Bratvas vow, p.28
Bratva's Vow, page 28
He said we were okay.
But the bed was cold. And I was alone.
My mind raced through the day to the quiet way he’d withdrawn after the funeral, the tremble in his hand when he’d reached for my arm in the car. The look in his eyes when I touched his forehead. That faint wince. How he’d not been his usual chatty self.
I’d figured the funeral might have made him sad, so I hadn’t paid much attention to the change in his demeanor. But what if it was more? Maybe he was thinking about his father and not having had a funeral for him. Maybe he was overthinking again that I was responsible for his father’s death.
I pushed off the bed too fast and nearly stumbled. My hands were already shaking. I moved on autopilot, checking the bathroom first, then the hall, every corner of the house. Each empty room only wound the panic tighter around my chest until it felt like I was wearing grief again, zipped up under my skin.
Not again. I couldn’t lose him again.
He left you again.
No. No, that wasn’t true. He made a vow that he would never leave me again. He’d forgiven me for my lies. He’d said he loved me. He wore my ring as a promise of what the future held for us. And I’d given him more space than I was truly comfortable with to make him happy.
I checked the office, the kitchen, the living room. I called his name once, then again, but only the quiet padded back to me.
Jellybean was gone as well.
Fuck, he’d even taken the dog I stole and gave him.
That was what finally cracked something open in my chest.
I grabbed my phone, pressing Sergei’s number as I stalked through the back door and down the steps onto the patio, the only place left to look. The pool shimmered under the glow of the garden lights, the water smooth as glass.
“Boss?” Sergei answered on the second ring, voice groggy.
“Wren’s gone.”
There was a beat. “What do you mean gone?”
“I woke up. He’s not in bed. Not in the house. The dog’s gone too.”
Sergei swore softly, alert now. “I’m putting eyes on the perimeter. Do you want me to ping his phone?”
I didn’t answer. My gaze swept the far end of the pool and, in the dim light, I finally saw him.
Wren.
Sitting cross-legged at the edge, the dog curled up against his thigh. His head was tilted back, face angled to the sky like he was counting the stars.
He was still here.
Thank fuck.
Just… not with me.
Why had he left our bed?
“Maxim?”
My breath stuttered out of me in a heavy exhale as I turned away and lifted the phone back to my ear. “False alarm. I found him outside. By the pool.”
Sergei muttered something about heart attacks and insomnia and hung up.
I stayed where I was for a moment longer, gripping the phone in one hand, the edge of the patio door in the other. Letting the panic drain out of me as quietly as it had come.
Then I stepped outside.
Jellybean heard me before Wren did. His ears perked, and he let out a small, curious whine. A sharp bark shattered the stillness. Wren stirred, blinking like he’d come back from somewhere far away, and bent to set the puppy gently on the stone.
He took off at once, scampering across the patio and yipping until he reached me. I bent, scooped him up, his warm little body vibrating against my chest. How evil could I truly be when he trusted me so easily? Right from the start.
“Good boy.” I scratched his belly as he stretched in my arms. I took him over to the poolside and sat beside Wren, placing the dog between us.
Wren didn’t say anything. He pulled his thighs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees.
Silence stretched long between us, heavy with everything unsaid. A silence that threatened to drive me to insanity. I filtered through what to say and eventually settled on the truth.
“I thought you left.”
Wren slowly turned his head toward me. “What? Maxim, I told you I’d never leave you again. Didn’t you believe me?”
“I do,” I said, and meant it, but the fear hadn’t cared. “I thought I did. But it’s the biggest fear of mine. Waking up and finding you gone. Again.”
His face crumpled slightly, and I caught the shimmer of red in his eyes, the fine tremble in his bottom lip he bit down.
“You’ve been crying.” I shifted closer, reaching out. “Talk to me, kroshka. Please. Why did you leave our bed to sit out here on your own? Is it something I did?”
His breath hitched, then broke apart completely. The first sob was quiet, but it cracked something wide open.
“You said—” Wren choked. “You said you’d never lie to me. Never keep anything important from me.”
My heart sank.
I stiffened, trying to piece together what he meant. What he could’ve possibly—
“Wren…” I said, uncertain.
He turned to me fully, eyes red, voice hoarse. “How did Vova really die?”
I swallowed, throat tight.
His gaze pinned me. “Did he die the same day you were looking for me?”
“Wren—”
“Maxim. Please.”
I looked away. The pool lights flickered across the water, casting broken reflections. “What does it matter? What’s done is done.”
“It matters,” he said, voice breaking again. “Because I need to know if I’m the reason he’s dead.”
“No,” I said firmly. “You are not. Don’t you ever—”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? You didn’t take Vova’s calls because you were searching for me.”
I couldn’t lie. Not now.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I didn’t answer him. If it’s anyone’s fault… it’s mine. Not yours.”
He stared at me, devastation etched across his face.
“Maxim,” he whispered. “How could you not realize that’s something I deserve to know? Something I’d want to know?”
