Chapter Four
Lena woke to the same cracked ceiling and the same stale air.
For a few seconds, she didn’t move. She just stared up at the thin fracture line running across the plaster, her eyes tracing it like she had memorized every jagged turn.
Then it hit her again. It was not a slow realization this time, but a blunt, suffocating truth. She wasn’t going home.
A low, frustrated sound slipped out of her throat before she could stop it. She turned onto her side, dragging a hand through her hair, fingers catching in the curls as if even they refused to cooperate.
Second day. Her second day in this place, and day two as Maksim’s prisoner.
The word still didn’t sit right in her mind. It felt too extreme and surreal. It was more like something that belonged in headlines, not in her life.
Yet here she was, waking up in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a room that smelled faintly of dust and iron, with no control over when she could leave.
Her chest tightened. The walls felt closer today, so much smaller.
The room pressed in on her—the peeling paint, the worn furniture, the single narrow window that barely let in light. Everything about it whispered confinement.
Lena sat up abruptly, swinging her legs off the bed. Her foot tapped restlessly against the floor, her body buzzing with a restless energy she couldn’t release.
She hated this, the waiting and the not knowing. The silence that stretched for hours with nothing to break it but her own thoughts.
She had tried the door earlier that morning, out of habit more than hope. Unsurprisingly, it was still locked, controlled by that Bratva bastard.
Lena clenched her jaw. She paced the room once, twice, her steps uneven on the creaky floorboards. What she needed was a feasible plan, to somehow outwit Maksim
The front door opened, and the sound cut through the apartment like a blade. Lena froze.
Her heartbeat kicked hard against her ribs, instinct flaring sharp and immediate. She snapped her gaze to the doorway, every muscle in her body tensing.
Her ears picked up heavy footsteps, but they were not the controlled, measured steps she had come to associate with Maksim.
These dragged unevenly. Something was wrong, she thought with certainty.
He appeared in the doorway a second later, and Lena’s breath caught.
Blood, dark, wet, and unmistakable stained his shirt. It spread across the fabric in uneven patches, some already drying, others still fresh.
His movements were slower, less precise, like each step required more effort than it should. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Her fear flared first. It was sharp, immediate and electric. Then something else cut through it. Instinct, and it wasn’t the kind that told her to run. Although that urge to bolt was there too, clawing at the inside of her skull.
Now. This is your chance.
He was hurt, moved slower. Certainly Maksim was off-balance in a way she hadn’t seen before. The man who had felt untouchable yesterday suddenly looked human and breakable.
Her gaze flicked to the door, which was still locked, but he controlled it, she reminded herself.
Which meant if she moved fast enough and if she hit him, hard, somewhere vital, then maybe she could grab whatever he used to open it.
Maybe she could run before he recovered. Hell, perhaps she could make it out of the building before the bastard even noticed.
Her pulse surged. Her body tensed, muscles coiling with the possibility.
She could do it—at the very least Lena had to try. The thought came wild and desperate, fueled by the claustrophobic weight of the apartment pressing in on her from all sides.
The walls, the air, and the silence ... everything in this place whispered stay, and every part of her screamed back go. Lena curled her fingers slightly at her sides.
She imagined it in quick, fractured flashes. Lena pictured herself lunging forward, catching him off guard, grabbing the device, bolting for the door, and not looking back.
Freedom. The word burned through her like oxygen. Then another memory rose up, quieter, steadier.
Her father’s voice. You don’t walk away when someone needs help, Lena. Not if you can do something about it.
She clenched her jaw. This wasn’t the same, because Maksim wasn’t some stranger on the side of the road or a neighbor who needed fixing up after a fall.
This was the man who had taken her. The man who had killed someone in front of her without blinking. Maksim was the very reason she was trapped here in the first place.
He deserved nothing from her, not help or an ounce of kindness. Certainly not mercy. Lena flicked her gaze back to him.
He had braced a hand against the wall now, just briefly, like even standing upright required more effort than he would ever admit. There was fresh blood on his fingers.
Her stomach twisted, because he looked worse up close.
Not weak, never that, but strained in a way that made something inside her chest tighten despite herself. Leave him. Take your chance.
Her pulse hammered louder. She could still do it, and Lena really should, but too bad her feet didn’t move.
Because that other instinct, the one her father had drilled into her so deeply it had become part of her bones, refused to stay quiet.
Helping others always came first, even when it was inconvenient and undeserved, and it didn’t matter if she hated Maksim with every fiber of her being.
Lena let out a quiet, frustrated breath, anger flashing hot and sharp through her veins.
