The room felt suddenly too small. Too tight.
I lowered the phone slowly and looked up at Maksym.
“How did my phone get here?” My voice came out thinner than I meant it to, barely steady.
He didn’t look away. “You left it at Valeria’s yesterday.” A slight pause. “I brought it back.”
“So you were there,” I said, swallowing hard, my throat dry and tight. I searched his face for hesitation, for guilt — for anything. “Did you kill him?”
My heart was still racing. My hands were shaking now.
He didn’t answer right away.
He looked at me like he was weighing something fragile and explosive at the same time.
“What do you think?” he asked.
The way he said it—calm, almost gentle—made something snap.
“Why?” I stood up from the bed, clutching the towel tighter around me. “Why would you do that? He wasn’t dangerous. He was just—” My throat tightened. “He was stupid. He was in love with me. What is wrong with you?”
Maksym’s jaw locked. Not rage. Something colder. Deadlier.
“What is wrong with me?” he echoed, voice so quiet it cut deeper than any shout. “I don’t give a fuck if he was ‘just stupid.’ He drugged you.”
“I took the pill myself,” I said quickly, like it mattered. Like it absolved him. “I chose—”
“He got into your head,” Maksym cut in, voice sharpening.
My chest stuttered.
He stood up from the bed and stepped closer.
“And then he forced himself on you,” he continued, voice calm but laced with danger. His jaw was tight, eyes locked on mine—piercing, cold. “So tell me—do you really think that’s not enough reason to end him?”
I shook my head, overwhelmed. “You can’t just—”
“Don’t you know who I am, Kira?”
He grabbed the towel at the center of my chest, right between my breasts, and pulled me forward—his fist twisted in the fabric, dragging me hard against him until his face hovered inches from mine.
“You know exactly who I am,” he said. “And you know what that means—no one gets to tell you that you’re nothing to me and keep breathing.”
His eyes burned into mine.
“I would’ve made the whole city bleed for you, and I wouldn’t have blinked.” He finished, voice breaking just enough to ruin me.
He pulled back then. Just enough.
“So no,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t have any regrets. I would do it all over again.”
The silence tightened between us, thick and suffocating.
“If I crossed a line you can’t live with, I won’t chain you to me,” he muttered, eyes dark.
His thumb brushed a tear from my cheek without realizing he was doing it.
“I want you—but I won’t own you.”
