Chapter 8
Maksim
T he shower hadn't helped.
I'd scrubbed until my skin went pink, until the water running off my hands stopped carrying that faint rust tinge, until the steam had erased every visible trace of what I'd done on that street.
Changed into clean clothes—soft grey henley, worn jeans, the kind of outfit that was supposed to feel normal. Domestic. Human.
But I could still feel the ghost of it on my knuckles. The resistance of cartilage. The way a man's weight shifted when he stopped being a man and became just a body.
Some things didn't wash off.
The apartment was dark except for the city glow bleeding through the windows. Manhattan at three in the morning, all those lights belonging to people who were sleeping or fucking or doing anything except sitting on a couch with blood memory on their hands and the woman they loved ten feet away.
Auralia should have been in the guest room. I'd shown her where everything was—the towels, the extra blankets, the bathroom stocked with toiletries.
Instead, she was here.
Curled at the far end of the couch with her knees drawn up, watching me with those grey-green eyes.
Ghost lay stretched between us like a furry peace treaty, his long grey body spanning the distance neither of us seemed able to cross.
His dark eyes moved between us, tracking the tension he could feel but not name.
She'd changed too. One of my sweaters—the charcoal cashmere I'd left folded on the guest bed, swallowing her frame, sleeves hanging past her fingertips. Something in my chest went tight at the sight. Mine. She was wearing something mine.
The possessive flare was inappropriate. Probably dangerous. I felt it anyway.
I wanted to touch her.
The wanting was a physical ache, lodged somewhere behind my sternum.
I wanted to cross the space between us, pull her into my lap, wrap my arms around her until she stopped trembling.
I wanted to press my lips to her hair and tell her it was over, she was safe, I would burn the world down before I let anyone hurt her again.
I wanted to say I love you, which was insane, because we'd known each other in person for less than a week. But five months of careful conversations lived in my chest alongside the terror of tonight, and the feeling didn't care about timelines or logic or the blood still ghosting my hands.
I kept my hands still instead. Resting on my thighs. Deliberately relaxed.
She needed space. She needed to come to me in her own time, or not at all. Pushing would shatter whatever fragile thing was building between us in this dark room.
So I sat. And I watched her watch me.
The city lights caught her cheekbones, her jaw, the delicate architecture of her face. She looked exhausted. Beautiful. Wary in a way that made me want to pull every threat from the world and destroy them one by one.
"You're staring," I said quietly.
"I'm trying to make you fit."
The words landed somewhere deep.
I understood exactly what she meant.
"I don't fit," I told her. Honest. She deserved honest. "All the pieces of me. They’re all me, but they don't fit together neatly. I've spent years trying to make them make sense, and the best I've managed is accepting that they exist in the same body."
Her eyes searched my face. Looking for the lie, maybe. Looking for the monster.
"Which one is real? Lis? Or . . . this?"
"All of it." I held her gaze, let her see whatever she needed to see. "The part that killed those men is as real as the part that wants to take care of you. I can't separate them. I've tried."
Ghost shifted between us, let out a long sigh, pressed his nose against my thigh. Even in sleep—or whatever half-aware state he'd settled into—he was choosing me. Choosing to trust me.
Auralia's eyes tracked the movement. Something flickered across her face. Not quite acceptance, but something close to recognition.
She was quiet for a long moment. The city hummed outside. Ghost's breathing was slow and steady between us, a metronome counting out the seconds.
"I don't know how to do this," she finally said.
"Neither do I." The confession came easier than I expected. "But I need to keep you here to keep you safe. So I’m going to figure out how to do it. If you'll let me."
Her hand moved. Reached across the distance—past Ghost's sleeping form, past all the space she'd been keeping between us—and touched mine. Just her fingertips against my knuckles. Barely a connection at all.
It felt like everything.
T he questions started slowly, then came faster.
She asked about Anton first—who he was, why he wanted to destroy them, what had happened to put him in exile.
I told her everything. The failed coup. The auction house attack that had nearly killed Sophie before Nikolai could claim her.
