Handsome in a severe, fox-like way. Dangerous without needing to prove it.
When he stands, I understand something immediately and viscerally: This is not a man who used to have power. This is a man who stillthinksit belongs to him.
Even here. Even now. Even in the way he straightens his cuffs before looking at his son.
“I invited you into my home,” he says. “You might try remembering how to behave in it.”
Maksim smiles then.
And that’s when my stomach drops. Because I’ve seen that smile before. Not often. Only when something inside him has already decided blood is a reasonable outcome.
He tilts his head just slightly. “Your home?”
His father’s eyes go flat.
Behind him, the women get closer as if bracing for impact.
And suddenly I understand that whatever this is, whatever I just walked into—it didn’t start tonight.
The dark-haired man gives Maksim a look sharp enough to cut.
“Walk with me.”
Not a request.
The words settle into the room like a command everyone else has already learned to survive.
Maksim doesn’t answer.
His stare stays locked on his father a second longer, something violent and ancient moving beneath his skin. Then his hand finds the back of my neck, firm enough to steer, and he walks me toward the sofa where the two women stand waiting like they already know how this goes.
My pulse kicks harder with every step. I don’t like him leaving me here. I like even less that he seems to know he has to.
“Sit,” he says.
Low. Flat. Meant only for me.
I look up at him. “Maksim—”
“Sit,” he repeats.
That’s worse.
Because there’s no room in it at all.
I hold his stare for half a second, weighing whether now is the time to push back, and decide against it. Slowly, I lower myself onto the edge of the sofa, every nerve in my body still standing upright.
He doesn’t move away immediately.
He stays there for one breath, then two, towering over me like he’s trying to build a wall out of his own body before he leaves me behind it.
His mother steps closer.
“I’ll keep her safe, son.”
The room changes. It’s subtle. A shift in pressure more than sound. But I feel it all the same, the way something in Maksim goes colder instead of softer.
He turns his head and looks at her.
