Lena screamed, dropping instinctively toward the floor as glass shattered somewhere behind her.Men flooded the apartment dressed in dark tactical gear, weapons raised.
Maksim fired with one shot, then another with terrifying precision.Bodies dropped hard against the narrow hallway walls.Blood sprayed across peeling wallpaper.The violence was fast, brutal and efficient.
Lena crawled backward, heart slamming wildly against her ribs as the apartment transformed into a nightmare around her.
One of the attackers grabbed her hard, and she gasped as rough hands yanked her upright.
“Maksim!”she cried before she could stop herself.
The reaction was immediate.Maksim turned at the sound of her voice.Lena saw something in his expression snap completely.Focused and murderous rage.The man holding her jerked her backward, gun pressing against her temple.
“Drop it!”the man warned.
Maksim didn’t bother dropping his weapon, instead he locked his dark and calculating gaze on her.Lena couldn’t help but shiver.Maksim finally moved, it happened too fast for Lena to process properly.
A gunshot exploded.The man behind her convulsed violently before collapsing.Maksim reached her in seconds.Another attacker lunged toward them.Maksim drove a knife into his throat with horrifying calm.
Blood splattered across the floor, across Maksim’s hands, and even on Lena’s shirt. She stumbled backward, shaking violently now.He grabbed her arm.
“Stay behind me.”The command came rougher this time.
“Okay,” Lena managed to whisper.
Another man appeared from the hallway.Maksim shot him twice in the chest.
The apartment fell silent.There was only the sound of heavy breathing, hers, she realized.The smell of blood filled her nose, the metallic smell of death choking the air.
Lena stared at him in horror, unable to believe that just happened.Maksim looked monstrous.There was blood running from a cut near his brow now, another staining his side beneath the black shirt.However, none of it seemed to matter to him.
His attention fixed entirely on her.
“You hurt?”he demanded.
She shook her head numbly.He slid his hand briefly to the back of her neck, checking her, grounding her.The gesture was so unexpectedly gentle it nearly undid her.For a moment, she forgot that she should be afraid of him.
“They came for you,” she whispered.
“For us,” he corrected coldly.“They probably decided you’re my weakness, a way to get to me.”
Her pulse stuttered.Us.The word lodged somewhere deep inside her chest.Maksim grabbed another weapon and moved toward the bodies, checking them quickly.
Lena watched him with shaking hands.
Minutes ago she had thought she understood what he was—now she realized she hadn’t even come close.He terrified her completely.
The violence in him was not human in the way ordinary anger was human.It was colder than that.He had moved through those men with horrifying precision, without panic or hesitation, like brutality was simply another language his body spoke fluently.
However, when they grabbed her, he had turned toward her instantly, not toward the guns and the threat to himself.It was as if the sight of someone touching her had eclipsed everything else in the room.
The realization settled heavily into her chest.
Maksim had protected her without thinking, as if it had been instinct, and she was something precious.Her throat tightened unexpectedly.
Nobody had ever looked at her that way before.Lena had spent most of her life being convenient.She was easy to overlook and leave behind.Even with her father gone, she had quietly accepted the idea that if something terrible happened to her, the world would continue moving without much pause.
But Maksim had walked through blood and bullets to get back to her.The terrifying part was that he had not even seemed to question it.He had simply defended her.Her pulse fluttered unevenly.
It also occurred to her that when one of those men dragged her away, she had screamed his name, not because he was safe, but because he was the most dangerous person she had ever met.
