Chapter 37

                                    

                                          
~Ilya~
Power. 
The word has defined me from the moment I opened my eyes in this world. It was the first lesson drilled into me by the tutors my father summoned to shape my mind. Power—unforgiving, elusive, and never fully within grasp. 
I've spent my life chasing it, bleeding for it, bending the world to my will in its name. Yet, it slips through my fingers, daring me to claim it entirely. And I will, because nothing and no one will stand in my way. 
But then there's her. Blonde hair, blue eyes, five foot four with the attitude of someone seven foot eight. She makes me second-guess everything. 
Since the first time I saw her—when I was eight, and she looked up at me with those shattered eyes, she unlocked something in me that should've stayed buried. She went straight for my heart, tore it from my chest, and tucked it away in her ass pocket like it was hers to keep from the start. 
She made me do things. Things no man in my position should've done. Deals I had no business striking, not for someone like her. Especially not for the daughter of the enemy. 
She's the enemy. She always should've been, especially after my father ripped my childhood away. He made sure of it the day he locked me in the warehouse where he broke men. The place where screams echoed off the walls, and blood painted the floor. It was there that he trained me to become the successor he needed—a man forged from fear and ruthlessness. 
To be honest, it wasn't hard. The first rule of my father's empire was simple, it was to be heartless. And I had no heart left to lose, not since the day she stepped out of that car and trusted me with her secret.
I was doing fine—great, even, until I saw her again. It was in the university cafeteria, her laughter ringing out like music as she leaned toward her brother. She was smiling, and it wasn't just any smile. It was the kind of smile that could shatter shadows and ignite worlds mine included, both literally and figuratively. And for the second time in my life, I fell in love with the enemy. 
After a longtime in so many years, I smiled. Not the practiced, calculated curve I wore for pretenses, but something real. Something raw. I hadn't felt that in ages. I should've hated her. She was the reason I was thrown into this dark world long before my time. But strangely, I didn't. 
If I had the chance to go back, I'd still choose the same path, even knowing the cost. Why? I didn't have an answer, and honestly, I didn't care. All I knew was that the girl who had stolen my heart all those years ago had just walked back into my life. 
And for the second time in forever, my heart raced, not from fear or dread, but from pure, unrestrained adoration. The kind I'd only ever felt for her. The girl with golden hair and eyes as warm and endless as a summer sky. 
Standing there, watching her from a distance, was the moment I made a decision so reckless it bordered on insanity. A decision that could send me straight back to the hell I'd spent years clawing my way out of—that damned warehouse. But for every reason called Maya Sokolov, I once again didn't fucking care.  
I knew the stakes. I understood exactly what affiliating myself with the Heathens would mean. I wasn't blind to the consequences of infiltrating enemy territory, of risking my identity, my freedom, my life. Men like me aren't supposed to make mistakes like this. 
But Maya Sokolov has never been just anyone. She's always had the power to make me throw caution to the wind, to make the value of my life feel like an afterthought. She has always been my only thought. 
I became Jeremy Volkov's right-hand man for one reason and it was Maya. I love her against all the reasons why I shouldn't, against the peace I'll risk if I am exposed, against the hope of being loved back, against any kind of discouragement and I've never felt an ounce of shame about it. Yes, she broke my heart when she rejected me, shattered it into pieces when she turned me down. But even then, I couldn't hate her. I knew what she had endured, the scars she carried. I never blamed her. All I wanted was to protect her. 
And then she came back to me. Into my arms, into my life. She loved me back, and I loved her harder. Fiercer. My father found out about what he called my "little rendezvous." But what I had with Maya was anything but little. It was far more than a fleeting affair. It was real love. Love larger than life. 
But love wasn't enough, not in the world I lived in. I had more at stake than my freedom. I had Maya's life, her safety, her very existence hanging in the balance. I had no choice but to let her go. For now. To play by my father's rules. For now. To be his spy. For now. 
And yet, as Maya looks at me now, with her eyes full of unshakable love, I ache to tell her the truth. The truth of who I am, what I am. The future Sovietnik of the Chicago Bratva. 
I don't know how she'll react, but I know this much: nothing in this world—not bloodlines, not betrayal, not even the hellfire of war—will ever tear her away from me. She is as much a part of me as I am of her. 
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Love me like Ilya loves Maya <333