“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath.
She hated herself more, loathed that this was who she was, and she couldn’t just turn it off, even now, even here. She unclenched her fingers slowly. The moment passed.
The escape she had almost taken slipping through her grasp like something fragile and fleeting.
“Sit,” she said instead.
The word came out sharper than she intended. Maksim’s gaze flicked to her, something unreadable passing through his eyes. He didn’t move.
Lena swallowed, forcing herself to step closer despite every warning screaming in her head.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, quieter now, as if stating the obvious might make the situation more manageable.
“I noticed.” Even now, his voice was steady. That irritated her more than it should have.
“Where’s the first aid kit?” she demanded.
A pause. Then, reluctantly, he nodded toward the bathroom.
“Cabinet.”
That was all she needed.
Lena moved quickly, pushing past him, grabbing the kit with hands that felt steadier than her thoughts. She returned just as he lowered himself onto the chair by the table.
Up close, it looked worse. The blood wasn’t just surface level. It had soaked through, clinging to the fabric, marking something deeper underneath.
Her stomach twisted.
“What happened?” she asked as she set the kit down.
“An error.”
The answer was clipped, evasive. Lena frowned, but she didn’t push. Stubborn man.
“Take off your shirt,” she said instead.
He lifted his gaze to her hers again. A flicker of something, surprise, maybe, crossed his face.
“You’re helping me,” he said, like he was testing the words.
Lena exhaled sharply.
“You’ll bleed out if I don’t,” she replied. “And I’m pretty sure that doesn’t help either of us. Besides, my father taught me to always help someone in need. That’s you, despite everything you’ve done to me.”
A beat of silence passed. Then, slowly, he reached for the hem of his shirt. He pulled it off in one smooth motion. Lena’s breath hitched.
She hadn’t expected the way his body was built, muscle layered cleanly over strength that spoke of discipline and violence. Not even the ink that traced along his skin, dark patterns curling across his shoulder and down his side.
Her eyes dropped immediately to the wound.
Focus, she silently told herself. The wound, that’s what mattered and not his hot body. There was a deep gash along his ribs, the edges angry and raw. It wasn’t clean.
Her hands moved before she could overthink it. She reached for the antiseptic, her fingers brushing briefly against his unexpectedly warm skin.
He didn’t flinch, hell, Maksim didn’t react at all. Which somehow made her more aware of every movement she made.
“This is going to hurt,” she said.
“Do it,” he ordered.
So she did. The moment the antiseptic touched the wound, his body tensed just slightly, but she felt it under her fingertips. That was proof he wasn’t untouchable, not entirely.
Lena worked in silence after that, cleaning the wound as carefully as she could. The room seemed smaller now, the space between them charged with something she didn’t want to name.
Her focus narrowed to the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and the warmth of his skin beneath her hands. The quiet between them that felt heavier than words.
“Hold still,” she murmured at one point, pressing a clean cloth to the wound.
“I am,” he argued.
She glanced up at him, and their eyes met. For a moment, everything stilled. She realized she wasn’t afraid of him like before. Something else had taken its place, an emotion that was certainly more dangerous. Curiosity.
Maksim watched her like he was trying to understand something that didn’t make sense.
“You should’ve let me bleed to death,” he said suddenly. The words were calm, matter of fact even.
Lena blinked. “What?”
“If I am weak,” he continued, “it would be easier for you.”
She tightened on the cloth.
“What the hell?” she asked, her voice sharper now. “You should be thanking me, not telling me I should’ve let you die.”
“Thank you,” Maksim muttered, and he even sounded like he meant it.
Silence fell again. She finished bandaging the wound, her movements slowing as she secured the last strip of gauze.
“There,” she said, stepping back slightly. “Try not to reopen it.”
He didn’t respond immediately but merely studied her like she was an interesting specimen he came upon.
“You don’t make sense,” he said after a moment.
Lena let out a short breath, somewhere between a laugh and frustration.
“Trust me,” she muttered. “I’m starting to think the same about you.”
The air between them shifted, just slightly. It was as if there was a change between them, a small crack perhaps. Lena picked up the bloodied cloth, her hands slower now, her mind catching up to what had just happened.
She had helped him, despite his flaws, and he let her. Maksim had trusted her, in his own way. She didn’t know what that meant, or what to do with it.
So she focused on the simple things instead, like cleaning up and putting distance back between them. Still, even as she stepped away, she could feel it lingering.
That momentary shift, like something fragile had been placed between them, unspoken and dangerous, and neither of them quite knew what to do with it.