Chapter 31
Edge of the Night
—Maksym—
The house didn’t go quiet after dinner. It almost never did. Pakhan and his inner circle usually drifted toward the study afterward, pouring drinks, lighting cigars, talking in low voices about things that never made it to paper. That night was no different.
I sat with them longer than I should have, nursing a glass I barely tasted, listening to the smoke-thick laughter and the quiet negotiations humming beneath it. Every minute I stayed felt like another chain around my throat.
I excused myself and walked out, but the tension didn’t stay behind. It came with me—thick, choking—along with every unsaid word clawing at the inside of my chest.
All throughout dinner, I’d been rehearsing it in my head—a thousand versions of how I’d approach her, what I’d say, how I’d explain the inexcusable.
I imagined taking her hands, pressing them to my chest so she could feel how wrecked I was without her.
I’d kiss her forehead and admit that every word I’d thrown at her was a lie, a shield for something bigger—something I couldn’t explain yet without putting it all at risk.
And then I’d say it—the thing I should’ve said long ago.
That I loved her. That I still did. And I’d fall to my knees and let her destroy me piece by piece, if that was what it took for her to let me stay.
I went to her room and knocked once, then again, unease already prickling beneath my skin.
“Kira,” I called, keeping my voice low. I tried the handle. Unlocked.
Her room was empty.
The bed lay untouched, the bathroom dark. No trace of movement, no whisper of her presence. A cold, ugly knot twisted in my chest.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, yanking out my phone. I called once. Straight to nothing. Again. And again.
No answer.
I checked the tracker. She was at Valeria’s place.
Relief hit first, sharp and immediate. Good—she wasn’t alone. She was with a friend, someone who could keep an eye on her, someone who might steady her until she came back to herself. For a second, that thought settled in my chest, almost enough to calm the edge digging into my ribs.
Then it clicked.
Valeria.
Fuck.
Of all people.
Valeria didn’t fix anything—she poured gasoline on it and watched it burn. The kind of girl who turned every problem into a line, a pill, a night she wouldn’t remember. If Kira was with her, it wasn’t better. It was worse.
I had to reach her before she did something reckless.
The last thing I needed was Pakhan realizing she wasn’t in her room. Not because he’d panic like a worried father—he wouldn’t. She wasn’t a daughter to him. She was an asset. But missing property draws attention, and attention is the one thing I couldn’t afford.
So I turned the music up loud enough to drown suspicion and locked the door from the outside.
Then I hit the road, tires screaming over rain-slick asphalt. One hand gripped the wheel while the other clutched my phone, thumb tapping redial like a desperate prayer. The city spun past in a blur of lights and fury. Still, she wasn’t answering.
The silence clawed at me.
By the time I reached Valeria’s building, panic had burned through every last shred of restraint I had. I pounded on the door, jaw tight with dread. No answer.
“Fuck,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
I picked the lock and slipped inside.
The stench of smoke and synthetic sweetness clung to the air, thick and nauseating. I moved fast, checking each room, my pulse thundering in my ears until I found the bedroom door half open.
Valeria and some dude were sprawled on the bed, unconscious, clothes tangled, faces slack. High. Out of it.
I grabbed Valeria by the shoulders and shook her hard.
“Where is Kira?”
Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and unfocused. “Reaper?” she slurred, squinting. “What are you—”
“Where the fuck is Kira?” My voice cracked through the haze like a blade.
She frowned, struggling to think. “She… she left. Ran out. Didn’t even take her shoes.”
Something inside me dropped straight through the floor.
I let her go and she slumped back, already drifting.
I was gone before the sound of my boots faded.
The rain had turned vicious—cold sheets slashing sideways, soaking me through in seconds. I scanned the street, then started moving, walking fast, then faster, calling her name even though the storm swallowed it whole.
“Kira!”
Barefoot. High. Alone. The thought tore through me like shrapnel.
“Kira!”
I was running now, boots pounding puddles that exploded underfoot. Every corner I turned felt like a trapdoor—another empty street, another dead end, another second she might be slipping further away.
The bridge appeared through the curtain of rain—steel arch, low barrier, the river churning black and hungry below.
And then I saw her.
She was curled on one of the cold metal benches bolted into the concrete, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them like she was trying to hold herself together.
Her hair clung to her face in soaked strands, clothes plastered to her skin.
