We left the room. The hallway was still vibrating with bass from the club downstairs. When we stepped into the mainfloor, lights strobed, music thumped, people danced, laughed—oblivious. A few glanced our way. Some froze. But no one dared stop us.
Outside, the night air hit me like ice. Maksym opened the passenger side door and slid Valeria into the backseat with surprising gentleness.
He turned to me. “I’ll take you home.”
“No.” My voice cracked. “They think I’m staying at Valeria’s. Please. If they see me—”
“Fine. I’ll drop you at her place.”
“No!” I gripped the door. “What if they come back? What if they know where she lives?”
“They’re not coming,” he said flatly. “Not after tonight.”
“But what if she gets worse?” I whispered.
His jaw clenched.
“Please.”
He stared at me for a long beat, then shook his head.
“Fine, I'll take you to my place. But you don’t talk. You don’t touch anything. You stay out of my way.”
“Okay,” I said, a strange sense of relief settling in my chest.
“Get in.”
The drive was dead silent.
I sat curled into myself, eyes fixed on the passing blur of city lights outside the window. I didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe too loud.I just sat there, my fingers kept drifting to my mouth, chewing at the edge of a nail, then the skin beside it, replaying every second.
I’d seen death before, and it didn’t scare me. Those men deserved every ounce of suffering they didn’t get. What terrified me was the memory of my friend lying there, drugged, exposed, powerless. Knowing my turn was coming. I gagged at the thought and looked back at Valeria now, sprawled across theseat, breathing peacefully, and felt something finally loosen in my chest.
I didn’t know how he found us, Ididn’t care, he came for me and that was all it mattered. Even if he was back being a dick to me.
He didn’t look at me once during the drive. Just stared at the road like it had personally offended him, jaw locked tight, knuckles white on the wheel. If the Reaper had an off-switch, he hadn’t found it yet.
I didn’t even know why I said it. Maybe because I didn’t know what else to say. But I looked at him and breathed the words anyway.
“Thank you.”
His eyes stayed on the road, deliberately avoiding me, and he exhaled sharply through his nose.
“Don’t,” he said. “I don’t need it. I don’t want it.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Then he exploded.
“What the fuck were you doing there?”
“I didn’t know—”
“You never know. That’s your fucking problem. You act like you’re bulletproof. You’re not.”
Why did I feel like I’d just been grounded by someone who had every right to do it?He scolded me like I was a teenager sneaking in through the window, like he was the one who’d been waiting up all night. And even as my face burned with shame, even as I told myself I deserved every word, something in me clenched. He looked so alive when he was angry. So dangerous. So goddamn hot. I knew I was being irrational. But if acting like a brat got me that heat in his voice, that fire in his eyes? Then I’d misbehave again.
We pulled up to a building in one of the quieter parts of the city. It wasn’t a dump, but it wasn’t the kind of place I was usedto either. No gate. No chandelier in the lobby. No marble floors. Just… normal. Clean lines. Dim lighting. Too quiet.
His apartment was spare. Minimal. White walls. Black counters. Hardwood floors that looked too polished to be lived on. Everything smelled faintly of pine and gun oil. The living room was wide and uncluttered—no photos, no decorations, not even a book or stray coffee mug. Just a low black table, a modern leather couch, and a flat-screen television mounted to the wall. A pull-up bar was bolted into the wall across from the window, and in the corner, a heavy punching bag hung perfectly still, flanked by a small rack of neatly stacked free weights. No distractions. No softness. Just tools and function.
