Rae watched the men drag Snake's body away. She was drowning under a stream of fear, shock, and the vomit that surged up her throat.

The men drove off after hiding Snake's corpse in a corner. When the thunder was distant enough, she jumped away from the garbage bags and set her vomit free.

She thought she knew Maksim intimately. She thought the darkness of his gaze only crawled out while they were tumbling in bed. She was wrong, though, because the same darkness consumed him as he devoured another man's life. He took her with the same intensity he took Snake's life. It was wrong; unnatural. Love and hate shouldn't have such uncanny similarity.

She looked down. The once white tennis shoes were now creamy. Bits of vomit flicked off as she dashed from the scene. She ran blindly, knowing that the men from the motorcycle club would return to clean up their crime.

Snake's ghost followed her. He couldn't take her in life, so he would take her in death.

Mafia. Maksim is in the mafia. Is that why he hid a gun? Did he come home late at night because he takes out bodies?

Many times, she trailed curious fingers over his chest. Questions weighed the tip of her tongue, but something always kelp them jailed behind her teeth. She should have asked. She should have translated the words inked on Maksim's body.

She tripped and ripped her knees open on the concrete. The sight made her gag. There was too much blood.

Her blood, Snake's blood, father's blood.

"You got a DUI? I told you to stop hanging with those kids, Raelynn! They're gonna ruin your future."

She shook her head, fighting the memories. Tears flew off her cheeks, but were quickly replaced with fresh ones.

"Vandalism? You have to do better, honey."

She didn't listen, though. She was angry at the world for taking her mother, and there was nothing more dangerous than an anguished teenager with too much time in her hands. So she drank, and smoked, and stacked up her record. She wanted to show life that she was bigger than it.

Fool.

The memories of her bloody father made her gag again, but her stomach had nothing more to give. She pushed her knees away, unable to look at the crimson on her jeans. She didn't like the color red. It was a good thing their TV was broken, because she hated watching the news, too.

Mafias and gangs.

She couldn't go back to that life. They took her father, and nearly took her out, too.

She stood up on shaky legs and looked down the alley. Things had been hard for a long time. She was short on money and options, but she never felt hopeless because she had Maksim.

Now that his mask dropped, it felt like the flesh on her bones dropped, too. She was bleeding everywhere, welcoming infections and vultures. There was nowhere to go. She could only stand as maggots and predators plucked at her flesh and her blood pooled beneath her.

She was hopeless.

She walked far; flinching every time she heard a car pass by. When the night rolled in, she knew she had to go home. She couldn't run, because Maksim would chase her and find her somehow.

She stood up and walked home. It only took a few minutes of walking along the road for a motorcycle to show up. Her legs tensed, but she knew there was no sense in running.

"Raelynn?" a young guy asked. He couldn't be a day over eighteen.

Get out of the MC, she wanted to warn him. Get out before it's too late and you make the same mistakes I did.

"Yeah," she replied, voice raw.

"I'm Jace. We've been looking for you. Your man's going nuts. Want me to drive you to your place?"

She nodded numbly. After kicking her dirty shoes off, she slid behind him.

Jace sent a text; probably telling his guys that he found her. When he started the bike, her hair fluttered wildly behind her. It would be a knotted mess by the time she got off; a perfect symbol of what was happening in her chest.

They came to a stop just as the door to her apartment flew open and Maksim pounded down the steps. She hugged Jace closer and ducked her head behind him.

Maksim terrified her. They were back to square one.

Hands pawed at her hips and pulled her off the bike. She was forced to grab Maksim's biceps for balance as held her up and dove for her lips. Before they could meet, she turned her head.

"Wait. I... I threw up. I need to brush my teeth."

"Rae," he growled, searing his brand onto her temple, forehead, hair, and cheeks. He was all over her. His hands were at her hips, chest pressed against hers.

Her vision swam when she remembered Snake's blood splattering all over his chest and his booted feet swimming through his brains.

"Put me down, please."

He returned her feet to her ground, but his hands went nowhere. "I need to know if you're hurt," he pressed.

"I'm just a little startled. I ran off and got lost. Sorry for scaring you."

He swung her into his arms and addressed Jace. "Go."

"Should we expect retaliation from the b–"

"GO" Maksim roared before he could finish.

Raelynn already knew the end of the sentence, though.

Maksim rushed into their apartment, setting her down on the seat of their toilet and kneeling in front of her.

"Baby?"

She forced a smile to her face and suppressed another gag. "I'm okay. I cut his eye and ran. How did you find out, anyway? And what happened to that guy?"

