Page 18 of Bratva’s Vow (Bratva’s Undoing #2)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WREN

I ’d lied to the police.

Sitting in the back of the car, smushed into the far corner as far away as possible from the murderer I’d been sleeping with, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About the words I hadn’t said. About the ones I swallowed whole.

I could’ve told them everything.

The workers had heard the shouting match in Maxim’s office.

They heard Bradley’s name, knew we fought about him.

There was footage of me brushing off Bradley earlier in the lobby.

Someone saw us leave the restroom a couple of minutes apart.

Maxim had no choice but to let the police talk to me about Bradley’s “suicide.”

While they scraped up what was left of Bradley off the pavement, I had to talk. I’d been in no frame of mind to be composed, but luckily that worked in my favor. They could all tell I was shaken from the incident.

They asked questions over and over and in different ways.

I was as truthful as I could be, backing up Maxim’s story.

Bradley had been hitting on me since I started working at the office.

Maxim had the footage to show the number of times he’d stopped by my desk to talk to me.

No one disputed that. Maxim and I had argued because he found out Bradley was still making a play for me.

Bradley cornered me in the restroom and asked me to meet him on the rooftop. Mostly true. Not so bad.

Until I had to confirm that Bradley threatened me that he would jump off the roof if I didn’t give him a chance. When I said no, he did just that. Motive for the suicide uncovered. No need to pursue the matter. Everything tied up neatly in a bow.

And yet it wasn’t.

Tell my husband I love him.

Bradley’s last words echoed in my head. A shiver ran down my spine, and I clutched my thighs. A tear slipped down my face.

I could have given them everything they needed. One word and Maxim would’ve been done. Hauled off in cuffs. I could’ve ended this whole nightmare and made sure the man who killed my father finally paid for it.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I lied.

I lied because I knew what they would have done to Maxim.

I lied because, even then, when my heart was broken and my skin crawled being near him, I still couldn’t bear the idea of watching him being dragged away.

And I hated him for that.

I hated Maxim Morozov with every single fucking fiber of my being.

I hated him because he let me fall for him .

Because he let me build this life, wrap myself in his arms, taste the sweetness of something that felt real and warm and safe while the whole time he knew.

He knew he’d taken my father from me.

And he knew I would hate him when the truth came out.

But he had still let me fall anyway. He’d still toyed with my emotions. Still climbed between my legs at night and gave me the sweetest pleasure.

My father’s killer.

The silence in the car was unbearable. Heavy and thick, pressing against my chest until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Outside the tinted windows, the city rolled past, blurry and indifferent, like it didn’t give a shit about the fact that my entire world had been blown to pieces.

Maxim sat at the other end of the seat, legs spread, elbows resting on his thighs. He wasn’t looking at me. He’d barely spared me a glance since Sergei had shoved us into the car and told Dezi to get us out of there.

I kept my face angled toward the window, but I still felt him. Every tense, restrained movement. Every barely suppressed glance.

“Thank you,” Maxim said, his tone strained and uneven. “For not telling the truth back there.”

The words hit me like a punch. Not because of gratitude. But because he thought it made a difference.

I twisted slowly to face him, my lips curling into something sharp and mean.

“Don’t thank me,” I said coldly. My voice was hoarse from all the crying and talking, but it still cut. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it because I knew if I told the truth, you’d kill me too.”

Maxim whipped his head toward me, his eyes wide and furious .

“Don’t say that,” he bit out, sitting up straighter. “Don’t you ever fucking say that, Wren. How could you think I’d ever hurt you?”

I barked out a bitter laugh. “Oh, quite easily. Just like you did with Bradley. You don’t have to do it yourself. You didn’t even blink. You didn’t flinch when he fell.”

Maxim’s jaw clenched. “It wasn’t the same. He threatened you. He put his hands on you. He didn’t deserve to live after that, and I will never apologize that he’s dead.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “When do I get to drink the cyanide you’ve poured? So long as I drink it on my own, it’s not your fault, is it?”

“Enough, Wren.” His voice darkened, edged with something harsher. I felt the shift in the air even before his hand clamped around my wrist. Not rough but tight enough that I couldn’t ignore it. “Stop making those jokes. I would never hurt you. Do you hear me? Never.”

