Chapter Nine
Rain tapped steadily against the windows as Maksim checked the locks of the warehouse one final time. The new safehouse sat at the edge of the city near the industrial docks, buried between abandoned warehouses and rusting shipping containers nobody bothered looking at twice. Not even his brothers.
Lena stood near the kitchen counter watching him silently. Maksim could feel her eyes following him around the room. Ever since their last conversation, something between them had shifted again.
Marriage. Even thinking the word still felt strange in his head. Hell, it felt unreal. Maksim had spent years mocking men who willingly chained themselves emotionally to another person. His brothers had once joked he would probably die alone with a gun in his hand and blood on his shoes.
Now he was hiding a woman from the Bratva and contemplating putting his family name on her permanently. Life was funny like that, or cruel, perhaps possibly both.
Maksim opened a drawer beneath the counter and placed a handgun inside carefully. When he looked at her, she widened her eyes slightly.
“You’re leaving me a gun?” Lena asked.
“You know how to use one?” Maksim had to ask.
“My dad taught me basic safety.” She hesitated. “I’ve never actually shot anyone.”
“Good.” Maksim closed the drawer halfway but left it accessible. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Next he placed a thick envelope beside it which contained enough cash to disappear quickly if things went wrong. Lena stared at it.
“Maksim,” she whispered.
“If someone comes here besides me,” he interrupted calmly, “you take the money, the gun, and leave through the back stairwell. There’s a taxi depot two blocks east. No trains. No buses. Understand?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “You really think something could happen?”
He looked at her evenly. “I always think something could happen.”
That was the problem. In his world, paranoia kept people alive. Maksim stepped closer until only a small distance separated them.
“This location isn’t tied to me officially,” he said. “Dimitri and Alexei don’t know about it.”
Yet, anyway. The thought lingered unpleasantly in the back of his mind. Nothing stayed hidden forever. Lena folded her arms tightly across herself.
“You’re really intent on seeing Dimitri?”
It was not a question. Maksim nodded once.
“He needs to understand this situation clearly before Alexei escalates things further,” Maksim explained.
Lena’s expression tightened faintly. “You mean before they decide to try and kill me again.”
Maksim flexed his jaw. That was not happening, not under his watch.
“No one is touching you again,” he said with a growl
Lena looked at him quietly for a moment after that. She nodded. “Please be careful.”
Something inside him paused unexpectedly. Maksim stared at her. Most people feared for themselves around him. Very few feared for him, but Lena looked genuinely worried now.
“I don’t want you walking into something dangerous,” she admitted quietly.
A strange warmth spread low through his chest. If only she understood how deeply she had already become one to him. Maksim stepped forward fully then, one hand settling against her waist.
“You shouldn’t be worried about me. I can handle myself,” he assured her.
Lena rolled her eyes slightly, though concern still lingered there beneath the irritation. “Maksim, I can’t help but worry.”
He brushed his thumb slowly along her hip beneath the fabric of his shirt she still wore. His shirt. The sight of her dressed in his clothes did something deeply territorial to him.
Mine. The thought surfaced instantly again.
Lena looked up at him. “Promise you’ll come back.”
Maksim lowered his head and kissed her slowly and deliberately before answering. It wasn’t the desperate heat of the night before. This kiss felt different, intentional, like a promise neither of them fully trusted themselves to say aloud.
Lena softened against him immediately, curling her fingers lightly into the front of his jacket. Maksim deepened the kiss briefly. He savored the quiet sound she made against his mouth before pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against hers.
For one dangerous moment, his mind betrayed him. He pictured waking beside her somewhere that did not smell like gunpowder and old blood. His penthouse instead of another temporary safehouse.
Maksim pictured Lena half-asleep in his bed, dark curls spread across his pillows. Her stealing coffee from his cup at breakfast. Weekends spent locked away from the rest of the world with her entirely to himself. The image hit with startling force.
Domesticity had never tempted him before. He had always viewed it as weakness. Something soft men reached for when they grew tired of violence.
Still, the thought of her in his home, wearing his clothes, existing permanently within the private spaces of his life, awakened something deeply possessive inside him.
Maksim cut the line of thought off immediately. That future could not exist unless he convinced Dimitri first.
“I need to make my intentions clear to Dimitri,” he murmured against her lips. “Or he won’t back off.”
Lena searched his face carefully. “And if he says no?”
Maksim’s eyes darkened. “He won’t.”
The certainty in his tone sent a faint chill through her body. She probably understood what he meant. If Dimitri refused, Maksim would force the issue, violently if necessary.
Lena touched his jaw gently.
“Come back alive first,” she whispered.
Something fierce tightened inside him then. Maksim kissed her one final time before stepping away.
****
The house loomed against the rain-darkened street. Maksim expelled a slow breath before driving through the gates. He had chosen this meeting carefully.
Alexei was handling business in another district of the city tonight, which meant Maksim could speak to Dimitri alone before his younger brother complicated matters further.
After parking, he headed inside. Familiar guards nodded respectfully as he passed through the quiet halls. The atmosphere remained unchanged as always.
The two guards outside the office door stepped aside immediately without question. Maksim entered without knocking.
His older brother sat behind the massive oak desk, composed as ever in a charcoal suit with silver cufflinks gleaming subtly beneath the low light. A glass of whiskey rested near one hand untouched.
Dimitri gave him an assessing look the moment he walked in. Maksim shut the door behind him.
“Alexei isn’t here?” he asked anyway.
“He’s handling business elsewhere,” Dimitri answered calmly. “You already knew that.”
