Eventually, when I blink the dark spots from my vision and manage to rasp, “I’m… sad.”
Lev blinks down at me, his brows lifting in disbelief. “Sad?”
“Yes,” I grind out. “It’s… I can’t—I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Lev exhales through his nose, his shoulders sagging. He runs a hand over his face, smearing the blood from his lip, and then leans back just enough to allow me to pull in a full breath. “Of course it’s about that woman.”
I glare up at him, my pride prickling, but he rolls his eyes before I can speak.
“Maksim Antonov,Pakhanof the Antonov Bratva, scourge of Moscow… taken down by a broken heart. I should have seen it coming.” For a second, Lev is quiet. Then he sighs, the sound heavy with exasperation.
My jaw tightens.
I want to hit him again, but the fight has drained out of me. All that’s left is the hollow ache of my broken heart.
Lev shifts over me, his voice calmer now. “What do you want to do?”
I stare at the cracked plaster above us as my face twitches in pain, sighing. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve got two options,” he says, blunt as always. “Kidnap her and the boy and bring them here. Or… try to mend the bridge before it’s too late.”
I close my eyes.
Kidnap her?Drag Ivy back into my world against her will again? After everything that happened? After seeing the look on her face when she told me she refused to come back to Russia with me? She already hates me. Or if she doesn’t yet, she will if I force her hand like that. Taking her and our son against their will would burn the last fragile thread still tethering us together. Whatever’s left of us wouldn’t survive that.
The thought of it makes me feel sick.
But the alternative? Try to mend what’s broken?
That runs the risk of being met with another slammed door, another heartbreak that ends with a hollow ache that’ll take root inside my chest and never leave. It means setting myself up for rejection all over again, hoping she'll meet me halfway when she might’ve already walked miles in the opposite direction.
I drag a hand through my hair, digging my fingers into my scalp until it stings.
“I don’t know anything anymore,” I mumble.
There’s silence for a beat, long and weighted.
Even though my eyes are shut, I can feel Lev watching me. Lev’s not the type to comfort, or the type to offer kindness with open hands, but I know him. He’s cataloging the cracks in my façade, the way my words sound like they’ve already surrendered, and calculating how to fix his broken leader.
“I never thought I’d see the day that the great Maksim Antonov would be reduced to ashes over a woman,” he finally says. His voice is quieter now, stripped of its usual harshness.
“She’s not just a woman,” I mutter.
“Then stop treating her like she’s some abstract problem to solve. You love her? Then fight for her. You want your son safe? Then make it so. But pick a path, Maksim. You keep sitting in the middle of the road like this, you’re going to take us all down with you. We need a leader, not whateverthisis.”
I open my eyes finally, lifting them to meet his.
His gaze doesn’t waver. “Think about it. Once you decide, let me know.”
He leaves me with that, gets up and walks out of the room without waiting for a response. The door clicks shut behind him. Silence wraps around me like a vise, suffocating me.
I lie there sprawled out on the floor for a long while, my body aching. The anger has drained from me, leaving onlyemptiness in its wake. Then, without thinking, I slam my fist down against the cold stone beneath me. Pain shoots up my arm, white-hot and grounding.
Finally, somethingreal.
I hit the floor again.
And again.