Chapter 26
Love in Enemy Territory
—Maksym—
By the time I stepped out of Pakhan’s study, the worst of it was already done.
The Moscow crew hadn’t come sloppy. They hadn’t come small.
But they’d underestimated how fast Pakhan’s men could close ranks once the first wave broke—and how ugly it would get when cornered animals stopped trying to escape and started trying to win.
Outside, the courtyard looked like a battlefield after the smoke cleared: bodies strewn at odd angles, shattered glass glittering under the lights, blood tracking across stone where men had crawled before they died. A few were still breathing. Not many.
I helped finish it. There were no speeches. No drama. Just work. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew my arm was still bleeding, but the adrenaline flooding my system dulled everything. I barely felt it. It didn’t matter. A shot here, a blade there.
Makarov and a few of his men slipped through our fingers. Unfortunate. But they saw enough. They’d carry the message for me.
The second the last threat was down and the shouting faded, my thoughts snapped to her.
I hadn’t seen her yet, hadn’t heard her voice, hadn’t touched her to confirm she was in one piece.
I knew she was probably okay—I’d told her exactly what to do—but it didn’t matter.
I had to see her with my own eyes. My boots moved before I could think, pounding up the stairs, the smear of red across my forearm still wet.
I didn’t care that I was covered in blood, didn’t care what I looked like.
She was alive. That was all I needed to know.
The silence on her floor was thick and suffocating. That bastard had thrown her door open—God knows how terrified she must’ve been, thinking it was him coming back. The door still hung ajar, and I charged through it without hesitation, eyes scanning the room for her.
“Kira,” I called once, my voice soft and careful, but there was no answer.
I checked the bed first—nothing. The bathroom was empty too. My pulse spiked as I crossed to the closet and pulled the door open.
The gun came up instantly.
Her hands were shaking—violently, uncontrollably. The barrel trembled in the air, nowhere near steady, but her grip remained tight. Her eyes were wide and glassy, staring through me as though I didn’t exist. She wasn’t crying or blinking. She was just gone.
“Hey,” I said quietly, cautious not to startle her. Dropping slowly to my knees, I kept my voice steady. “It’s me. Just me.”
She didn’t react.
Her lips moved with a hoarse, broken rhythm, repeating the same words like a prayer: “Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream. Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream...”
My throat tightened. I reached for the gun with slow, deliberate hands. “It’s over,” I murmured, brushing my fingers against hers. “I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”
She didn’t move when I took the weapon from her. Her body trembled, breath shallow, the mantra spilling from her lips in a cracked loop.
“Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream. Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream. Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream. Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream...”
I pulled her into my arms and sank with her to the floor, holding her tightly.
“Shh,” I whispered, pressing her against my chest and rocking her gently. “You’re okay now. It’s done.”
Still, she shook. Still, she whispered. That same broken litany.
“Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream. Don’t look, don’t move, don’t scream...”
I held her tighter, buried my face in her hair, more terrified now than I’d been during the bloodbath downstairs. I didn’t know how to fix this or how to reach her.
She was falling apart in my arms, and it was my fault. Every second of it. I wanted to rip myself open just to piece her back together.
“Malaya, I’m here,” I murmured, brushing her hair back with trembling fingers. “It’s over. You did so fucking well. I’m so proud of you.”
Her lips kept moving, though her voice had quieted. I cupped her face gently, guiding her gaze toward mine. “Look at me. If your mind’s trying to drag you under, you drag me down with you instead. I’m right here. Solid. Yours.”
Her fingers twitched against my chest, and I caught them, guiding them to grip my collar. “Grip tight. Make it impossible for me to breathe. Dig in until I bleed if you have to. You feel like you’re falling apart, you make me your fucking floor.”
When I wrapped my arms around her again, she clung to me like I was her last breath. “That’s it,” I whispered. “That’s my girl. Just breathe. I’ve got you.”
We stayed locked like that for over an hour. I didn’t shift. Didn’t breathe any deeper than I had to. I just held her, whispering low against her hair that it was over, that I wasn’t going anywhere. Not tonight. Not fucking ever.
My left arm went dead under her, pins and needles crawling through it like fire ants. The bullet wound started screaming again, slow, heavy throbs that matched my pulse. My shirt was drenched, blood spreading wider, soaking into her clothes where she pressed against me.