Maksim's face remained stoic. There was no hint of guilt. The blankness scared her more than the memory of violence.

"His president found me. The guy left town so we couldn't get to him."

Lie. Snake didn't leave town. He left the land of the living.

"Oh," she showed her teeth. "That's great."

Maksim kissed her nose and cheeks. "He deserves death for this."

You already served it to him.

"Mak, you're going to drill your fingers into me," she forced herself to tease as she tried to pull his hands off her thighs. "I'm fine, seriously. I just want to shower."

"Okay," he said, reaching to pull his shirt off his back.

"Alone!" she added. "I need some time to think. I'm fine... baby."

Maksim frowned and lifted a hand to caress her cheek. When she noticed the bruised knuckles, she flinched.

"What?" Maksim asked, seeing right through her distance.

"I have cramps. My period starts today, remember?"

He slipped his hands under her armpits and carried her into the bathtub as if she was a child. "I will get you medicine."

"Thank you," she replied, eager to be alone.

The door clicked shut, and she instantly flicked the water on. She tossed her clothes off and scrubbed herself raw. Her fingers were harsh against her scalp, desperate to erase memories. No soap, no lobotomy, no rebirth would erase the darkness in there.

She sat on the tub and cried into her bloody knees.

She mourned the memories of yesterday, because nothing would be the same from then.

"Raelynn?" Mak knocked, making her realize that the water turned cold.

"I'm coming."

She brushed her teeth and washed between her legs, noticing that her period hadn't started. She was usually on time, but she figured that the stress of the day messed up her inner clock.

She wrapped a towel around herself and smiled at Maksim on her way out. Thankfully, he didn't follow her into the bedroom. She rushed to change; afraid that he would walk in, discover she wasn't on her period, and try to have sex with her.

She slipped under the covers and inched as close to the edge as possible. Then, she stared at the wall. The paint was chipped and there was a patched hole from where mice used to live.

Maksim entered the room, and she pretended to be asleep. Maksim was no fool, though. He knew she was awake, but didn't question her.

When his hand went around her and pulled her back so she was between his chest and the hand at her belly, she stiffened.

"Rest. I will be here to protect you. No matter the cost."

Not even if the price is red.

She shut her eyes tight and fought the urge to gag.

– • –

Six days passed, and they never mentioned Snake. Rae carried on cheerfully.

What would Maksim do if he found out she knew his secrets? Convince her to stay with him? She couldn't let it happen. She couldn't welcome the mafia into her life.

Her teenage mixup with a gang led to her father's death. She couldn't disrespect his memory by diving into the same bad path. She couldn't disappoint him in death after disappointing him so much in life.

She had to go.

Over the week, Maksim's touch remained innocent. It only became demanding at night when he pulled her into his arms. She knew he wanted to get back inside her. Every night, he clutched her tighter. Maksim liked sex, and soon, he would go hunting.

Her period ended in one day. She was running out of excuses.

She thought about the problem day and night; over work and class. She loved Maksim. She didn't want to leave him, but it was what had to be done.

For herself; for her father.

He would chase her to the ends of the world. She knew his nature. Maksim had signed his name on her insides, so escaping him wouldn't be easy.

She swallowed hard, and stared at the piece of paper on their splintered coffee table. This letter was the only way out. She wrote it five times because her trembling fingers refused to write legibly.

Maksim,

I've reflected a lot since last week.

I know you went looking for me after I went missing. You're a sweet guy, Mak, but you can't provide for me as a man. You can't take care of me. Can't buy me nice things, take me out on dates, or start a family. You have no stable job, no talent, no education. The sex was great, and quitting school for me was nice, but it's not enough.

I wasn't made for this life. I tried to hide it because I felt bad, but I'm showing you my true colors today. I have an expensive taste, and I can't hide under rags any more. I'm tired of eating sandwiches three times a day, squishing roaches on the walls, broken furniture, mice, broken air conditioners and TVs, spending date nights on the couch. I'm tired of lying to you, too. Your accent embarrasses me. I don't like it, and I don't like explaining to my friends that you have dead-end jobs although you're approaching thirty years of age.

I'm sorry for stringing you along and that you had to find this out over a letter.

I'm moving on. You should too– maybe should go back to school and take some speech classes to lose the accent.

Forget about me. I'm sorry it came down to this, but at least I was honest at the end.

-Raelynn

She hated the letter. They were lies. Cruel, horrible words that would break his heart.

The letter would keep him away, though.

Maksim was an amazing male, but his ties to a world of crime would eventually wrap around her neck and strangle her. Before she fell in love with Maksim, she fell in love with guilt. It would never let her be happy with him.