I stared down at his hand, then up at his face. His eyes were wild, desperate, and for a moment, too raw. Too real.

“You already did,” I whispered, yanking my wrist free. “I was just a twelve-year-old boy waiting for his father to show up for his birthday, and he never came. Because of you. You’re the reason he’s dead, Maxim, and I’ll never forgive you for that.”

He recoiled like I’d stabbed him.

“Your dad knew what he was signing up for when he came to work for me.” He spoke low, barely a breath now. “He understood the rules. He knew what would happen if he got caught. It wasn’t supposed to touch you.”

“Yet it did,” I snapped, my throat tightening painfully.

“It destroyed me. And what’s worse… you knew.

You knew when I came in for that interview.

When I stayed late working, when we had dinner together, when I crawled into your bed.

You knew exactly who I was and what you did to my family, and you let me fall in love with you anyway! ”

Maxim bowed his head, but I wasn’t done.

I was far from done.

“What about the coffee shop?” I turned to face him fully now, my chest heaving. “That day we first met. Was any of that real? Or were you stalking me from day one?”

His eyes flashed, but his voice stayed even. “That was real, Wren. I swear to you. I had no fucking clue who you were until you walked into the office for your interview. I thought you were cute. Sassy. That’s all it was.”

“You expect me to believe you?” I shot back bitterly. “What does it matter anyway? Bradley’s dead. My dad’s dead. You can’t make them come back, so what’s the point of talking to you anymore?”

I slumped back against the seat, dragging my hands through my hair. My skin felt too tight. My heart felt too big for my chest, aching and throbbing.

It was all too much.

Too much grief.

Too much betrayal.

Too much love still clawing at the inside of me when all I wanted to do was hate him clean.

So I didn’t say anything else.

Every breath felt like it scraped the inside of my ribs.

I couldn’t even look at him anymore.

My reflection ghosted in the window, face blotchy and pale, eyes rimmed red and raw. I didn’t recognize myself. The guy sitting here wasn’t me.

Or maybe he was the real me. The fool. The na?ve, stupid boy who’d let himself believe that this —whatever this was with Maxim—had ever been normal.

I pressed my forehead to the cool glass .

“Bradley wasn’t innocent,” Maxim said quietly.

I stiffened, my jaw tightening. I twisted halfway to face him, disbelief scalding its way up my throat.

“Oh, come on,” I snapped. “Because he hit on me? Because he wanted to sleep with me? Or for telling me the truth? For opening my eyes when you wouldn’t? Jesus, Maxim. That doesn’t make him a goddamn monster. He didn’t deserve to die for that.”

Something feral flickered in his eyes. Not anger. Not jealousy. Something uglier.

He clenched his hands into fists, knuckles cracking from the pressure. He curled his lip slightly, and his voice dipped into dangerous territory. Possessive and raw. “But he touched what was mine. He threatened you. He dragged you to that rooftop and laid hands on you. You are mine, Wren.”

My breath caught.

Maxim leaned in, eyes bright and sharp and so terrifyingly sincere that it punched the air right out of me.

“And if that means wiping out every single person who looks at you twice, then so be it.” He uttered the warning like a quiet promise, terrifying in its certainty. “I will do it. I will kill for you without hesitation. I will obliterate anyone who thinks they can take you away from me.”

I stared at him, mouth dry.

“My god,” I whispered hoarsely. “You actually mean everything coming out of your mouth.”

Maxim’s lips twitched. Not into a smile. Nothing that soft. A cold, almost resigned twist of his mouth.

“I do.” He didn’t even blink. Didn’t soften it, didn’t take it back.

His voice was hard and absolute. “What’s the fucking point in pretending anymore, Wren?

I am the Pakhan. I’ve spent the past weeks restraining myself.

Trying to play the civilized version of me for you.

But what’s the sense in it now the secret is out? ”

He raked his hand through his hair as he leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, the confession ripping out of him like poison.

“Yes, I’m ruthless. Yes, I don’t flinch when men have to die. I don’t hesitate when threats arise. I don’t fucking lose because when I do, people like Bradley put their hands on what’s mine and that will never be acceptable.”

His eyes pinned me there, holding me captive with just a look.

