Chapter 24
Teach Me I'm Not a Monster
—Maksym—
Istepped out of that marble cage of a house, the taste of her still on my tongue, and didn’t look back. The cold air bit at my neck, but I didn’t feel it—not with the fire still burning beneath my skin.
Fuck. I hadn’t expected that. That bathroom. That girl.
I lit a cigarette as I slid behind the wheel of my car, letting the smoke curl lazily through the space like a slow exhale. A smirk tugged at my mouth and refused to let go.
She was going to be the end of me.
I went numb at the age of nine and stayed that way. Being seen without being judged, weighed, or feared? I don’t even remember what that feels like.
The last person who had ever looked at me like I mattered—like I was something more than damage waiting to happen—was my mother.
She was fragile and overworked, shadows under her eyes, hands trembling from exhaustion—yet she never touched me with anger. Even when she was breaking, she was soft with me.
Then Mila disappeared.
And my mother began to disappear with her.
First her laugh faded. Then her voice grew thin. Then her body followed—like something inside her had shut down piece by piece. Grief hollowed her out, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I loved her. It should have been enough. It wasn’t.
After that, hell moved in.
My father didn’t raise a son. He raised a punching bag. He blamed me for Mila. For my mother. He drank himself blind and used his fists to make sense of the rest. I learned how to bleed without making a sound. Pain became routine. Silence became safety.
And when they finally took me away, I understood something simple.
The world wasn’t kinder.
It was just more efficient at breaking boys like me.
People either feared me or tried to hurt me. For two damn decades. The women wanted a taste of the legend. The men wanted a chance to take him down. But no one ever asked what was left under the scars.
Until her.
Kira looked at me like I was something rare. Something worth fighting for. Worth breaking for.
And after what I did to Felix, I expected her to retreat. To run like everyone else had. But she didn’t.
She looked me straight in the eye and begged for more. Not in spite of what I did—because of it. She wanted the monster. Every bloodstained part of him.
And that’s what scared the fuck out of me.
Because now—now I felt something. I didn’t ask for it. Didn’t want it. But it was there, rotting in my chest, hot and stupid and raw.
And it was hers.
She didn’t just fuck me.
She branded me.
And I hadn’t decided yet if that made her the only thing keeping me alive… or the bullet that was going to take me out.
I flicked the cigarette out the window, the engine rumbling beneath me.
Tonight, I’d come back to her.
But first—I had some ghosts to haunt.
Pakhan’s a goddamn idiot. Years of unchallenged power turned him into a lazy prick.
He’d owned this city for more than a decade, no serious pushback, so he quit looking close.
All his ghosts were external—rival bosses, foreign syndicates, anyone not in his inner circle.
He forgot the oldest rule. The snake that bites you isn’t always slithering in from the street.
Sometimes it’s coiled in your own pocket.
He thought he was sending me to flex. Smooth things over with Moscow. Threaten a few sons of bitches. Show strength. Reassert control.
But I wasn’t going to fix anything.
I was going to make it worse.
Vadym was fucking good at what he did—patient, meticulous, the kind of investigator who dug until his hands bled.
I’d wiped the hotel clean and I knew the cameras were dead, but with someone like him, that wasn’t enough.
I couldn’t risk it. I needed the city on fire before any thread led back to me or Kira.
By the time I pulled up to the warehouse by the river—the one they used for their “import business”—I already knew exactly what I’d do. It was concrete and rusted steel, security lights humming over stacks of illegal cargo they pretended didn’t exist.
They knew me. They knew who I worked for. That was the point.
All I needed was for a few of them to see my face.
I didn’t bother hiding the car. I let the headlights wash over the loading bay while a couple of their men stepped out, confused at first, then rigid when they recognized me.
Pakhan told me to “remind” them who held power.
And in my own way, that’s exactly what I did.
I reached into the duffel on the passenger seat, pulled the pins with steady fingers, and tossed two grenades through the open bay doors before they even processed what was happening.
The first explosion tore through the crates.
The second followed half a heartbeat later, metal screaming, flames licking up into the night.
I was already pulling away when the warehouse bloomed behind me in orange light.
They’d be frothing by morning.
Good.
Let them come. Let the whole rotten empire turn its gaze on Kyiv. Let it try to swallow us.
I wanted war.
And Pakhan just handed me the match.
