Chapter Eight
Long after Lena fell asleep, Maksim remained awake. The apartment was silent except for the occasional hum of old pipes in the walls and the distant murmur of traffic far below. Maksim stared at the tangled sheets wrapped around their bodies while he lit a cigarette to sort his thoughts.
Lena slept with her back pressed against his side.
She rested her hands loosely over his arm where it circled her waist, like even unconscious some part of her trusted him enough not to pull away.
That realization sat heavily in his ribs.
Maksim stared at the ceiling, cigarette smoke curling slowly toward the cracked plaster above.
He should not have let this happen. The thought repeated itself steadily. Beside him, Lena shifted slightly in her sleep, soft curls brushing against his throat. Her breathing remained deep and even. She looked relaxed and, more importantly, she was safe, at least for now.
Safe. He tightened his jaw. What a fucking joke. No one near him stayed safe for long. His gaze drifted downward to her face in the dim light. Sleep softened her completely. She looked younger like this, and vulnerable in a way that unsettled him more than it should.
Maksim had spent most of his life around fear. He knew how people looked at him. Men feared him, and women desired him carefully, usually because of his name or power or the danger attached to him.
Lena, though, looked at him like she was trying to understand him. That was infinitely more dangerous. He moved his thumb unconsciously against her waist beneath the blanket. She made a soft sound in her sleep and shifted closer instinctively.
Maksim went still. There it was again. That sharp, possessive thing inside him tightening every time she touched him willingly. He hated how much he wanted to keep her here, and not temporarily either, but he wanted to keep her.
The thought alone should have alarmed him more than it did. Instead, his mind drifted back to the attack at the safehouse. The timing and precision was suspicious, and the fact the men had known exactly where to strike.
His expression darkened slowly. Dimitri and Alexei. Maybe not Dimitri. Dimitri would have simply ordered him directly if he intended Lena dead immediately. He believed in structure too much for games like that.
Alexei was different. Maksim exhaled smoke slowly through his nose. Alexei had always tested boundaries sideways, smiling quietly while he did it.
“If you won’t do it, we will.”
The words echoed unpleasantly in his head. He tightened his fingers slightly against Lena’s waist. The men who attacked had not tried to kill him first. Instead, they had gone for her. That told him everything he needed to know.
A cold weight settled heavily in his chest. Lena would never truly be safe near him, not while she remained what she currently was. A witness, an outsider standing too close to Bratva business.
His brothers would keep coming. Even if Dimitri stayed his hand for now, Alexei wouldn’t. Loose ends always got cut eventually. Maksim looked down at the woman sleeping beside him. Then at the gun resting on the bedside table.
The thought of Lena dead made something ugly twist beneath his ribs, because she had become precious to him. That was the truth.
Somewhere between patching his wounds, glaring at him over burnt coffee, and looking at him like a monster worth understanding anyway, Lena had embedded herself somewhere dangerous inside him.
Maksim crushed the cigarette out roughly. His mind moved automatically then, cold strategy replacing emotion.
Lena needed to disappear completely.
He could do it, obtain a fake passport, new documents, then hand her enough cash so she could survive on her own. She’d start a new life somewhere far from the city and the Bratva. It would cost him favors, but favors were currency he possessed in abundance.
It was the smartest option. The only option that did not end with her dead. Beside him, Lena stirred faintly before settling deeper into the pillow. Maksim watched her quietly. Would she take it willingly?
It was a clean escape, freedom. The very thing she had wanted since the first night he dragged her into this world. Something unexpectedly bitter moved through him at the thought. If she left, then Lena would disappear from his life entirely.
Maksim would miss her sharp tongue, her dark curls tangled across his pillow, even her kind hands patching him back together after violence. There would be no more Lena. The possessiveness inside him reacted violently. She’s mine.
Maksim closed his eyes briefly. This was exactly why his brothers no longer trusted his judgment where she was concerned. He no longer thought clearly, and he was lying beside a woman he should have killed long ago while contemplating how to save her instead.
His father would have called him weak for this. The thought pulled an old memory loose unexpectedly. His mother standing near the kitchen window in their old house, elegant despite the bruise hidden beneath makeup near her jaw. His father cold and distant even before the violence started.