Maksim said nothing. A faint flicker of understanding crossed Dimitri’s face before his gaze dropped toward the healing wound near Maksim’s shoulder, still visible beneath the collar of his dark shirt.
“The men Alexei hired were ordered to target the girl specifically,” Dimitri said evenly. “I assumed you defended her.”
The reminder brought immediate heat into Maksim’s chest. He saw flashes of it again instantly. Lena dragged backward, the terror in her face. Blood soaking the floor while he tore through men to get back to her.
Maksim tightened his jaw. Dimitri probably noticed his reaction, but Dimitri only leaned back slightly in his chair.
“I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your edge yet,” Dimitri continued calmly. “You left none of those hired guns alive.”
Maksim’s expression remained cold. “They touched what was mine.”
The words landed heavily between them. Dimitri sharpened his eyes almost imperceptibly at the possessiveness in his tone.
“There’s the problem right there, she was supposed to die,” Dimitri said.
The bluntness of it slammed into the room hard. Maksim stared at his brother coldly. Dimitri met the look evenly.
“Maksim, I don’t know what kind of spell this woman put on you,” Dimitri continued calmly. “But you need to wake up.”
Maksim stepped closer to the desk. He knew it. They weren’t going to stop sending assassins after Lena.
“Call off whatever plans you or Alexei have next for Lena,” he said.
Dimitri’s expression remained unreadable. “And why exactly would I do that?”
Because I’ll burn half this city down before I let you touch her again.
The thought flashed viciously through Maksim’s mind, but he forced himself calm before speaking.
“Because I intend to take Lena as my wife,” Maksim declared.
Silence. For the first time since entering the office, Dimitri actually looked shocked. Dimitri lifted one eyebrow as he stared at Maksim like he no longer recognized the man standing in front of him.
“You’re serious,” Dimitri finally said.
“Of course I fucking am,” Maksim answered.
Dimitri leaned back slowly, studying him with unsettling intensity now. Of all the things he expected from Maksim, this clearly had not been one of them.
“You,” Dimitri said finally, “want to get married.”
“I’m not asking permission,” Maksim told his brother plainly.
“No,” Dimitri murmured thoughtfully. “You’re asking for recognition.”
That irritated him because it was accurate. Dimitri stood then, moving toward the window overlooking the rain-soaked grounds below.
“I never expected to hear those words from you,” he admitted quietly.
Neither had Maksim. Dimitri turned back toward him.
“Have you actually thought this through?” Dimitri asked.
“Yes,” Maksim immediately answered.
“I don’t think you have,” Dimitri threw back. “I think you’re desperate and you’re only doing this to ensure that woman’s survival.”
Maksim’s expression darkened slightly.
“You think this is temporary obsession. It’s not, and that woman has a name. It’s Lena and she means a lot to me,” Maksim said.
“I think,” Dimitri said carefully, “that our world destroys most people who enter it. It takes a special kind of woman to survive beside men like us.”
Their mother surfaced instantly between them unspoken. She was beautiful, a quiet and faithful shadow behind their ruthless father. However, she was gradually hollowed out by the violence surrounding their father and their family until almost nothing remained.
Maksim remembered her crying behind locked doors when she thought her sons could not hear, and he remembered swearing he would never allow weakness like that near him again.
“She’s not like our mother,” Maksim said flatly.
Dimitri watched him closely. “No?”
“No,” Maksim said firmly.
Lena had fear in her, yes, but she also argued with him. Hell, she challenged him. Lena looked directly into darkness instead of lowering her eyes from it. Even after he kidnapped her, she had never truly broken.
“She’s stronger,” Maksim said.
Something unreadable crossed Dimitri’s face then. It wasn’t disagreement exactly, and that gave Maksim some hope. Dimitri probably understood that Maksim didn’t make this decision lightly, and he’d stand by his choice, no matter what happened next.
“Strong women bleed too,” Dimitri said quietly.
Maksim held his gaze steadily.
“Then I’ll make sure no one gets close enough to cut her,” Maksim argued.
The room fell silent again after that. Dimitri finally moved back toward his desk slowly.
“You understand Alexei won’t accept this easily,” Dimitri pointed out.
“I don’t particularly care what Alexei accepts or thinks,” Maksim threw back.
That almost earned the ghost of a smile from Dimitri. Then the older man hardened his expression again.
“If you do this,” Dimitri said, “there is no halfway point. Once she becomes yours officially, every enemy we have becomes hers too.”
Maksim thought of Lena in his shirt that morning asking him to come back alive. The warmth of her body curled against his beneath tangled sheets, and the way she had looked at him without fear for the first time. Mine. My woman. The thought settled into place with terrifying certainty.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Maksim assured his brother.
Dimitri studied him for a long moment after that, fingers tapping once against the side of his whiskey glass before stilling again. Finally, he exhaled through his nose.
“I’m only agreeing to this because I know how stubborn you are,” Dimitri said. “Once you decide you want something, you become impossible to move. You’ll tear through anyone standing in your way to obtain it.”
His older brother’s gaze sharpened slightly. “And you’re still my brother. Blood.”
The word carried weight inside these walls. Blood above everything, above loyalty, and above reason sometimes.
“I have no interest in losing you over some woman,” Dimitri finally admitted.
“Lena,” he corrected coldly.
Something unreadable flickered briefly across Dimitri’s face at the speed of the correction. The possessiveness behind it. Then, slowly, Dimitri nodded once.
“Lena,” he repeated.
For the first time since this entire disaster began, Maksim felt the future shift slightly beneath his feet. Not safe, never safe, but it was certainly now possible. That was good enough for him.