It was late by the time I returned. The house was quiet, guards rotating like shadows in the courtyard, with lights still burning on the upper floor. I didn’t knock. I picked the lock silently—a flick of the wrist, a breath held—and I was inside. No one saw me. I locked the door behind me.
Kira sat on the bed with a sketchbook balanced on her knees, a single lamp casting honeyed light over her shoulders. Charcoal dust smudged her fingers. When she saw me, she dropped the sketchbook as if it had burned her and stood up in an instant.
She ran at me.
I caught her as she jumped, her legs locking around my waist, silk sliding over skin. The robe she wore wasn’t tied—barely clinging to her shoulders—and beneath it, she was dressed for sin. Black lace. A matching set meant to be destroyed.
“Hello, Mr. Reaper,” she teased breathlessly, her mouth already finding mine. “Did you come to ruin me?”
I smiled into the kiss, hands sliding under her ass as I spun us once, twice. “I came to finish what you started,” I said, filthy and honest, before tossing her back onto the bed.
She laughed—soft and reckless—and pulled me down with her.
For a moment there was nothing but the heat of her mouth and the soft rustle of sheets as we shifted across the bed. My hand slid into her hair, holding her there, and that was when I noticed the pages scattered beside us.
Charcoal sketches.
I pulled back slightly, glancing down at them. “What are these?”
Kira froze.
“Nothing,” she said too quickly, already scrambling up on one elbow. She gathered the papers in a rush and tried shoving them beneath the mattress.
“Hey,” I said, catching her wrist gently. “Wait.”
“They’re stupid,” she muttered. “Just sketches. They’re not even good.”
“Let me see.”
She hesitated, clearly debating whether to fight me on it. Then she sighed and handed the stack over like she was surrendering something dangerous.
“Fine,” she said. “But don’t laugh.”
I leaned back against the headboard and started flipping through them.
Some of the drawings looked familiar. I’d seen some of them a few months ago—during the completely normal and not at all creepy moment I once watched her sleep from the shadows. I decided to keep that detail to myself.
But there were more now.
Much more.
I lifted one brow slightly as I turned another page. “You know,” I said slowly, “there’s a very clear pattern here.”
Kira crossed her arms, watching me with narrowed eyes. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” I held up the sketches slightly. “You’re clearly obsessed with someone.”
A corner of her mouth twitched. “You could say that.”
I flipped to the next page.
And immediately choked on a laugh.
The picture showed me lounging on my couch—towel barely clinging to my hips.
It wasn’t hiding shit. My dick was fully hard and on full display.
I had to admit—I looked sexy as fuck in her eyes.
Abs tight, a few of my tattoos perfectly detailed, and yeah, cigarette dangling from my fingers like always.
I coughed into my fist.
Kira lunged forward and snatched the page from my hands. “Okay, yeah, you probably weren’t supposed to see that one.”
I looked at her. “You drew this?”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, though her chin lifted with stubborn pride.
“Sometimes,” she said, avoiding my eyes as she tucked the page back into the pile, “I get a picture stuck in my head.” She shrugged. “And the only way to get it out is to draw it.”
The corner of her mouth curved, a hint of blush warming her cheeks. “That one,” she said with a mischievous little smile, “has been in my head for a very long time.”
I stared at her for a second, then grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into my arms.
“You dirty girl,” I murmured, half laughing as I kissed her.
She squeaked softly against my mouth, trying to hide her face in my shoulder, but I caught her chin and tilted it back up.
“And don’t ever say these are stupid,” I added, tapping the stack of drawings still scattered on the bed. “They’re beautiful.” My eyes flicked briefly to the page she’d tried to hide. “Especially the last one.”
She groaned, burying her face in my chest.
I chuckled and brushed my thumb along her jaw, softer now. “I’m kidding,” I said. “Well—mostly.”
My voice lowered, rougher now. “Anything that comes from you is beautiful. I won’t allow you to doubt yourself ever again. You hear me? They’re perfect. You’re perfect.”
She didn’t answer. She just kissed me—slow and soft—and nudged me back onto the bed.
We didn’t talk much after that.
We fucked like addicts breaking sobriety. Like the world didn’t matter, like nothing existed but sweat, teeth, and skin. I slammed into her over and over until her voice went hoarse and my body ached from wanting her.
We slept in short bursts, minutes stolen between orgasms. We woke only to find ourselves clawing at each other again, dragging the night out like it owed us something.