I closed my eyes, jaw tight. “Because I don’t know what truth you can handle. I still don’t know how much of the real me you can take.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You say you want the truth, but do you, Wren? Do you really?”
He flinched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the unanswered questions between us about your father.” I curled my hands into fists in my lap. “How come you’ve never really asked me about him?”
His mouth opened, then closed.
“You never asked how he died. Or where he’s buried. You think I haven’t noticed?” I didn’t mean to be cruel, but after the funeral, I was just so fucking tired. “If you can’t ask me that, how the hell am I supposed to know what else you can handle?”
Silence dropped between us like a thunderclap. Even Jellybean, curled up beside Wren, fell still.
Several seconds passed. Then Wren let out a shuddering breath. “I was scared.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t ask because I was afraid to know the answer,” he said. “Afraid that finding out too much would make me… conflicted. Would make me hate you. Or hate myself for still loving you.”
He turned away then, wiping his face with the heel of his hand.
I exhaled, long and slow, finally letting go of something that had been strangling me since admitting how much I loved this boy.
“Come with me.” I stood and held out my hand.
Wren looked at me through red-rimmed eyes, his arms wrapped protectively around Jellybean. But he took my hand like he couldn’t bear the space between us any longer. I took the dog into one arm and led Wren inside the house and down the hall to my office.
The room felt colder than usual, the secret I kept in here like another body in a drawer of a morgue, cold, still, waiting to be named.
Wren frowned. “Why are we here?”
I didn’t answer.
I put Jellybean down, and he followed closely at my heels. At the bookshelf to the far right, I pressed the hidden latch. The quiet mechanical hum of the shelves shifting open filled the space. Wren tensed as a steel-lined safe was revealed behind the false wall. I entered the code—numbers etched into me, like scars.
When the door swung open, I reached inside and pulled out the urn. The only one that remained.
It was smooth. Light. The weight of a life, reduced to ashes.
I turned and held it out to him.
Wren didn’t take it. He stared at it, blinking like he couldn’t quite make sense of what he was seeing.
“Is this…?” His voice cracked. Broke.
“Your father,” I said softly. “These are his ashes.”
Silence blanketed the room, disturbed only by the soft whimper of the dog. Wren continued to stare at the urn as if it were too profound, too painful to touch. A singular tear slipped down his cheek, followed shortly by another. His gaze never left the urn.
“You had this all along?” he whispered. “All this time I came so close…”
He took the urn.
He took it like it was a newborn. Like it might fall apart in his arms if he wasn’t gentle enough. His fingers trembled. His lips parted in a breath that didn’t come.
Tears fell again. Not fast, not loud. Just a steady, painful unraveling. He sank to the floor, clutching the urn against his chest like he could fuse with it, like he could turn back time if he held it tight enough.
“How did he die?” he asked, so quietly it barely reached me.
I lowered myself beside him, my knees aching under the weight of what I’d carried. Finally, he’d asked the question I’d been waiting for. How could we truly move on if we didn’t talk about it all?
“He was good at his job,” I said. “The moment I first met him, I knew he was special. He worked logistics for us, ensured my most valuable assets were moved without an issue. He was the kind of man who never needed to raise his voice to command a room. Everyone respected him. Hell, I admired him.”
Wren’s shoulders shook silently, and god, his pain was unbearable to watch.
I swallowed hard, throat raw. “He was overseeing the movement of a valuable asset through the eastern corridor. Should’ve been routine. But someone tipped off the wrong people. They killed him for what he was protecting and he didn’t hand it to them. He never told them where he’d hidden it, even though they stripped him and searched him inside out.”
Wren made a small sound in his throat. A whimper. Broken.
“Did-did he suffer?”
Fuck, why did I promise to be truthful to him? But I’d promised. No more lies.
“They tortured him for at least three days.”
A cry tore from Wren that cut through my skin and pierced my heart. Jellybean howled alongside him, and a cold draft washed over me. Wren sobbed openly now, those horrible sounds filling the room as he clutched what was left of his father to him.
“I brought him home,” I forced the words out. “He’d already decided that when he died, he wanted me to send him back to you when you turned twenty-five. When you were old enough to understand. I’m breaking my promise to him to give this to you because I don’t want anything standing between us anymore. I want everything out in the open.”
Wren’s arms tightened around the urn like it was the only thing anchoring him to the world.
“I was just a kid,” he sobbed. “And I waited. I waited for him to show up for my birthday like he said he would, and he didn’t. Every birthday, I waited, making my mother angry, but I was sure one day he would show up and explain. Daddy—”
Wren’s cry was no longer his own, but that of a little boy who’d loved and lost his father. A little boy finally getting the closure he deserved. It was raw, unfiltered grief—years of unanswered questions and silent nights unraveling all at once. The sound of it cracked something open in the walls, like even the house couldn’t bear witness without weeping. And still he held the urn like it was a lifeline, as if he could anchor himself to a man made of ashes and memory.
