22. Milo
MILO
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask.
“As sure as anything, boy,” Maxim replies with a calm authority.
The underground parking lot beneath the department store is dim and cavernous, the kind of place that feels like it’s holding its breath.
Maxim guides the black SUV down the ramp with calm precision, the tires whispering over concrete. My heart is still hammering from the drive, from the blood on my clothes, from the memory of Kobek’s pale face in the rearview mirror.
I clutch the seatbelt like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.
A message flashes up on Maxim’s phone… it’s Kobek. He’s out of surgery and is going to be okay.
“I told you,” Maxim replies. “My man is built of stern material. He’ll rest and recuperate then be as good as new.”
Maxim then parks in a shadowed corner near a service door, kills the engine, and for a second the silence wraps around us like a heavy blanket. I turn to him before I can think better of it.
My hands find his face—that sharp jaw, the faint scrape of stubble—and I pull him into a kiss that’s messy and desperate and real. Not the heated kind we’ve shared in his bed or on the rug, but something deeper. Something that says…
I’m terrified but you’re mine and I need you to know it.
Maxim’s mouth meets mine with the same hunger.
One of his big hands slides into my hair, gripping just tight enough to ground me, while the other rests on my thigh like he’s afraid I might vanish.
For a few precious heartbeats the world narrows to the taste of him and the steady thud of his pulse under my palm.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine. His voice is low, rough. “malysh… you’re shaking. Iyou saw the message, Kobek will be fine.”
“I know, it’s not that. It’s… I almost lost you before I even really had you,” I whisper. Tears prick at my eyes, but I blink them back. “Don’t you dare leave me now, Daddy.”
Maxim’s thumb brushes my cheek, gentle in a way that makes my chest ache. “I’m not going anywhere. But we have no time to waste. The others are waiting upstairs. We need to get you safe.”
I nod, even though every instinct screams at me to stay right here in this moment. He kisses me once more—quick, fierce—then we’re moving.
But the second my Converse hit the concrete, the illusion of safety shatters.
Screeching tires echo through the garage like a scream. I whip around just in time to see a line of blacked-out SUVs barrel through the entrance barrier in a explosion of metal and glass.
Sparks fly.
The barrier arm flies off like a broken toy.
My stomach drops straight through the floor.
“Shit,” Maxim hisses, already shoving me behind him. “They must have compromised the location. Someone talked. Or they tracked the car. Move!”
We run.
My legs burn as we sprint across the open space toward the goods elevator at the far end. Bullets ping off concrete pillars behind us.
I don’t look back—I can’t—but I hear the SUVs doors flying open, boots hitting the ground, shouts in Italian and English cutting through the chaos.
Maxim’s hand is locked around mine, pulling me faster. We skid around a concrete support and reach the heavy freight elevator. I slam my palm on the call button. The doors groan open agonizingly slow.
“Get in,” Maxim orders. “Fucking get in!”
I scramble inside, chest heaving. The metal walls feel cold against my back. Maxim stands in the doorway, gun already in his hand, eyes scanning the garage like a predator measuring prey.
“Maxim, come on!” I reach for him, panic clawing up my throat. “We can both make it!”
But my Daddy turns to me, and the look in his eyes stops me cold. That calm, absolute authority. The one that makes my knees weak even when the world is exploding around us.
“I’ll cause a diversion,” he says, voice steady. “Draw them away. You go straight to the top floor, toy stock room. Lock yourself in. I’ll meet you there.”
“No!” The word rips out of me. I lunge forward, grabbing his coat. “You can’t! Maxim, please! Daddy!”
He catches my face in both hands, thumbs pressing against my cheeks. “Listen to me, little one. You are my priority. Get safe. I will come for you. That’s a promise.”
Tears spill over now. I can’t stop them. “You better, Daddy. I swear to God, if you don’t…”
He kisses me hard, cutting off the rest of my sentence. It’s brief, bruising, full of everything we don’t have time to say. Then he steps back and slams the elevator door shut between us.
“Maxim!” I scream, pounding on the metal.
The elevator lurches upward with a mechanical groan. I’m trapped inside, rising through the building while the man I love stays behind in a shooting gallery.
Gunfire erupts below once more, sharp, rapid cracks that echo up the shaft.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the cold floor, knees pulled to my chest. My breath comes in short, ragged gasps. Zoop isn’t here to hold. I only have my own arms, wrapped tight around myself, rocking slightly as the elevator climbs.
