Tonight couldn’t come fast enough.
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.