The alliance with the Volkovs that had made us strong enough to push him out. The organ trafficking. All of it.
"He should be dead," I said. The words came out flat. Clinical. "Nikolai showed mercy. It was a mistake we're all paying for now."
She absorbed this without flinching. Her face had that stillness I recognized from our conversations—the look she got when her brain was processing, filing, connecting dots I couldn't see yet.
"And the Deshnevs?"
"Old bratva. Moscow money. The kind of family that survives regime changes because they have enough leverage to make themselves useful to whoever's in power.
" I watched her eyes, looking for fear, finding only concentration.
"They don't back failures. If they're funding Anton's return, they expect results. "
Ghost shifted between us, readjusted, settled again. The movement drew her attention for a moment, broke the intensity. When she looked back at me, some of the wariness had softened into curiosity.
I laid it out for her like a battle plan.
Which, in a way, it was.
"Anton's operation runs through a network of galleries and intermediaries.
At least twelve that we've identified, probably more.
" I kept my voice steady, professional, even as something in my chest ached with the awareness of what I was asking.
"They use authentication to legitimize pieces that serve as vehicles for money movement.
Clean paperwork makes dirty money look like investment returns. "
She listened without interrupting. Her face had gone still again—that concentration I'd come to recognize, the expression she wore when her brain was running calculations faster than she could vocalize them.
"What I need," I continued, "is someone who can identify the inconsistencies. The tells that distinguish genuine provenance from manufactured fiction. Someone who can look at a gallery's inventory and determine which pieces are legitimate and which are pipeline."
"And you think I can do that."
"I know you can." I met her eyes. Held them. Let her see the certainty underneath. "I’m Victor Harmin.”
Her eyes widened.
“You caught the Repin when no one else would have,” I continued. “You've been navigating this world for a decade. You understand how authentication works from the inside—what's normal, what's suspicious, what's just good enough to pass scrutiny."
She was quiet for a long moment. I watched the thoughts move behind her eyes—fear, yes, but also something else. Something sharper. The spark of someone who refused to be passive in their own crisis.
"You're asking me to help you take down a criminal organization," she said slowly.
"Yes," I said simply.
"That's insane."
"Probably."
"People could die."
"No. People will die if we don’t do it. Anton's coming back to finish what he started.
The question is whether we're prepared when he does.
" I leaned forward, closing some of the distance between us.
"With enough evidence of money laundering, we can go after his support structure.
Cut off the funding. Expose the intermediaries.
Make it too expensive for the Deshnevs to keep backing him. "
"You want to win a war with paperwork."
"I want to prevent a war with paperwork. The shooting happens either way—this is about whether it stays contained or spills into something that destroys everyone involved."
She absorbed this. Her fingers had started tapping again—that rhythm I recognized, the physical manifestation of her processing. Counting. Calculating. Running scenarios faster than I could track.
"I'm asking you to do what you're already brilliant at," I said quietly. "Nothing more. Nothing less."
Something shifted in her expression. The fear was still there, but it had been joined by something else. Resolve, maybe. Or the stubbornness of someone who had survived too much to be defeated by one more impossible thing.
"If I do this," she said, "I'm not just an asset."
My heart kicked against my ribs.
"I'm not going to sit in a safe house while you and your brothers make decisions about my life.
I'm not going to be protected into uselessness.
" Her chin came up, defiant despite the exhaustion shadowing her eyes.
"If I'm involved in this, I'm a partner.
I work with you, not for you. No more secrets. No more Victor Harmins."
"No more secrets," I agreed immediately. No hesitation. No negotiation.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Suspicious of how easily I'd capitulated.
"I mean it, Maksim. Everything. Who you're working with, what you're planning, what the risks are. I need to know what I'm walking into."
"You'll know everything I know." The promise came out steady. True. "I've been keeping secrets to protect you—I understand now that was the wrong approach. You can't protect yourself from threats you don't see coming."
Something in her face softened. Not quite trust—we weren't there yet—but the first crack in the wall she'd been building.
"And when it's done," she continued. "When Anton is dealt with, whatever that means. I get my life back."
The words hung between us.