sport he enjoys. "Don't want to end the party too soon. We just got here."
He's right. I'm hitting harder than necessary for an interrogation. Letting emotion bleed into the work.
I step back. Shake out my hands. The knuckles are already starting to swell, skin split across two of them. Blood decorates my shirt. An imperfection in an otherwise carefully maintained appearance.
I should care more about that. Usually I would.
Tonight I don't.
Zakhar moves into my peripheral vision, and I hear the whisper of metal before I see the knife. He flips it once, casual and practiced, then crouches in front of the bleeding man with the particular stillness that precedes violence.
My brother's presence is a comfort. We've done this dance countless times. Each of us knows our role, our rhythm, the choreography of interrogation perfected through years of shared brutality.
"I'm going to ask you a question," Zakhar says, his voice so calm it becomes terrifying. The kind of quiet that makes people nervous because they can't predict what comes next. "And you're going to answer truthfully. Are you working with Eryan Nis?"
The man laughs, though it comes out wet and broken through blood and damaged tissue.
"I don't work for ghosts," he says, grinning through split lips. "My boss is real. Flesh and blood. And he's going to take down the Severyns very soon. Take possession of everything that belongs to you. Your docks. Your shipments. Your warehouses."
He pauses, and his grin widens into ugliness.
"Including that bitch you married, Severyn. Heard she's a real piece of work. Uppity cunt who thinks she's better than everyone. Once we're done with you, we'll make sure she gets proper attention. The kind a whore like that deserves. Maybe we'll pass her around, see if she's as good as she looks."
The words are still leaving his mouth when Zakhar moves.
One hand shoots out, grabs the man's hair, wrenches his head back hard enough that I hear vertebrae crack. The other hand forces his jaw open with brutal efficiency, fingers digging into pressure points that make resistance impossible.
The knife flashes once in the flickering light.
Then the howling starts.
The sound of pain echoes through the warehouse, bouncing off steel beams and concrete walls, amplifying until it feels like the building itself is screaming. Consequence made audible. Lines crossed and prices paid in flesh.
Blood pours over Zakhar's hand, hot and dark. The severed tongue falls to the floor with a wet sound I feel more than hear, landing in a spreading pool of crimson.
The man's howls dissolve into gurgling, choking sounds as blood fills his mouth faster than he can spit it out.
The three of us stand in a circle around the kneeling, mutilated man. Brothers forged in survival, bound by violence, united in this moment of righteous brutality.
We've stood like this before. We'll stand like this again.
This is what we are. What we've always been.
Zakhar looks at me, and his eyes carry fury barely leashed. I recognize it because I feel it too.
"No one talks about her like that," Zakhar says, voice rough with emotion he rarely shows. "No one."
I nod. Agreement. Acceptance. Understanding.
I would have done the same if Zakhar hadn't been faster. Would have cut the words from that man's throat before they finished forming, erased the insults from existence with steel and violence.
The truth of that lands with unexpected weight.
Somewhere, sometime, Victoria stopped being a transaction.
She became mine to protect.
The gunshot cracks through the warehouse like punctuation at the end of a sentence.
The man's body jerks once. Then falls forward, face hitting concrete with a sound like meat dropped on a counter. Dead before his brain fully processes the bullet.
I turn to see Alexei lowering his weapon, expression calm and almost bored.
"He wasn't going to tell us anything useful now anyway," Alexei says with a shrug, sliding the gun back into his shoulder holster. "And his howling was hurting my ears."
Alexei nudges the body with his foot, rolling it face-up. The movement causes the man's shirt to fall open, revealing his chest. And there, right above his heart, is a tattoo that makes all three of us go still.
A wolf's head, fangs dripping blood, holding a dagger, rendered in black ink that's still sharp and clean.
The symbol of the Valkov Bratva.
A mark we thought we'd never see again, not after we exterminated every man loyal to Ivan Valkov more than a decade ago.
The three of us carried that same tattoo once, in that exact spot.
But this man is too young to have been one of Valkov's soldiers. The tattoo doesn't make sense. And things that don't make sense are dangerous.
"We're done here," I say, my voice carrying the finality of verdict. "Call the cleanup team. Get rid of the body. Make it disappear completely. No trace, no evidence."
I look at Zakhar, who's wiping blood from his knife with methodical precision. "Whoever this man was working for will notice his disappearance. We need to be on alert. Increased security at all locations. Eyes everywhere. Double the guards at the house."
"Already on it," Zakhar confirms, his tactical mind already three steps ahead.
I retrieve my cufflinks from the table. Slip them back through my cuffs, restoring order to my appearance despite the blood on my shirt and the swelling in my knuckles. The ritual of reassembly after violence. Putting the mask back on.
We leave the warehouse together, footsteps echoing in the vast space. Behind us, I hear Alexei making calls, his voice low and efficient as he summons the team that specializes in making problems vanish.
The air outside smells cleaner than the blood-soaked space we're abandoning. The lake wind carries moisture that feels good against my heated skin. The SUVs idle at the curb, drivers patient and silent, trained not to ask questions about blood or timing or the bodies we sometimes leave behind.
I slide into the back seat. Close my eyes as the vehicle pulls away from the docks.
The SUV carries me through Chicago's night streets, past shuttered businesses and empty intersections, through a city that never fully sleeps.
And for the first time since I watched my parents die, since I felt my hands break and my future shatter, I consider the possibility that power doesn't only come from isolation.
That maybe the strongest thing I could do is let someone in.
The warehouse comes into view, lit from within, waiting. And I realize that whoever is coming for us, whoever sent that man to steal and threaten and insult, they've made a critical miscalculation.
We protect what's ours with ruthless, absolute, terrifying efficiency.
Let them come.
We'll be ready.