Page 44 of Bratva’s Vow (Bratva’s Undoing #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MAXIM

I was choking on air and blood that wasn’t mine.

Wren’s blood. So much of it.

My fists were red with it. My shirt soaked through. He lay on a gurney that refused to move fast enough, eyes half-lidded, skin gray, mouth trembling with a plea I couldn’t hear. Someone was screaming.

Maybe it was me.

Maybe it was?—

I jerked upright, heart slamming against my ribs, breath ragged. The sheets were twisted around my legs, soaked with sweat. I reached for him on instinct, the way I always did now after dreams like that.

But the bed was cold beside me.

Empty.

“Solnyshko?” I threw off the covers and flicked on the bedside lamp with shaking fingers.

The room lit up in a soft, honeyed glow, warm and so wrong. There was no Wren in the space next to me. He always slept curled up against my side or tangled across my chest. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and have to turn him over gently so I could use the bathroom.

But he was gone.

I stared at the hollow impression where his body should be, and panic bloomed in my chest so fast it felt like I was still drowning in my nightmare.

My lungs forgot how to pull in air. My throat constricted like invisible hands were wringing it shut. Cold sweat slid down my spine, soaking the cotton clinging to my back. Every beat of my heart slammed against my ribs like it was trying to break out of me and find him.

No. No, he wouldn’t.

He promised.

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My mind raced through the day to the quiet way he’d withdrawn after the funeral, the tremble in his hand when he’d reached for my arm in the car.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.