I didn’t care.
Not about the pain. Not about the blood. Not about the fact that my arm might be fucked by morning.
Nothing in this world—not a bullet, not a knife, not God himself—was going to make me let her go before she was ready.
Eventually, her trembling eased. The whispers stopped. She lay in my arms, drained but quiet, the panic finally giving way to something softer. It wasn’t peace, not yet—but maybe the first step toward it.
I carried her to bed, laying her down gently and pulling the duvet over her. She didn’t stir as I settled beside her, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath until sleep took her.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway. I was out of the bed in a second, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door just enough to stay hidden. The bedroom door creaked open and a deep male voice called, “Kira.”
Oleg. One of Pakhan’s men. Of course he came to check on her.
She didn’t respond—still dead asleep. He stepped inside, paused near the bed, probably checking her breathing, then murmured into his radio, “She’s asleep, boss.
” A moment later, the door shut again. Fuck.
That was close. If he’d taken one more step into that room, I would’ve had to put him down.
I exhaled and stared at myself in the mirror.
Blood. Dirt. Sweat. My hair was matted with it, and someone else’s blood had dried in thick, ugly streaks down the side of my neck and collarbone. My gaze dropped to my left arm.
Shit.
The wound had soaked through the shirt completely now. The fabric clung to my bicep, dark and wet, the sleeve stiff where the blood had started to dry. My fingers felt wrong too—slow, numb at the tips.
Yeah. That needed fixing.
I slipped quietly out of Kira’s room, closing the door without a sound. The hallway was dim and empty. Good. The last thing I needed was someone asking stupid fucking questions.
In the kitchen I grabbed a bottle of vodka and the small emergency kit from the cabinet. Then I headed down the corridor to the room they’d assigned to me near the men’s quarters after the lockdown.
I hadn’t used it once.
Tonight was apparently the night.
The bathroom light was harsh when I flipped it on. I locked the door behind me and peeled the shirt off slowly. The fabric stuck to the wound and when it pulled free I hissed through my teeth.
The bullet had punched high into the bicep. Not deep, but deep enough. The muscle pulsed like it had its own angry heartbeat.
I took a long swallow of vodka straight from the bottle. The burn steadied my hands a little.
Then I poured the rest over the blade of my knife.
And over the wound.
The alcohol hit raw meat like liquid fire.
“Fuck—”
I slammed my good hand against the sink and forced myself to breathe through the white-hot blaze, jaw locked so tight I thought my teeth might crack. Blood and vodka ran down my arm in pink rivers, splashing into the basin.
The bullet sat shallow under the muscle. I could feel it when I pressed.
I tightened my jaw and pushed my fingers into the swollen flesh, forcing the muscle to compress around the metal. Pain exploded through my arm, sharp enough to make my vision flash white.
“Come on, you piece of shit…”
I pressed harder.
The skin split a little wider and the dark shape of the bullet finally surfaced through blood and tissue.
There you are.
Using the tip of the knife, I hooked it carefully and pulled.
The bullet slid free with a wet sound.
It dropped into the sink with a sharp metallic clink against the porcelain.
For a moment I just stood there breathing hard, blood dripping from my arm while my fingers trembled from adrenaline and pain.
Then I poured vodka over the wound again, watching the liquid wash pink as it ran down into the drain.
From the emergency kit I pulled out gauze and pressed it hard against the hole in my arm. Fresh blood soaked into it almost immediately, but it slowed. Good enough.
I wrapped the bandage tight around my bicep, teeth clenched while I worked one-handed, binding the gauze in place until the bleeding finally stopped seeping through.
Pain throbbed deep in my bones, but it was nothing compared to the memory of Kira’s detached, frightened reaction to the massacre.
I needed to get clean before going back to her.
I stepped into the shower and turned the water ice-cold.
Hot would only make it bleed worse. I kept the injured arm lifted out of the spray while I scrubbed the rest of the blood, dirt, and death off my skin.
The water ran crimson for a long minute before it finally ran clear, carrying the night down the drain.
When I returned to her bedroom, the silence was complete. Her breathing was the only sound. She hadn’t moved. Still curled on her side like something broken and trying to stay small, her dark hair spilled across the pillow as if the night’s slaughter had never touched her.
But it had.