And I kept going, tears streaking silently down my face, rage carving itself into every line.
12
Walk to Me
—Maksym—
Iwas nine again. Curled in the corner of that shitty kitchen, ribs jutting out under a torn shirt, my face streaked with tears and snot. My fists were pressed against my temples, like maybe if I held on hard enough, I could keep the pain out. Like I could block the belt before it hit me again.
But I couldn’t.
He towered over me, red-faced and stinking of vodka, eyes wild. His voice was a roar, slurred and hateful. “You’re a curse. A fucking curse. Worthless piece of shit.”
Each word cracked through the air with leather. The belt struck again and again, across my back, my arms, my legs—anywhere it could land. My body jerked with every lash.
I didn’t fight. Didn’t even try. I just cried, the sound of it raw and broken in my throat. I begged him to stop, begged like a child who didn’t understand cruelty had no off switch. My words tumbled out between sobs—please stop, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be quiet, I’ll do anything. But none of it mattered.
“I’m just a kid,” I whimpered again and again, a desperate mantra. “I’m just a kid.”
It didn’t matter. He didn’t stop.
And I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“I’m just a kid. I’m just a kid. I’m just a kid.”
I woke with a jolt, lungs gasping for air like I’d been underwater. My sheets were damp with sweat. My fists clenched around nothing.
“Fuck off, Father,” I muttered, dragging a hand over my face.
The nightmare never changed. And it never let go.
It came nearly every night—these ghosts etched into my bones, these cursed scraps of a boyhood soaked in blood and liquor. That was the real reason the vodka stayed on my nightstand. Not because I liked it. Because sometimes it bought me silence. Still, judging by the way I’d gulped half a bottle last night, it clearly hadn’t done shit.
By the time I finally dragged myself out of bed, rain was hammering against the windows, gray light leaking through the glass. The steady drumming only made my head throb harder, like the whole sky had decided to pound straight into my skull. At least I didn’t have a job lined up today—no one to trail, no one to bury. Just the stale quiet of my apartment and the thick weight of last night’s memories pressing against my temples like a vice.
I pulled on my sweats and started to move. Push-ups, pull-ups, weighted sit ups. Then I stepped up to the boxing bag and let my fists fly—bare knuckles, bone meeting leather. Each hit bit back, skin splitting with the effort, but I didn’t give a fuck. Strike after strike, blood smeared the bag in smudges, my breath heaving, muscles flexed to breaking.
The speakers throbbed with rock, the kind that snarled more than it sang. I needed the rage. The noise. Anything to drown out the way her name kept slithering back into my head.
Of course she was untouched.
How the fuck didn’t I realize it? She lived in a goddamn cage—locked in, groomed like some prized object her father polished and paraded for the right bidder. Passed around like fine wine, only meant to be uncorked for the right man.
And now she was being handed off to that smug fuck from Moscow.
I knew whose son he was. You didn’t grow up in this world and not know the name. His father was practically royalty in the Russian underground—untouchable, feared, worse than Pakhan in some circles. You didn’t fuck with that man’s bloodline unless you wanted to start a war. And killing Felix while he was here, under Pakhan’s roof, would do just that.
I drove my fist into the bag, hard enough to make it sway. My knuckles were raw, split, and stinging, but I didn’t stop.
Still. The bastard didn’t deserve her. Not her fire. Not her temper. Not that filthy, perfect mouth. And he sure as fuck didn’t deserve her virginity.
I tried to shove the thoughts away. None of this shit was simple.
I stepped into the shower and cranked the heat until it threatened to scald. Steam curled around me as I stood under the spray, my head bowed, letting it beat down on my shoulders.The hot water ran over my split knuckles, stinging the raw skin, as thin threads of blood washing away down the drain.
I’d have to see how things unfolded before deciding what to do about that polished piece of shit. Killing him could blow up into something massive—international, maybe even fatal for me. But the problem was, I didn’t know any other way to solve things. Death was my only language.
Speaking of death—another voice from last night slithered into my thoughts and refused to leave.
