Chapter 12
?
Maksim
After the shooting session, I escort Julia back to the room. I plan to let her read some programming materials while I tackle urgent matters that can't wait.
Tomorrow, I’m supposed to head to Dublin for a mission, but Ivan is insisting I visit the new casino in Moscow, recently opened by one of his associates.
I glance at Julia, and once again, a wave of regret washes over me. She’s not Vera. She’ll never be Vera. The thought stings more than I care to admit, and it leaves me feeling worse. Vera knew the danger, knew the monsters that wear smiles in this place. Julia doesn’t.
“What’s the deal with the strangled kids?” Julia asks suddenly, her voice cutting through my thoughts like a blade. A fresh headache begins to form behind my eyes.
That’s the problem; there shouldn’t be strangled kids.
Three bodies already, buried without a single lead.
It’s a disaster at this point. As if their lives weren’t already cruel enough, there’s something about the way they’re killed that feels even more sinister than what these monsters do within these walls or at auctions.
Their deaths are coldly impersonal, and we’re dealing with a serial killer now.
“Someone is luring them outside and strangling or suffocating them,” I explain flatly. “The issue is that there aren’t many cameras in the basement area, for obvious reasons, so we have no idea who’s taking them out.”
I give her the details mechanically while pulling out my phone to check the surveillance footage, hoping that something useful has been captured.
I know I should wait until we’re back in the room to do this, but Julia’s question spurred me into action.
Unsurprisingly, there’s nothing helpful on the footage.
I watch as a boy, no older than nine, steps out of the basement alone and starts talking to someone. But whoever he’s speaking to remains just out of the camera’s view.
“Someone left the basement door open.”
Julia’s voice pulls my attention back to the moment the boy opens it on the footage. She’s right. The door was left ajar.
I don’t know when she got close enough to see the screen, but oddly enough, her proximity doesn’t bother me.
My gaze shifts back to the video, and there it is—someone opened the door.
That means they either stole the keys or have access to them.
I should dig deeper into this; Vera would’ve turned over every stone to find answers.
Why do I feel like I’m failing her no matter what I do?
“You okay? You look like you’re lost in your own head,” Julia asks softly, her voice tinged with curiosity.
“I was thinking about someone.”
Every day, I tell myself that today will be the day her death stops hurting so much. Every day, I remind myself that wherever she is, she knows I love her and that everything I do is for her memory. But it’s never enough.
“Hey, one day it’ll hurt less, right?” Julia says from beside me, and despite myself, a small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.
Yesterday, when I saw her so broken over the image of her sisters, it hit me that her parents are gone. She’s mentioned the fire before, how the girls are staying with their uncle now, but it wasn’t until I saw the look in her eyes that I realized her parents didn’t survive.
The words felt like lies on my tongue, but I’ve repeated them to myself for so long that they were all I could offer her in that moment.
“It better,” I murmur under my breath.
“You know you can talk to me about this person, right? It’s not like I have many people here to talk to,” she says gently.
I glance at her for a moment. There’s something so innocent about her, despite the fire burning inside her.
“We’re not friends, Julia,” I say quietly but firmly. “I saved you, I’ll keep you alive, and maybe one day you’ll be able to leave this place, but don’t confuse this for something it’s not.”
My words are deliberate and clear because she needs to understand. The last person who was my friend is dead. I won’t let her meet the same fate.
I can feel the air around her shift because my remark has clearly upset her, but she needs to understand where she is. In this house, no one is your friend.
When we finally make it to the room, I walk over to a drawer and pull out a bag of vanilla sandwich cookies before tossing them onto the bed.
“Eat something. I’ll leave some programming courses open on the laptop for you. Read them and memorize as much as you can. Tonight, I’ll quiz you.”
She looks at me with such confusion that, for a moment, I wonder if I spoke in a language she doesn’t know.
“I swear, I don’t understand you. Ten seconds ago, you told me we’re not friends, but then you bought me sandwich cookies because I like them. You can’t be both cold and warm at the same time. Make up your mind already.”
