Chapter 33 Maksim
MAKSIM
The ring sits in my pocket all afternoon, humming like a bomb waiting to detonate.
I keep a hand near it without even realizing it, the way a man keeps a hand close to a holstered weapon. Not from fear, but because everything that matters is there and I can’t afford to fumble it.
Leo notices first. He notices everything now. “Dad, what are you hiding? You keep acting weird all day. What’s going on?”
I ruffle his hair, nudging him out of the dining room. “Go find your mother. Help her get dressed for our date, and then I’ll tell you what we’re doing.”
For dinner, we drive into the city as dusk folds itself over the rooftops, a violet shawl settling along the skyline.
I chose the restaurant for the windows, floor-to-ceiling glass that turns the world into a painting, the kind of place that romanticizes even the gloomiest of days. They know me here, the owner an old contact I cashed in a favor with.
Candles are already lit, a table is already waiting, and the hostess gleefully takes us back to our private section.
Ivy is wearing a dark dress that accentuates her curves perfectly. Leo holds her hand and swings them like a pendulum as they walk, humming a song he made up between the car ride here and the door.
We sit. We eat. We delight in the feeling of family. When dessert comes around and the menu is set down on top of the table, Leo turns to me with his eyes shimmering with excitement.
“Dad, is this the part where I do the thing?” he says in a stage whisper.
I straighten my tie as if that will help my nerves now blooming. “Yes.”
Ivy raises a brow. “What ‘thing’?”
“You’ll see, Mama.” Leo grins.
He wriggles out of his chair and dives under the table with a rustle of linen and a chorus of Ivy’s stifled laughter when he inevitably tickles her feet. When he emerges, he’s holding the velvet box with both hands, solemn as a priest when he hands it to me.
I take it, and a breath along with it. The room narrows to a tunnel with only one person at the end of it.
“Ivy.” I kick back from my chair and bend down to the floor. My knee hits the cold marble with a soft sound. Leo’s scooped up into Ivy’s lap, her arms wrapped around him tightly while she stares at me.
“I loved you before I knew how to call it that,” I say, eyes locked on hers, the words spilling out like they’ve been dying to come out for years.
“I’ve loved you in every moment you weren’t near.
I’ve loved you in the ache of missing you.
In the rage of losing you. And every second since I found you again.
Whatever comes, I will protect you. I will protect Leo.
I will protect what we have together because I was born to be yours. ”
Her eyes shine. Leo practically vibrates in her lap, bursting with the urge to babble while barely containing it. I’m proud of him for giving us this, letting his mother and I have our moment together without interruption.
I open the box. The ring catches candlelight, casting rainbow halos all around us. “So, Ivy Bennett… will you marry me?”
Tears spill and she laughs through them, nodding so fast her earrings bounce. “Yes, Of course, yes.”
Leo throws his arms up. “Yaaaay!!”
I slide the ring onto her finger, which fits perfectly.
The waitstaff clap, one of them bringing over a dessert plate we didn’t order because tradition insists sugar must always finish a celebration. Leo devours half of his piece of cake in one bite and then says very importantly that he is not tired, which is how I know he is.
Ivy kisses our son when he inevitably sags into her once the sugar high crashes. She kisses me too, and this one has the same yes in it as the ring. We end up back where we began—at the car and then, eventually, back at the estate.
Inside, the lights are dim.
To my surprise, Luka is standing in the foyer when we arrive, hands tucked behind his back as he waits. He is alone, which is how I know the news isn’t life-threatening. Even so, my suspicion is piqued.
“Upstairs,” I murmur to Ivy. “I’ll be up in ten minutes.”
Her mouth opens to ask, then closes. She squeezes my fingers. “Don’t take too long.”
I watch her climb, memorize the swing of her hips, the line of her curves, the ring flashing briefly when she touches the banister as she carries our son up to his room. When she vanishes around the landing, I turn to Luka and tilt my head toward the study.
We don’t speak until the door shuts. He doesn’t sit and I don’t offer him a chair to do so. He sets a small bundle he’d been carrying under his arm onto the desk, one that looks oddly familiar.
“Alisa,” is all he says.
I glance down at it before looking back at him. “What about her?”
“She resigned.” He taps the bundle. “Access cards, burner phones, contacts book. She told me if you were interested in speaking to her about this, she would not be reachable.”
I stare at the bundle again in surprise. “More details would be nice, Luka.”
He shrugs, sliding both hands into his pockets. “She says she cannot watch this Bratva crumble again. Refused to be part of rebuilding a house on a foundation she no longer trusts.”
I nearly snort at the irony. “Did she say where she’s going?”
He shakes his head. “No. She implied somewhere warm, though. Something about palm trees if I had to take a guess…”
I rub my thumb over a corner of the desk until the wood warms under skin. A nervous habit I’ve never quite broken from being a teenager sitting behind this same desk with my father. “And you?”
Luka’s mouth does a small thing that might be a frown or an attempt not to make one. “I’m not interested in leaving at the current moment, Pakhan. Though… I won’t promise my mind won’t change in the future. I’m… quite curious to see what you’ll turn this Bratva into.”
Not exactly the answer I want to hear, though it’s not a bad one, either. Luka, for all of his oddities, has always been relatively honest. It’s a trait I appreciate, even when I don’t care to hear the truth at times. “Thank you for telling me tonight.”
“She didn’t ask me to bring all of this to you, but I wanted you to hear it first,” he says, which is his way of saying his loyalty is still alive and well. From anyone else, that would comfort me.
Coming from him is a different story.
I nod once. “Get some sleep.”
He leaves as quietly as he arrived, pulling the door closed with him. I wait another thirty seconds, then pick up the phone on the desk and press the line that will wake only one man.
Lev answers on the second ring. “I thought you were celebrating.”
“I was. Alisa is gone.”
A chair creaks wherever he is. “She left or she defected?”
“She turned her things over to Luka, who just brought them to me. Said she didn’t want to watch another collapse. Not exactly sure where she’s going, though I don’t particularly care at the moment.”
Lev exhales through his nose. “Well, can’t say this is a surprise…”
“I want Matvey on her trail as soon as he wakes up. Make sure she’s actually retiring and not selling us out to another organization because she’s still pissed at me.”
“Already assumed.” He is silent a moment, then adds, “Congratulations, by the way.”
It takes me a half-second to remember the ring. “Thank you.”
“Don’t let this take from your night. Matvey will turn over every rock between here and the equator. If she’s truly retiring, we’ll know. If she’s not, we’ll know.”
That does actually settle me somewhat. “Thank you, Lev. I appreciate it.”
“No need to thank me. Though, I won’t mind if you named your second-born after me.”
I roll my eyes. “Take that up with Ivy, not me.”
I hang up and go upstairs after that.
When I open our bedroom door, the first thing I notice is the room is dark except for two candles over on the windowsill.
The second is the smell of her that’s layered with the faint sweetness of something she’s put on her wrists.
The third is that she is sitting on the edge of the bed wearing almost nothing with her ring on her finger that looks like it has been there forever.
“What did he want?” she asks.
I lock the door, shaking my head. “Tomorrow’s problem.”
She crooks a finger at me. “Then come fix tonight’s.”