“And you,” he said roughly, lowering his voice like a confession. “You are the most important fucking thing I’ve ever claimed. So yes, Wren, if it comes down to this world or you, then fuck this world and everybody in it.”

Silence expanded between us like a living thing. Thick. Suffocating.

And in that awful stillness, my heart cracked in two.

Tears stung my eyes again, but I refused to let them fall this time. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“I never knew you,” I said softly. The words bled out of me, quiet but edged in devastation. “You’re not the man I fell in love with.”

The weight of that truth shattered something between us. I saw it in his face. In the way his entire body stilled. Like he’d been punched in the stomach.

But he didn’t argue. Didn’t deny it.

“What now?” I asked. “I’m supposed to go to work and pretend everything is all right?”

“You no longer work for Morozov’s,” he said. “You were traumatized by what happened to Bradley and are taking some time off before returning to your studies.”

“Are you taking me back to my apartment?” I asked quietly, though I already knew the answer.

Maxim didn’t reply .

His jaw ticked, eyes on the road ahead like the question didn’t deserve an answer.

The silence felt worse than a slap.

“I said,” I pressed, my voice sharper, cutting through the charged quiet, “are you taking me home?”

Still nothing.

I turned my whole body toward him, my throat tight and burning. “I want to go back to my place, Maxim. Take me home. Now.”

“No.”

The word was quiet but brutal in its finality.

“No?” I echoed, my stomach sinking. “I’m not staying with you. You can’t seriously think that after everything that happened, after everything you said, I want to stay at your house.”

Maxim didn’t flinch. “You’re not safe there, and I don’t trust you not to do something foolish while you’re irrational like this.” He stared dead ahead, tense and immovable.

Irrational? Because of him, my father was dead, and he thought I was being irrational? If I were, it was all his fault.

“I don’t give a damn. I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

“You’re staying where you’ve been living recently—at the house.”

“You can’t force me to?—”

“We both know damn well that I can,” he said, his tone colder now, laced with steel. “It’s easier if you go along with it and don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”

The air sucked right out of the car. I gawked at him, chest heaving. “So what? You’re going to lock me up now? Chain me to the bed next?”

Maxim pressed his lips together hard. His gaze flicked to mine for the briefest moment. “That’s up to you.”

“This isn’t a fairytale, Maxim. I’m not the princess in the tower. You don’t get to lock me away and hope I fall back in love with the fucking dragon who won’t let me leave.”

“I know you’re not,” he said quietly, but his eyes gleamed with possession, with something ruthless simmering beneath the surface. “But until you calm down, until you come around—” His jaw tightened like he hated himself for saying it. “I’m sorry, Wren, but you’re not allowed to leave.”

I recoiled as if he’d slapped me.

I didn’t say anything after that. What was left to say? He made it clear I was no longer Wren Holloway, a human being with free will. I was now Wren, a liability to lock away.

The rest of the ride was dead silent except for the hum of tires and the thud of my furious heartbeat. Dezi must have heard every single thing we had said yet he didn’t react. What was it about Maxim that made men like my father and Bradley’s swore allegiance to him?

When we finally pulled into his driveway, something inside me cracked open. This was my only chance to get away. If I entered that house, I would never be allowed to leave.

The second the car slowed, I lunged for the door handle, prying it open before Dezi could even park properly.

“Wren!” Maxim barked behind me, but I didn’t care. I darted out of the car, heart racing, feet pounding against the driveway as I bolted like my life depended on it.

But I didn’t even make it five steps before Dezi grabbed me. His arms were like iron as they locked around my waist and hauled me back. I twisted and shoved, kicking and shouting at the top of my lungs.

“Let me go!” I screamed, my voice cracking. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

“Wren, stop,” Dezi grunted, trying to contain me without hurting me. “You’re only making this worse.”

“I hate you!” I roared, glaring at Maxim as he stepped out of the car with deadly calm. “I fucking hate you , Maxim! ”

Maxim’s face didn’t shift. Didn’t so much as twitch. He only stared at me with something heavy and unbearably sad in his eyes.

“Your hate I can live with, solnyshko.” He softened his tone so much it was barely above a whisper. “But I could never live in a world without you in it. I’ll do whatever I see fit to keep you safe.”