Chapter 6 The Filth I Belong To
The Filth I Belong To
—Maksym—
She ran past me crying.
That was all it took.
My heart, usually so calm and slow and cold, kicked into something unrecognizable. My breath wasn’t steady anymore. My fingers itched. My teeth were grinding, and I was seconds away from breaking something—someone.
She was fine when I left. Bored out of her mind, but fine.
What the fuck did he do?
I stepped out of the house and saw Boychenko’s black Audi glide past the gates like it hadn’t just carried something precious it didn’t deserve. My hands curled into fists.
He did something to her. Said something, maybe. Or worse—put his hands where they didn’t belong. Even the possibility made my vision go red.
I didn’t even think before sliding behind the wheel, starting the engine, and shooting out onto the street like a bullet.
Fuck the job. Fuck the timeline. I should never have left her there alone. I was supposed to keep an eye on her, and instead I went off to crack bones of a man who wasn’t going anywhere. I should’ve watched. Made sure that bastard never got a chance to hurt her.
Every red light was a target. Every car in my way was an insult. I drove like the devil was chasing me—because he was. He looked like me.
I had no right to feel this way. She was too young for the kind of man I was, too unscarred for the world I lived in. Men like me didn’t protect girls like her—we ruined them, whether we meant to or not.
So why did it feel like my lungs were collapsing? Why did it feel like someone touched what was mine?
Mine.
No. Not mine. Not anything.
But that didn’t stop the fire roaring in my blood.
I imagined what I’d do. Skin his face. Snap his fingers. Beat him until even his rich daddy didn’t recognize him.
He lived in one of those ridiculous estates in the city’s old-money district, where wet pavement reflected the iron gates and security cameras blinked red from the hedges like unblinking eyes.
I pulled up down the street and killed the lights. Watched his car disappear into the driveway like nothing was wrong.
Okay, Maksym. Stop.
Breathe.
In. Out.
What the fuck was I doing?
I sat there gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. My pulse still thundered. My mouth was dry.
This wasn’t me.
I didn’t spiral. I didn’t chase. I didn’t burn for anyone.
But he hurt her. I saw the way she ran. I saw her eyes, swollen and raw. I saw how she looked at me like she wanted someone to care. Like she didn’t expect me to be that someone.
He made her cry.
And I was going to make him pay.
But not now. Not like this.
I sat there in the dark until the rage stopped boiling and settled into something colder. Sharper. Something I knew how to use.
I’d take care of him in the next few days. For now, I had to make sure no one else ever got the chance to touch her.
That meant knowing where she was. At all times.
Which, objectively speaking, sounded a lot like stalking.
Great. Maksym the Reaper, professional problem solver, reduced to shadowing a spoiled twenty-year-old around Kyiv.
I dragged a hand down my face.
But Stanislav existed.
Men like him were the worst kind—rich enough to believe the world bent for them, stupid enough to think no one would ever snap their spine for crossing a line. Men like that didn’t hear no. They just waited for a moment when no one stronger was standing nearby.
And I had already made that mistake once.
Did I want to track her movements like some obsessive psychopath? No.
Did I want to wake up one day and hear that Stanislav tried something while I was somewhere else breaking the legs of a man who actually deserved it?
Also no.
So I drove across the city to one of my old contacts, a former military tech who owed me more favors than he had teeth left.
He didn’t ask questions. Just handed me a tiny, high-grade tracker the size of a fingernail and installed the matching app on my phone.
A blue dot appeared instantly on the map—all that was left was slipping the tracker into place.
By the time I got back to the estate, the place had gone quiet. Most of the lights were off. The guards nodded when I passed—used to me coming and going like a shadow.
Her door wasn’t locked.
I stepped inside.
She was asleep, curled up under the covers, soft breathing the only sound in the room. I stood in the doorway for a moment—watching. Just watching. Like a fucking creep.
I told myself to leave.
I didn’t.
I moved toward her like I didn’t trust myself to get too close. Like one wrong step might wake her—or worse, wake something in me. Her face was soft now. No anger, no sadness—just something close to peace. I hated how much I liked seeing it.
I caught myself staring.
Focus.
Her phone was on the nightstand, case floral and cracked in one corner. I picked it up, slid the case off, and carefully pressed the chip into place between the plastic and the phone.
Done.
Her father wasn’t going to protect her. If anything, he’d do worse. And I wasn’t supposed to be the one doing this. I told myself from the beginning—I wasn’t going to get involved.