Bratva wives survived by belonging completely to the world their husbands occupied. They were protected, possessed, and ultimately, trapped.
Maksim had spent years swearing he would never drag a woman fully into this life, and yet here he was.
****
Lena woke slowly. Maksim was already sitting at the small kitchen table when she emerged from the bedroom wrapped in one of his shirts.
The sight hit him harder than it should have. His gaze lingered on her dark curls, messy from sleep, on her tempting bare legs. He noted the marks from his mouth he left on her last night still remained faintly against her skin.
Something territorial flared immediately in his chest. Lena rubbed at her eyes slightly before noticing his expression.
“You look terrifyingly serious,” she murmured.
Maksim said nothing at first. He watched her pour coffee quietly, and waited until she sat across from him.
“I’m going to erase your identity,” he told her.
The mug froze halfway to her lips.
“What?” she asked, looking confused.
“I can make you disappear,” Maksim said evenly. “New name. New documents. Enough money to start over somewhere else.”
Lena stared at him. The color slowly drained from her face.
“You’re sending me away?” Lena demanded.
“It’s the safest option.”
Her laugh came sharp and disbelieving. “Safest?”
Maksim remained calm outwardly even as tension coiled tighter beneath his skin.
“My brothers won’t let me keep a witness,” he told her.
The words landed badly. He saw it instantly in her hurt expression, then she gritted her teeth.
“Wow,” Lena said softly. “That’s what last night was to you?”
“That’s not what I said,” Maksim said, tightening his jaw.
“You slept with me and now you’re trying to ship me off with a fake passport and hush money,” she pointed out.
“It’s not hush money.”
“Then what is it?” she snapped.
He said nothing. Maksim wasn’t sure how to explain. Lena shoved away from the table suddenly, pacing the tiny apartment.
“You know what?” she said bitterly. “I actually thought last night meant something.”
“It did,” Maksim admitted.
“Did it?” She turned toward him sharply. “Because this feels suspiciously like you trying to get rid of me afterward.”
Frustration flashed through him, and not because she was wrong entirely, because she was partially right. Maksim stood slowly.
“You don’t understand the situation,” he told her.
“Then explain it to me!”
“I am trying to keep you alive,” he said.
Lena went still. The raw intensity in his tone hung heavily between them. Maksim exhaled slowly through his nose.
“My brothers already suspect I’ve lost objectivity where you’re concerned,” he said more quietly. “After the attack last night, they’ll push harder.”
“The attack your brothers probably ordered?”
Silence answered her. Lena’s expression shifted immediately.
“Oh, my God,” Lena whispered.
Maksim looked away briefly. That was answer enough. She folded her arms tightly across herself.
“So what? Your solution is throwing me out into the world alone?” Lena demanded.
“It gives you a chance.”
“At what?” she demanded. “Pretending none of this happened? Pretending you didn’t happen?”
Something dark moved behind Maksim’s eyes at that. He stepped closer slowly.
“You think I want to let you go?” Maksim demanded.
Lena stared at him silently. Maksim dragged a hand through his hair, irritation and tension colliding hard beneath his skin.
“There is no version of this where you stay as yourself and survive long-term.”
“Then what version is there?” Lena asked.
Maksim opened his mouth, then stopped as it occurred to him there was in fact, another option. However, it was one option he hated immediately upon thinking it. One his father would have understood perfectly.
Bratva wives were untouchable in ways mistresses and outsiders never were. They were protected by name, blood, and allegiance. His gaze settled fully on Lena again. She frowned slightly at whatever she saw in his expression.
“What?”
Maksim answered reluctantly. “You would have to enter our world fully.”
Suspicion flickered across her face.
“What does that mean?” Lena asked.
“It means,” he said flatly, “you would become my wife.”
Silence crashed through the apartment. Lena stared at him like he had just spoken another language entirely.
“What?” Lena whispered, clearly not expecting that answer.
Maksim held her gaze steadily despite the tension winding tighter through him.
“It’s the only way Dimitri and Alexei would stop seeing you as disposable,” Maxim explained.
Her mouth parted slightly in shock. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“You’re asking me to marry you?” Lena asked, looking shocked.
“No,” Maksim corrected coldly. “I’m telling you the only way I can keep you.”