Maksimillian 'Max' Angeloff

Sunday flinches, her gentle features twitching into a contorted grimace every time a round is fired.. Which here at the range is about once every six seconds.. The girl is flighty, on edge and absolutely terrified, which only piles atop the mountain of guilt I sit on as I prepare her for what is yet to come.. But despite her rattled nerves she tries her hardest to pay attention as I demonstrate a run through of how to clear the chamber and reload her chosen Makarov iron..

In what feels like a cruel twist of coincidence, Sunday had selected the very same pistol my ex-wife had given to me on our wedding day, along with a promise..

Until death..

Imagine my surprise when a year later Sofiya would take that same gun and try to blow my brains out.. I had kept it as a reminder to never forget the bitter cut of betrayal..

I should have known not to trust Sofi, ever since we were young she'd had this pathological ability to spin and weave a web of rumour and riot.. But she was a gangland kid like me, growing up surrounded by violence and war had bonded us in some sick way, and for the longest time she felt like the only thing keeping me afloat in a sea of loneliness..

Sofiya was the first person to tell me that she loved me.. I'd never heard those words spoken before or felt the lingering embrace of their warmth.. And because I had been so starved for that to be true, I had deluded myself into ignoring her flaws.

But all of it was just another one of Sasha's games.. He has always been a chess master.. A fucking magician of mindfuck.. A devil in disguise.. I had no idea he was whisperings in Sofi's ear all those years, making her promises he had no intention of keeping and turning her against me with his lies..

Convincing me to marry Sofiya so young was my father's cruellest torment of all.. He knew she would be just another means to control me.. To keep me close to home and prevent me from re-upping my enlistment to escape his reach..

Sasha knew the more people I cared for, the more susceptible I would become to his blackmail.. And he knew all along Sofi was a weapon of mass destruction, set to burn my world to ash... Hell, he designed it..

It's easy in hindsight to say that I never should have agreed to meet with her that cold winter's night al those years ago.. After I uncovered all her lying and cheating, I should have been colder, callous and cruel.. Sofi and Neeves deserved each other, two snakes in a cesspit of their own making, and I should have been smart enough to see through their scheming betrayals and ideations of climbing the rungs of Sasha's criminal empire together..

But I had been blinded by loyalty and trust.. Brainwashed into a dulled state of complicity..

Back then, I didn't suspect that my wife would fuck my best friend behind my back.. I didn't think they would plot to eliminate me in order to clear their way to the top.. And I sure as shit didn't know the mastermind of the whole nefarious plan was my own father..

Sasha had ordered my death back then.. And to this day I still don't understand why..

Maybe it was my unbreakable resistance to his torments and games..
Maybe it was the combat training I received in the corps, or the newfound defiance I found with each passing year..
Maybe he finally saw me as a threat as I grew from a boy into a man, from a man into a monster..

Whatever it was, when I think back on all the ways that he tried to bridle me, to manipulate and control me, I feel nothing but a cold blooded contempt for the Angeloff patriarch..

I am as full of hatred and malice as he made me, a blackened husk of a man with nothing left to do but end it all..

The Pakhan and brotherhood might have chosen to honour the fragile peace the now retired Bratva Reaper had brokered years ago with Sasha's gang The Outlaws..

But I will never abide..

There is no reprimand or punishment extreme enough to stay my hand, especially since I have already begun cleansing the streets of Sasha's most trusted loyalists..
Men like Crew Draper, Gunner Bates and my most recent kill, a man I had known well.. A man I had once called brother, Ramsay Neeves.. I didn't have it in me to tell my sister that her former lover had suffered slowly at my hands.. For all Ramsay's betrayals, I know that she loved him, once.. The infidelity had been hard enough for Verity, and taking my side when the fracture split our family apart was even harder.. I know it will affect her to learn of his demise, and I will have to tell her soon.. But she is not really to hear it, not yet..

It is better for Verity to think my plans begin and end with Neeves.. Because if she knew the truth of my intentions, she'd be all too willing to jump into the hellfire alongside me.. Her and Luka both.. But I don't want that for my siblings.. I want them to live on.. To have a fresh start without the threats of our father looming over their heads.. Without their undying allegiance pledged to me, the pair of them jumping one ship to board another, just to obediently serve me the same way they had Sasha..

I want them to be free..

Coincidentally, it is the very same thing I wish for Sunday..

And maybe that is what I saw in her the night I first laid eyes on her.. A caged creature, controlled and downtrodden, deserving of so much more than the shitty hand she'd been dealt.. I had barely washed Ramsay's blood from my hands when Javier Navarro brought her to me.. A soaking wet, shivering slip of a woman to me, he was desperate to exchange for money..

The biggest mistake of his soon to be short life..

I am not an ignorant man, I see the way Sunday looks at me.. As if I were both Satan and her salvation, all at once.. As if I were a broken machine with some faint glimmer of hope to be discovered within my eyes..