She wasn’t moving. Just sitting there in the downpour, small and folded in on herself.
Barefoot.
I didn’t slow down. I reached her and dropped onto the bench beside her, the metal cold even through my clothes.
“Kira.”
She didn’t react.
I stripped my jacket off fast and threw it over her shoulders, tugging it closed around her shivering frame.
Then I pulled her straight onto my lap, holding her against me like I could shield her from the cold itself.
She didn’t push back; she just sank in, boneless, like she’d been waiting for someone to catch her before she fell apart completely.
Fuck, she was ice-cold, rain-soaked, trembling violently, teeth knocking together hard enough to hear.
My fingers grazed her bare foot and the chill punched straight through my chest. For a second I couldn’t breathe.
She was mine to keep alive, and right now she looked like she was slipping away.
I stood, scooping her up in my arms, and carried her toward the car.
When her head lolled slightly against my chest, I saw it.
Her pupils were blown wide. Her gaze drifted, unfocused. Not just sad. Not just exhausted.
High.
“Kira,” I said again, firmer this time.
Her eyes moved slowly up to my face. She blinked once. Twice.
“Maksym?” she whispered, the word slurred at the edges.
“I’m here.”
She squinted at me like she was trying to force my features into place. “Are you… real?”
My jaw tightened.
“What did you take?” I asked quietly.
She ignored the question completely. “I thought…” she murmured, voice so low it trembled. “You didn’t want me.”
My heart tore open.
“I want you, of course I fucking want you.”
She touched my face with ice-cold fingers, eyes unfocused but searching. “If you’re not real, don’t tell me.”
“I’m real,” I said, pressing my forehead briefly against hers. “And you’re freezing.”
When I set her into the passenger seat, she slumped sideways immediately, still wrapped in my jacket.
I shut the door, rounded the hood, and started the engine, turning the heat up to maximum.
She was shivering so hard it made my chest ache. The heater tried, but it couldn’t reach that kind of cold. I kept one hand on the wheel, the other firm against her leg, rubbing gently, not letting go. She was here. Alive. And I was still holding on, if only by a thread.
She faded in and out, her eyes fluttering closed and snapping open again, disoriented.
She blinked slowly, like I was flickering in and out of existence. “You’re… you’re a hallucination,” she mumbled. “My brain’s making you up ’cause it knows I— I need you.”
My jaw tightened. I slid my thumb over the inside of her wrist, feeling her pulse. “I’m not in your head, Malaya,” I said quietly. “I’m right here. Feel that?”
She swallowed hard, eyes wide. “I—I’m sorry. I took something. I don’t feel right. Everything’s spinning. I don’t know where I am.”
She pressed her palms to her temples like the pressure might hold her together.
I eased up on the gas, forcing air into lungs that barely worked. “Malaya,” I whispered, reaching for her leg. “Look at me. You’re with me now. I’m gonna take care of you.”
But she didn’t seem to hear me.
“My father…” she whispered, gaze fixed on nothing. “He’s laughing. He won’t let us be together. He never will.”
My jaw clenched. “Your father?”
She nodded, then shook her head like the story kept slipping through her grasp. “He said you’d never love me. That I’m nothing.”
“Who told you that?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended. I softened it. “Who said that to you, Kira?”
She leaned her forehead against the window, rain cascading past her reflection. “Ruslan,” she breathed.
Something violent flared in my chest.
“Who the fuck is Ruslan?”
She blinked, slow and heavy. “He… gave me this.” Her hands fumbled with her hoodie pockets.
“What?”
“The pill,” she breathed, staring at her hands like they didn’t belong to her. “He promised it would make it hurt less. That I wouldn’t have to think about you anymore.”
Everything clicked—the unconscious bodies, the bed, the drugs. Ruslan. That was the guy.
She closed her eyes. “He kissed me. I didn’t want it. I told him no but… he wouldn’t stop.”
My vision tunneled, the air turned thin. “He touched you?” It wasn’t even a question. It was a fucking trigger.
She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “He said he loved me. But I can’t… I don’t want him. I only want—”
Her head tipped forward.
“Maksym,” she breathed. “I love him.”
My heart shattered in silence.
She looked at me again, dazed. “Are you… really here?”
“I’m here,” I said, my voice barely holding.