The sobs that tore out of him sounded like they had been buried in him for years.
“I’m sorry, solnyshko. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He was shaking, gasping, sobbing so hard he dropped the urn to his lap and covered his face with his hands.
“I miss him,” he cried. “I miss him so bad, Maxim. It feels like I’m being ripped open from the inside out. He was a good dad, and all I have left of him is a broken promise to be there for my birthday and his ashes. What am I supposed to do with this now?”
Jellybean whined beside him, then nosed into his lap and licked the tears off Wren’s cheeks. Wren curled around him like a boy trying to bury himself in something soft. If only he would bury himself in my arms and find comfort, but how could I impose myself on him when I was the reason for his grief?
I ran my hand over the dog’s head and whispered, “Stay with him, malysh. He needs you.”
It took everything out of me to stand, heart breaking, throat aching, and walked out. But if Wren needed the moment to grieve, I should be the last person trying to comfort him. What right did I have?
Maybe he would have been better if he hadn’t met me.
Back upstairs, the bed felt too wide. The room too dark. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, listening to the echo of Wren’s grief still pounding in my ears, even though I could no longer hear him.
The truth was out in the open. Was this the moment I would lose Wren for good?
I closed my eyes and let the dark settle into me, heavy and smothering. I rolled over onto my side, clutching the sheet that bore his scent. My life without Wren was nothing. If he wanted to go, I couldn’t let him, but was I prepared to feel his hate for the rest of my life?
Yes, the answer is yes. I can bear his hate, but I can’t bear his absence.
The door creaked open.
Soft footsteps padded across the room. I stiffened, my heart racing. Was this it? The moment he would tell me he no longer loved me?
The sheet rustled, and Wren slipped into bed beside me. I counted the seconds of separation that lay between us.
One.
Two.
Three.
Wren shifted closer, pressing himself into my back. He curled into me, wrapping an arm around my waist, and buried his face into the back of my neck.
“Maxim,” he whispered.
My throat was too tight. I couldn’t speak. My body was taut, afraid to make any sudden movement in case I broke the fragility of the moment between us. I simply held my breath, waiting for his next words.
His breath was unsteady against my neck when he whispered. “Maxim, I love you. I will always love you.”
The storm inside me broke.
I turned and crushed him to me, hands tangled in his hair, mouth desperate on his, needing him closer, needing to feel him. When we were out of breath, I pulled back, both of us breathing hard.
“Are you sure?”
He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me down on top of him and locked his legs around my waist. “It’s too late for me now. I’m in love with a beast that can’t be tamed, and I’m okay with that. As long as I am with you.”
I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to his. He was so wrong. He had no idea the power he had over me. If there was anyone in this world who could tame me, it was him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
WREN
The soft hum of the HVAC and the tap of laptop keys filled the classroom in a rhythm that was almost soothing. Almost. Several students were already half-tuned out, their attention drifting toward the warm sunlight spilling through the tall windows and the promise of freedom on the other side of it.
I leaned back in my seat, trying to focus on the spreadsheet glowing on my laptop screen. Rows of numbers—rental income, NOI, cap rates—blurred as my brain hit its saturation point. Commercial property valuation wasn’t exactly a thrill ride.
How did Maxim enjoy this?
I slid my phone halfway out from under my notebook and typed a quick text to Nik. After much pleading Maxim had agreed to Nik waiting on campus for me instead of joining my classes like a creep. I knew the compromise stressed him out, but was grateful he was listening to me more.
Me:
I can’t wait to go to the range later. Is Jess coming with you?
We went every day now after my classes ended, and I was getting pretty good at it. I no longer startled every time the recoil hit. I’d become comfortable with the weight of the gun, and it actually felt exciting. Forbidden but exciting.
It wasn’t all shooting at targets, though. I had to learn gun safety protocols, how to load and unload, and clean a weapon. Of all Maxim’s men, I got along best with Nik because he was easy-going, but when we practiced, he had a no-nonsense approach. A gun wasn’t a toy but a weapon that required respect and responsibility. You didn’t point it at someone, not even jokingly, unless you intended to discharge it.
Jess had thought it would be fun and games, but quickly sobered up from Nik’s lectures. He was good for her. Darius too. The way they allowed her to be herself, while curbing some of her impulses, was something she needed. At least that was what she told me when she called me two nights ago to gush about how in love she was with her two men. I’d barely listened to her while sitting at the other end of the sofa, staring at Maxim and thinking the same thing as he massaged my feet, engrossed in the stock market news.
My phone lit up.
Nik:
Not today. In fact, we may have to cancel today.
My heart dropped.
Me:
Why?
Nik:
You’ll see.
Why did that sound so ominous? Did he and Jess make other plans? Without me?
“Mr. Holloway,” Professor Dyer’s voice boomed from the front of the classroom, snapping me out of my thoughts. “If your text conversation is more riveting than today’s discussion on income capitalization rates, by all means, enlighten the rest of us.”
