Then Maksim moves, crossing to sit on the couch. Zakhar and Alexei follow. The three of them arrange themselves facing me. United front. Brothers.
Maksim meets my gaze steadily.
"What do you want to know?"
Everything.
"Start with the tattoo," I say. My voice wavers despite my effort at control. "The Valkov symbol."
I can't help the tremor that runs through me. That tattoo is branded into my nightmares.
Maksim's hand moves to his chest, pressing over his shirt where the scar tissue lies. Where he burned away the symbol he once wore. The gesture is automatic, touching a wound that never healed.
"You know my family was murdered," he says quietly. Every word measured, controlled, but underneath I hear old grief. Old rage. The kind that doesn't fade, just settles deeper into bone. "What I didn't tell you is who ordered it. Ivan Valkov. Head of the Valkov Bratva."
The name lands heavy between us.
"I swore I would destroy him." Maksim's jaw works. "I was fifteen, kneeling in my parents blood, and I swore on their bodies that Ivan Valkov would die by my hand."
He pauses. The grief in his voice isn't healed. Just buried under years of discipline.
"It took years to build myself into something capable of killing him. Training. Planning. Becoming the weapon their deaths demanded." He looks at his brothers. "Zakhar and Alexei joined me when we met in Moscow. Three orphans who decided revenge was worth any price. We infiltrated the Valkov Bratva as soldiers when I was twenty-five."
"Four years." Zakhar's voice is flat. "We spent four years proving ourselves to a man who deserved nothing but a bullet."
"We got that tattoo," Alexei says, touching his chest where new ink covers the old mark. "All of us. To prove we belonged. To get close enough."
Maksim's expression doesn't shift but I see the shame beneath it. The cost of what he became.
"Four years later, when we finally had his trust, we moved. Killed Ivan Valkov. Dismantled everything he built."
My lungs stop working.
"You're sure?" The words come out strangled. "You're certain he's dead?"
Zakhar's gaze sharpens. "I made certain of it." His voice is granite and regret. "I only wish we'd done it sooner. Before he touched you."
A tear slides down my cheek. I wipe it away, surprised by its presence. Surprised I can still cry after tonight.
Relief.
That's what breaks through the numbness. Pure, overwhelming relief.
The man who violated me, who stole something I can never get back is dead.
But underneath the relief, something sharper churns. Anger. Bitter and hot. Because I never got to face him. Never got to make him answer for what he did. Never got to watch him realize that the girl he destroyed grew into someone brave.
The men sitting across from me killed my monster before they knew I needed them to.
They avenged me before they knew I needed avenging.
The complexity of gratitude and grief and rage and loss all tangled together, threatens to split me open.
"As soon as we took control," Zakhar continues, "we changed everything. Ended the flesh trafficking. The drugs. The guns."
Maksim touches his chest again.
"I burned the tattoo off myself. Zakhar and Alexei had theirs covered with new ink. We tried to erase what we'd been."
