Chapter 29
Anya
Today the dance studio is the only place that feels like mine in this house.
With each passing week, I'd started to feel like this could be a home for me, but after yesterday, I'm not so sure.
I woke up in the guest room with my whole body aching, my neck stiff, and my head swimming.
Flashes of our fight kept coming back, replaying like a bad TV commercial jingle.
I gathered every ounce of courage to go downstairs for coffee, dreading finding Maksim there like every other morning.
I couldn't decide if I was relieved or disappointed not to see him anywhere.
And to make matters worse, Olga was waiting with my coffee ready, just the way I like it—filling the role that had become Maksim's over the past month. Embarrassed, I just accepted the mug and drank in silence, knowing it meant she already knew about our fight.
After that, the silence in the car with Grisha during the drive to the project was the best part of the day, almost comforting. It was better to be with someone who didn't expect small talk than to have to respond with forced smiles.
My students were great, as always, but I was too distracted to be demanding, so I gave them an easy class.
At the end, I promised Vanya I'd bring the completed forms next time and borrowed a pen from her office.
It seemed silly in the moment, but I knew I didn't want to spend another minute hunting for pens at home.
At home.
Is it still my home? Do I even want it to be?
I went into this marriage knowing it would be purely transactional, expecting to live a life completely separate from the man who bought me to be his wife—so why the hell didn't I keep it that way?
Why did I have to get involved, want more than what I'd agreed to at the start?
It's been hours since I got back, and I'm here, soaking up the warmth of the linoleum floor in the dance studio, listening to the soft classical music I left playing, switching between filling out forms with Vanya's pen and gazing out the window for Ivan.
With winter so close, he's getting hungrier by the day, splitting his time between foraging for fruit with me and hunting in the woods.
I'm sitting on the floor, legs spread in a second position, my torso slowly lowering over my right leg, when I hear the door open.
I don't need to turn around to know who it is.
I recognize the weight of his footsteps, the way the air in the room shifts when Maksim enters—or is it just my heart clenching and the chill creeping up through my stomach?
I hate how affected I am by his presence, so I take the childish way out and ignore him, continuing to stretch as if he weren't there.
“I should have told you.”
His voice comes out low, without preamble.
I slowly straighten up and turn to look at him.
He's leaning against the doorframe, coatless, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows, wearing a defeated expression I never imagined I'd see on him.
Maksim looks sorry—truly sorry. My heart melts a little, but I don't say anything, letting him continue.
“I was wrong to hide those things from you.” He takes a step into the room, hesitant, as if asking permission to enter. “I want to tell you everything—if you still want to know.”
I give a small nod, nothing more. I pull my knees forward and cross my legs, sitting up straight to face him, waiting. Still silent.
Then he surprises me, as always. Maksim takes two more steps inside and lowers himself to the floor.
One leg bent to support his elbow, the other stretched out, his back against a nearby wall.
I don't comment, but I understand what this means—right now, Maksim is here to talk to me as a husband, as a man, not as the Pakhan of St. Petersburg.
He sat down to meet me at eye level, and I melted a little more.
Anya, you idiot, you can't give in that easily.
I scold myself internally, fighting the foolish, lovesick part of me that wants to forgive him just because sleeping in a cold bed is miserable. I lower my chin slightly, letting a small crack form in my armor, and as if he can read me perfectly, he begins.
Everything.
He tells me about Demidov, a brigadier from Moscow who spent years quietly meddling in St. Petersburg territory, forging alliances with traitors and skimming small operations.
Always small enough to fly under the radar.
One of these was a loan sharking ring in Vysotsk that ended up involving my father.
That's why he gave the order for my hit-and-run—to collect on one of those debts.
I take a deep breath, digesting the information, and Maksim continues without sugarcoating anything. He knows I can handle it, and I'm grateful for that.
He tells me he discovered this over a month ago and spent all that time hunting the man, hitting dead ends, getting angrier by the day. Suddenly I understand the distance, the sour mood of recent days. It doesn't justify the lie, but I understand.
Without waiting for a response, he tells me about a plan. A country house near Moscow where he'll have the perfect opportunity to ambush Demidov and make him pay.