Her remark irritates me. Yes, I bought her the cookies because she liked them, but not because we’re friends. I did it because I don’t want her to hate her life here entirely. I can’t give her everything a girl like her might need, but I can offer the bare minimum to make it tolerable.
I decide to ignore her words altogether, since it’s safer that way, and step out of the room. There are far too many things on my plate to waste energy on Julia’s frustrations.
?
I barely make it outside the mansion when I see Akim leaning against the wall, waiting for me.
“Interesting roommate you’ve got,” he says, his tone laced with amusement.
“Tell me about it.”
“But seriously—why? She’s not the first girl brought here, not the first one abused, not the first one beaten. Why her?”
Akim is one of the few people who knows I didn’t take Julia out of desire or pleasure. Unlike Ivan and Aleksandr, neither Akim nor I share their twisted appetites.
Akim still goes out into the city and seeks companionship with women. I don’t. I can’t stand being touched, and even the thought of sex drags my mind into a dark place I rarely escape from.
Vera was the only person whose touch didn’t feel like poison, the only one who didn’t make me relive every day and night of abuse.
The image of Julia flashes in my mind, our fingers intertwined. It wasn’t sexual; she’s practically a kid. But maybe, just maybe, I’m starting to heal. Maybe I’m learning to tolerate other people in my space without recoiling in disgust.
“She reminds me of Vera,” I murmur softly.
It’s barely audible, but Akim hears it. He’s one of the few who knows everything—one of the few who helped me build this plan from scratch.
While I gather financial resources and recruit people to help us pull the rug out from under these monsters, Akim is the one who brings brute force to the table.
I know his soul has been chipped away over time — witnessing so much violence and abuse will do that — but like me, he was a child abandoned by everyone.
When he was left alone with Zoya, debts piled up quickly, and Ivan’s lieutenant found him, a young man burning with determination despite his circumstances.
He offered Akim a job and a roof over his head for both Zoya and him, but that didn’t exempt him from beatings or everything else that happens here.
In this life, fighting isn’t always an option. Sometimes, you have to submit and that’s what we did. At least that’s what they think we did. They’ll learn otherwise soon enough when they take their last breaths and my eyes are the last thing they see before they knock on hell’s door.
“She’s got talent with a machine gun,” Akim says with a chuckle.
I shake my head at him because he’s not wrong. Somehow, from day one, I’ve associated her with a machine gun, a force of chaos unleashed in a single burst of firepower, and Julia seems capable of causing exactly that kind of destruction.
Sometimes, I swear I can hear her brain plotting how she’ll blow this place to pieces when she gets out of here. She’d been through horrors before she even arrived, but there’s still hope for her. She’ll need every bullet in her arsenal to escape this place alive, but if anyone can do it, it’s her.
“Tomorrow I need to leave for Dublin. Keep an eye on her,” I say to Akim, who nods silently. Without another word, I climb onto my motorcycle. In a few hours, I have to be at the casino, and it’s better to go with a clear head.
I hadn’t planned on driving a knife into Aleksandr’s hand, but when he called her a whore, the same insult he’d used against Vera, it made me see red.
Still, I had to restrain myself. Ivan won’t reprimand me for it even though Aleksandr is his blood nephew.
For Ivan, displays of violence are simply proof of strength.
I head to one of the backup apartments I keep in Moscow for situations like this, places to crash when I need to stay in the city. As expected, a suit is already waiting for me there. Carmen is finishing up her cleaning routine even though this place is barely lived in.
“A gentleman left your suit here. Maksim, you’re going to be the most handsome man there,” she says with a warm smile.
I don’t respond; I just nod. Even at seventy, Carmen insists on helping me clean this place and refuses to leave until everything is spotless.
I know her stubbornness stems from gratitude, but I’m still not used to her presence.
Aleksandr had set his sights on her niece, and I managed to get the girl out of town before he could lay a hand on her.
Since then, Carmen has been a constant presence in my life, showing up daily despite my protests.
Sometimes she even stocks the fridge with food.
When I told her it wasn’t necessary, she simply replied, “In case you end up here and get hungry.”
I glance at myself in the mirror and can’t help but think how mismatched I look in this suit. Oil and water would blend better than me and a tuxedo.