But I couldn’t stop myself, and that was the worst part. I barely recognized who I was anymore. If there was a handbook for unhinged behavior, I was checking every box. Chasing boys. Bugging phones. Staring at a sleeping girl like I was auditioning for a restraining order.
Obsession wasn’t supposed to look like this.
And yet here I was.
Fucking pathetic.
She shifted slightly in her sleep. Her lip twitched. A breath escaped her nose like a sigh.
I was supposed to keep her safe, not drag her deeper into the kind of hell I lived in. But there I was, breathing heavier with every second I stood in that room, eyes locked on the soft skin of her shoulder, craving the taste of it, imagining my hands on her—
Fuck. I had to leave. Now.
I moved toward the door and that’s when I saw something sticking out from under the mattress.
A corner of paper.
Frowning, I pulled it out.
It was a sketch. Charcoal. A woman’s face.
Another corner peeked out beside it. Then another.
I crouched beside the bed, careful not to make a sound, and eased the whole stack out—thin sheets of rough paper, each one covered in her drawings. The moonlight caught the edges, casting faint shadows across the sketches.
I stared.
And something in my chest twisted.
There were portraits. Her father—drawn like a monster, all jagged lines and harsh shadows, rage carved into the tilt of his mouth.
Her mother—ethereal, distant, floating like a ghost through a world she no longer touched.
Her friend—sharp-boned, hollow-eyed, twitchy.
Too thin. You could feel the tremor in her hand through the sketch alone.
Every stroke of her pencil told a story—and none of them were kind.
Except one.
My fingers trembled slightly as I flipped to the last drawing.
Me.
No horns. No harsh angles. No shadowed hate.
Just me. As she saw me.
The lines were smooth, precise. Strong jawline. A quiet softness in the mouth I’d never seen on my own face. She’d captured me like I was real—the quiet focus in my eyes, the scar on my jaw eased instead of brutal.
And it fucking broke me.
Because I didn’t deserve it. Not that version of me. Not the way she’d drawn me—like I wasn’t a walking weapon. Like I was the only thing in her life that wasn’t rotten to the core.
I wanted to look away. To put the drawing back and pretend I never saw it. Because she shouldn’t see me like this. Like someone good.
I’m not. I’m broken in all the wrong ways. Built for war. Raised in violence. And if she keeps seeing me like I’m her salvation, she’ll never survive what I bring with me. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let anyone else hurt her. Especially not after seeing this.
She’s not just mouthy. Not just spoiled. She’s drowning in silence. Drawing her way out of the pain. She is so much more than she let on. And now I’ve seen it, I’m part of it.
I shoved the drawings back under the mattress, carefully, like they were made of glass. Then I stood in the dark for a beat, heart pounding, jaw clenched.
And I left.
As quietly as I came in—before I did something I couldn’t take back.
It was Saturday.
The sky was colorless. No wind, no sound. The cold settled into your bones and made everything feel slow, tense, and on edge.
I made myself stop thinking about her. Or tried to. Monitoring her movements after dark was just another precaution, no different than checking a perimeter.
Still, I’d kept my distance. Mostly.
That morning, I showed up at the mansion to see Pakhan. I was there for my payment. Overdue by three days, and I wasn’t in the habit of sending friendly reminders.
He handed me the envelope like he was doing me a favor. Like I should bow or kiss the ring. I took it without a word.
“Got plans for tonight?” he asked, already pouring himself a drink.
I blinked. What the fuck kind of question was that? Was he about to ask me on a date?
“Yeah,” I said, slipping the envelope into my coat. “Got something.”
And I did. A gentle talk penciled in with Kira’s delightful fiancé—a little conversation about what the hell went down that night. Depending on the answers, it’d end in either a warning or a hospital bed.
“You should come by tonight,” Pakhan said, swirling his glass like some bored Roman emperor. “Small party. Some of the men. Food. Drinks. A little poker. Beautiful women. Top shelf. The cherries of Kyiv.”
Of course. Their idea of fun: moaning girls on their backs and vodka dripping off their tits. I used to fuck through that fog. But not anymore.
I didn’t answer right away. Just looked at him.
“I insist,” he added, tone still casual but eyes not. “You’re new. Time to build rapport. Show face. Let the men know you’re one of us.”
I sighed internally. For fuck’s sake. Was he gonna keep pushing?
The only cunt I want tonight is your daughter’s, and you’re dangling brothel-grade distractions like that’s supposed to tempt me?