Please, please, please, I pray silently, the words looping like a desperate mantra. Let him be okay. Let my Daddy make it out. I can’t lose him. Not him. Not after everything.
The elevator seems to take forever. Each second stretches, filled with imagined horrors.
I picture Maxim moving like a shadow through the parked cars, picking off attackers with that terrifying precision I’ve only glimpsed.
I see him taking a hit, blood blooming across his shirt the way it did on Kobek’s.
The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
I force myself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like Charles taught me during one of our late-night panic sessions back at Harvard.
It barely helps.
My mind keeps flashing to the park, to his hands around my throat in the gentlest claiming touch, to the way he bathed me like I was something precious. To the chessboard and the quiet promise in his eyes.
Daddy has to make it. He has to.
The elevator dings softly as it reaches the top floor. I wipe my face with the sleeve of my blood-stained sweater and force my legs to work. The doors slide open onto a wide, dimly lit stock corridor lined with towering shelves.
Plush toys, designer dolls, gift boxes: everything innocent and soft in brutal contrast to the violence downstairs.
I step out on shaky legs and sprint toward the toy stock room Maxim mentioned. My sneakers squeak on the polished floor. Behind me, distant shouts and more gunfire drift up through the building.
My heart clenches so hard it hurts.
The stock room door is heavy, unmarked. I shove it open, slip inside, and lock it with trembling fingers. The space is huge: rows and rows of unopened inventory, giant stuffed animals still in plastic, shelves of sparkling tiaras and fairy wings. It would be heaven on any normal day.
But right now it feels like a cage.
I sink down behind a massive display of giant teddy bears, pulling my knees up again. The fabric is soft against my cheek. I press my face into one, breathing in the new-toy smell, and let the tears come properly this time.
Gunfire continues in bursts below. Closer now? Or is my mind playing tricks? I can’t tell.
Every shot makes me flinch. Every silence is worse.
“Daddy…” I whisper into the bear’s fur, the word cracking. “Come back to me. Please come back.”
I close my eyes and picture him: tall, commanding, that silver-threaded hair and those icy eyes that only soften for me. The way he calls me malysh. The way he spanks me and then holds me after. The way he makes me feel small and safe and utterly owned in the best possible way.
I won’t let this be the end. Not when we’ve only just started.
Minutes blur into what feels like hours, though the clock on the far wall says it’s only been twelve. My ears strain for any sound: footsteps, the elevator, his voice. Anything.
A single, sharp volley of shots rings out, then nothing.
The silence presses down on me like a weight.
I hug the teddy bear tighter, rocking again, the Little in me desperate for comfort while the Lentini blood in my veins whispers that I should find a weapon, that I should fight if it comes to that.
But right now all I can do is wait.
And pray.
Please, Daddy. I need you.
The stockroom door explodes open with a bang that makes me scream. I scramble backward, heart in my throat, until Michael’s familiar sharp features appear in the doorway. He’s breathing hard, suit jacket torn at the shoulder, a fresh graze bleeding across his cheek.
“Rooftop,” Michael snaps. “Now. Helicopter’s waiting. Move, Milo.”
I push to my feet, legs numb. “Maxim? Where is he? Is he…”
“He’s fine,” Michael cuts in, already grabbing my arm and steering me out into the corridor. “Occupied downstairs, but breathing. We don’t have time for questions. Keep up.”
Relief crashes through me so hard my knees almost buckle. He’s alive. My Daddy is alive!
I cling to that single fact like a lifeline as we sprint down the service hallway toward the emergency stairwell that leads to the roof. My blood-stained sweater clings to my skin. Every step echoes too loudly in my ears.
We burst through the rooftop door into cold night air. The helipad lights flood the space in harsh white. Wind whips my hair across my face. And there, standing near the edge of the pad, is Maxim.
He’s holding Paolo by the back of his collar like a disobedient dog.
My uncle looks broken. His once-immaculate charcoal suit is ripped and soaked with blood. One arm hangs useless at his side, clearly dislocated. His face is swollen, lip split, and his gun is nowhere in sight.
For the first time in my life, Paolo Lentini looks small.
Maxim’s eyes find mine instantly. That piercing gaze softens a fraction when he sees me, but his grip on Paolo never wavers.
“Milo,” Maxim says, voice carrying over the wind. “It’s over.”
I walk forward on shaky legs until I’m only a few feet away. Michael stays close behind me, tense and ready.