Chapter 21 Maksim
MAKSIM
The drive back to the safehouse is a blur.
The city streaks by in streaks and headlight glare, but I see none of it.
My vision—normally sharp, honed to read danger like second nature—tunnels now.
It dims at the edges, wavering with the water collecting along my lash line.
My hands stay steady on the wheel because that’s what they’ve been trained to do, but the rest of me feels like it’s crumbling to ash.
The devastation choking me is worse than any wound I’ve ever taken. Worse even than the day I stood at my mother’s bedside and held her hand as she left this world.
How is it that a person can go from being a stranger, to a lover, to a stranger again? It doesn’t feel fair.
I’ve done horrible, unforgivable things in my life. I’ve accepted that karma would come for me sooner or later, that I would have to pay for every drop of blood spilled in my name. But this feels like divine punishment for a crime I can’t even identify. A sentence I can’t appeal.
How do I go on now?
How am I supposed to live in Russia without my lover and child by my side?
Things were supposed to be different once I won the civil war.
When Anton’s people were finished, I told myself everything would fall back into place—my life, my Bratva, my future.
And when Mikhail was gone, the last remnant of that threat, it was supposed to mean safety. It was supposed to mean home.
But none of that is reality.
Instead, I’m left with the shattered remnants of my heart and expected to simply continue living like everything is normal. Like the last seven years weren’t all leading to this moment. Like I didn’t just lose everything I thought I was fighting for in the first place.
The car jerks into the lot behind the safehouse when I pull in.
A large moving van sits pulled to the back stairwell, its engine ticking faintly from recently being shut off.
The place is alive with movement when I get upstairs.
My inner circle is already tearing our operation down, moving with cold precision as they pack the life we’ve been living the past few weeks away.
Boxes are stacked by the door, electronics wrapped and packaged, weapons cleaned and stored in sealed crates.
Katya glances up as I enter, her sharp eyes narrowing at the look on my face. She pauses mid-motion. “How did it go? Are they waiting in the car?”
“No.”
Everyone freezes all at once. One by one, they turn to look at me. Matvey’s glasses catch the light, Roman straightens from where he’s taping off a cardboard box. Even Andrey’s fingers go still on the zipper of his duffel bag.
They wait for me to explain.
I don’t want to. All I want to do is collapse onto the floor and beg whatever higher power there is to take mercy on me, to erase the image of Ivy’s face as she told me no. But the Pakhan in me, the one who doesn’t get to grieve, forces my spine to straighten.
“All of you will go back to Moscow as planned. I will be staying behind for now,” I finally say, my voice flat and dead.
No one moves.
Katya straightens, her brows knitting together, the first flicker of defiance crossing her face. “Without you?”
“Yes.”
“No.” She spits the word like a curse, stepping closer. “We don’t leave you behind.”
“I’m not asking,” I snap.
The sound of it cracks through the safehouse like a gunshot. Katya’s mouth snaps shut. Around her, the others shift uneasily, their gazes bouncing between her and me.
I force my expression into a neutral one even as my insides rot. They can’t see the truth, that the only thing keeping me standing right now is the act of giving an order. Without it, I’d already be on my knees.
Roman is the first to speak again. His voice is tight but unwavering. “You heard him. Pack it up.”
There’s a pause, a long one. I can feel the resistance in the air, thick and bitter, a silent protest no one dares give voice to. But they know better than to disobey me. Even now.
Especially now.
One by one, they fall back in line.
Katya slams the tape gun down a little harder than necessary as she seals the last crate.
Her glare cuts into the floor like it’s responsible for my pain.
Andrey mutters something under his breath and shoulders his bag.
Matvey doesn’t even look at me as he unplugs the last monitor, tucking the wires away like he’s folding a flag after a funeral.
I don’t say a word as they file out, boots thudding against the floor like a slow-moving funeral march.
By the time the last of them leaves, the safehouse feels cavernous.
I collapse onto the couch, the only remaining piece of furniture left in the living room, and rest my elbows on my knees. My palms drag down over my face, but they do nothing to erase the image of her standing there, her shoulders tight, her eyes guarded, voice trembling but firm.
“I can’t go back to Russia with you.”
The pain sitting in my chest is deep, a dull, endless throb that settles into my bones and refuses to let go. I stare at the floor until the edges of my vision blur. Until time ceases to move and silence becomes a vise around my skull.
Then a voice cuts through it.
“Are you really not coming?”
I jolt.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here motionless, but the voice coming from the front door startles me like a gunshot.
My gaze drags upward.
Roman.
He leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed, his silhouette framed by the dim hallway light. There’s no judgment in his expression, just calm observation. And maybe something else buried beneath it. Pity? Sympathy? I’m not sure.
I should send him away, should bark at him to leave me alone, but I don’t. Instead, I admit something I never thought I would.
“She doesn’t want to be a family.”
I don’t know why I say it. These are the kinds of dark confessions I usually reserve for Lev when we’re shoulder to shoulder in the dark, passing the bottom of a bottle back and forth while pretending it makes things easier.
Still, he says nothing, just watches me with that unnerving steadiness of his. Waiting.
“I tried to get her to reconsider… told her I’d protect them both. She told me she couldn’t live in Russia with us always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Didn’t want our son to be involved either. She’s cutting me out of their lives completely.”
“Do you blame her?” he finally asks.
The truth comes too easily. “No.”
How could I? If she were any less of a mother, I wouldn’t trust her with Leo at all. If she were softer, more easily swayed, if she bent to the world the way so many others do when power breathes down their necks, I wouldn’t have left our son in her arms.
It’s her ferocity that keeps him alive. Her refusal to bend, even when it’s me she’s standing against. Her rage, her grief, her need to keep Leo as far from my world as possible.
All of it is justified.
It’s me who isn’t.
Roman steps inside the room, his boots soundless against the hardwood floor. He doesn’t go for a chair or perch on the edge of the table like Katya would. He just walks toward me and stops a few feet away.
“Maybe with time, she’ll come around.”
“I’ve never lost anything I wanted this badly,” I admit, the words like sandpaper on my throat.
Roman and I have been through hell together. We’ve fought side by side, buried the same brothers, carried the same scars. But love? That’s always been the one battlefield we’ve never discussed.
“She loves you, you know,” he says.
I blink at him, surprised.
“She wouldn’t be this angry if she didn’t.”
I huff a bitter breath, dragging a hand over my face. “Love doesn’t mean anything if she won’t stand beside me.”
I stare at him.
“She’s protecting Leo the only way she knows how—by cutting off the thing that threatens him. And right now, that thing is you.”
The words sink between my ribs like a knife. Hearing them doesn’t make me angry. If anything, they make me tired because I know how true they are. Roman moves again, closer this time.
He claps a hand on my shoulder, firm and grounding. “I think you should come back home with us. If only for a little while to give you both space. With some time and distance, I think you will be surprised how quickly her heart can soften.”
He just squeezes my shoulder once, then turns and walks toward the door without waiting for my reply. He leaves the door open when he descends down the stairs, his footsteps the only noise in the heavy silence that follows.
My body sags into the couch, a tired breath leaving me.
Then I’m alone again.