How disappointed she will be when I show her who I truly am..

A madman, seeking vengeance and death..

I will end Sasha Angeloff.. Even if it kills me.. And I expect that it will..

"So I just point and shoot-?" Sunday bites the tip of her tongue between her front teeth and squints as she lifts her pistol, offering me a menacing view directly down the barrel..

I am not ready to die quite yet..

"Sure.. Just don't aim it at me, Adelita.." (Adelita=Mexican female revolutionary) With two fingers and a teasing chuckle, I push the muzzle of the Makarov away from my face.. "A menos que me quietas muerto.." (unless you want me dead)

"Que?! Max!" (what) Sweet candy-caramel eyes brighten in delighted surprise.. "No sabía que hablabas español.." (I didn't know you could speak Spanish)

Of course I speak some Spanish, you don't serve four tours in South America without picking up at least a little of the language.. And how else was I going to sweet talk the local honeys?

Still, I doubt my slanted Russk-y-merican accent and novice pronunciations have anything on hers.. The way she speaks is naturally easy, fluid and flowing, a poetic rhythm I could listen to all day long.. For a brief moment my focus falters as my gaze falls to the delicate curve of her elegant neck and the shimmer of her brown sugar complexion beneath the intense fluorescent lighting..

Goddamn this girl is problematic..
I just can't get her out of my fucking head..

"Hay muchas cosas que no sabes sobre mí, Conejita.." (There is a lot you don't know about me, bunny) Stunned, her pretty pink mouth falls open as I take her firmly by the hips.. She doesn't put up a protest as I turn her around to face the target, pressing her forward until she is lined up at the mark.. "Now, take a deep breath and have at it.."

-BANG-

"AHH!" Missing her target entirely Sunday squeals, frightened by the sound of her own shot as the recoil jerks through her arms, almost shaking the pistol loose from her grip.. "Dios mio! No, no! It's too scary!" Shaking her head, her dark curls bounce dramatically as she tries to retreat away from the targets, bumping into my chest with a teetering wobble..

"You gotta show it who's boss.. Grip it firm, here-" Stepping up behind her, I curl one hand around hers on the stock and the other beneath her elbow, lifting her sights into line.. I gently correct her finger placement, brushing over her soft knuckles and her hands begin to waver a little at the contact.. "Don't choke up on it.. Relax your wrists a little- there.."

"Am I doing it right?" I can feel the swell of each short nervous breath through the rise and fall of her petite shoulders as she leans back against me.. The heat of her, the scent of her, the silky swish of her wildly curly brunette hair, it tests my impulse control like never before..

I could fucking devour her right here.. Strip away her tight blue jeans and claim her with my mouth, tasting every inch of her soft cinnamon skin..

The thought alone is enough to make my blood run hot..

"You're perfect.." I utter, realising just milliseconds after that I've said the first thought that appeared in my head.. She makes it so damn hard to think clearly, everything about her is a distraction of the most tempting variety.. "Now, pull the trigger.."

My fingers coax hers off the guard and to the trigger, and the pistol cracks as she makes her mark..

-BANG-

-BANG-

-BANG-

Sunday is driven backwards with each discharge, bouncing against my chest as the cutout target takes a single round through the lower abdomen.. It's not a killshot, but just as effective in its stopping power and I can't help but feel a surge of pride in her achievement..

"I did it, Max!" Spinning around she beams up at me, her golden eyes aflame and a smile of diamonds gleaming with joy.. "I really did it!"

"You're a killer, Bunny.." I smile, taking her pistol to load a fresh clip for her..

"I think killing is more in your wheelhouse-" No sooner has she spoken the barbed words does she flush with regret. Her espresso eyes lower to her sneakers as she draws her bottom lip into her mouth to chew on it nervously.. "Lo siento, Señor.. I didn't mean- I don't know why I said that!"

"Because you're afraid of me.." Setting the weapon down, I reflexively prowl one step closer.. I know rationality that she is right, I am a killer, and I have never felt any guilt about that before.. But from her lips it is a cutting insult and I can't explain why.. "Aren't you?"

"I'm not afraid of you." She shifts awkwardly under my scrutiny. searching for her courage and finding a backbone of steel as she tilts her chin up to look me in the eye.. "But maybe-- I'm afraid of how you make me feel.."

"Tell me how I make you feel.." A low growl rumbles around my chest, my hand tightening into a reflexive fist at my side as I resist the urge to reach out and grab her..

"Dangerous.." Her pouty lips shape around the suggestive word, tempting me to lean down and lick them..

"I'm not dangerous to you, Little Bunny.." My hand breaks free of my resolve, extending to settle at the curve of her hip, where greedy fingertips squeeze at her feminine softness..

Her hands press against my chest, but not to push me away.. "Yes.." Sunny whispers, breathlessly, so low I have to lean in closer to hear her.. "You are.."