“I'm not taking you along,” he declares before I can say anything. “And it's not because I think you're fragile.”
I open and close my mouth like a fish out of water, not knowing how to tell him I don't want to be part of it. Yesterday gave me a lot to think about, and I admit Maksim is right—this isn't my world. It really isn't.
“You don't have any training, and in a place like that, you'd just be a distraction—a weak point they could exploit to get to me. It's simple logic. I'm not going to put you at risk, Anya.”
Hearing my nickname from his lips, so soft and low, sends chills through me. Today, with calmer nerves, we’re talking like two adults—neither of us yelling things we’d regret later. Maksim was clear and sincere, and most importantly, he didn’t threaten to lock me in a vault again.
I stay silent for a while, letting everything settle.
It’s strange—I spent five years wanting answers about the most devastating event of my life, and now that I have them, I don’t feel the relief I thought I would.
It’s still good to know there’s a face, a name, and a reason behind it all, but it’s not what I expected to feel.
Instead, something else hits me—something I never thought I’d feel.
It’s like I can count on someone other than myself.
“Thank you.”
He looks at me, a little surprised, as if he’d expected another fight instead of gratitude.
“I’m going to protect you, Anya.” His voice is firm, hard. “That’s not going to change. I’ll always protect you—it’s who I am. But I promise I’ll tell you things. I’ll share them with you.”
A lump rises in my throat—the same one that appeared when I realized I was in love and thought he’d say the same.
After hearing all this, it’s become clear: the disappointment I felt yesterday, the betrayal, wasn’t just about being blind to an important fact about my life.
It was mainly because the man I’d come to love didn’t trust me.
But even with this realization, I’m not ready for him to know.
“Maksim,” I say instead, looking at my hands. “I’m not important enough to justify this whole revenge plan. All of this will have consequences, retaliation… I’m not worth it.”
And even though it kills me to be so self-deprecating, it’s the truth. I’m just a pawn in this world, the woman he bought to fulfill a function. As much as I’ve fallen in love, I can’t demand the same from him. Still, I watch in anxious silence, waiting for his answer.
“You’ve said that before.”
“What?”
“In the garden, when you met Ivan.” Our eyes meet, and he doesn’t look away for a second. “You said you were nobody in this world, and I stayed quiet because at the time, I didn’t know how to tell you how wrong you were.”
I hold my breath for an instant.
“Never say that again,” he orders in a low, hoarse voice. “You are my wife, Svetlana. The queen of the Bratva. There isn’t a person in this world—not one—that I would put above you. This revenge is for my wife’s honor. I would burn all of Moscow for you if I had to.”
I’m speechless.
I never imagined I’d hear something like this. From anyone, much less from him—from Maksim, from the Man in the Mask. But the man laid bare before me is no longer the Pakhan, a feared, relentless man… he’s my husband. And he’s telling me something without actually saying it.
But I understand. I always understand.
I crawl toward him, closing the small distance between us, and pull him to me by the nape of his neck. Our mouths meet, and before I realize it, I’m sitting in his lap, tasting his kiss, wrapped in his scent.
I run my hands over his face, tracing the scar that makes him so handsome, that makes Maksim even more unique. I feel every feature beneath my fingers, trying to satisfy an absurd longing that shouldn’t even exist. We only slept one night apart, damn it.
Maksim seems just as desperate, pulling me by the hips to fit me better over his hard cock beneath me. I moan against his mouth, and the sound reverberates through the empty room—loud and needy. Like a lament from someone who can’t wait any longer.
“Fuck, I missed you,” he growls against my neck, teeth scraping my skin. “One night is the limit. I couldn’t sleep without you.”
“Good.” I pull his hair back, forcing him to look at me. “I’m glad you didn’t sleep.”
Maksim laughs—that rough, rare sound—and lays me down on the floor.
The floor is hard against my back, but I don’t care one bit, especially when he rips my tank top over my head and tosses it aside. His mouth descends my neck, hungry, trails along my collarbone, and stops just above my nipple, closing over it and sucking hard.