Page 56 of Bound in Possession

"Because if we had stayed in that room for one more minute, I would have started a war!" he roars softly, the sheer volume of his restrained passion catching me off guard.

He steps so close our chests almost touch, his large hands coming up to grip my shoulders, not with violence, but with a desperate, heavy urgency.

"Look at me, Camilla," he commands, his breath hot against my face. "Viktor didn't just insult the syndicate. He looked at you. He threatened you. He brought up the auction to humiliate you. If I had stayed in that room, looking at his fucking face after he spoke to my wife like that, I wouldn't have just thrown a fork. I would have ripped his throat out with my bare hands. If I killed him at a formal council dinner, I would violate the age-old laws of sanctuary and set off a full-scale war with his syndicate, and every allied family would turn against me for breaking protocol. But I don't even give a damn about the council. I care about you. I had to get you out of there before I painted that entire mahogany table with his blood."

I freeze, the breath catching in my throat.

The fierce argument dies on my lips as I stare up into his fractured, stormy gaze. The anger rolling off him isn't the cold, calculated dominance he usually projects. It is raw, feral, and utterly terrifying.

And suddenly, a realization hits me like a physical blow, sending a shiver straight down my spine.

Maksim’s terrifying control—the icy demeanor, the flat monotone, the casual way he wipes blood from his cuffs—is not indifference. It isn't just him trying to dominate everyone around him.

Sometimes, it is pure, agonizing restraint.

He is not calm because he does not care. He is calm because he has to be. Because he is a monster on a devastatingly thin leash, and if he loses his grip on that control for even a single second, people die.

I look at his tight jaw, the pulse fluttering rapidly in his neck. He isn't protecting me from the world. He is protecting the world from what he would do to keep me.

"Get in the car," he repeats, his voice dropping back into that gravelly, quiet monotone. The raw storm in his eyes is buried once more beneath layers of thick ice, but the tension in his shoulders tells me the monster is still clawing at the surface.

This time, I don’t argue. I turn and get into the back of the sleek, armored SUV. Maksim slides in right after me, the heavy door shutting out the night with a muted, solid thud. The guards quickly pile into the vehicles ahead and behind us, and within seconds, the convoy is moving, sweeping out of the estate gates and onto the dark highway.

We don’t speak to each other.

The silence inside the cabin is suffocating, thick with a volatile, unresolved heat. I sit rigid against the leather seat, burning up beside him, the physical reminder of what he did to me this afternoon still heavy between my thighs, mixing with the sharp adrenaline of the dinner. I look out the window, watching the blur of streetlights, refusing to break the silence first. Maksim stares straight ahead, his jaw locked, his large hands resting flat on his thighs.

Suddenly, the night erupts.

A deafening explosion rocks the front of the convoy, followed immediately by the terrifying, rapid-fire rain of automatic gunfire.

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

Bullets slam into the reinforced glass and armored plating of our SUV, the impact sending violent vibrations through the chassis. The driver violently swerves, trying to break through the ambush, but a heavy armored truck rams us from the side, forcing our vehicle to a grinding, screeching halt in the middle of the dark road.

"Ambush!" the driver yells, drawing his weapon just as the windshield webs with cracks.

Maksim moves before the car even fully stops. His lethal instincts kick in with terrifying speed. In one fluid motion, he reaches across the seat, his massive hand grabbing my jacket and shoving me flat against the floorboards of the backseat, shielding me with his own body as more bullets pelt the exterior.

"Stay down!" he barks, his voice booming over the gunfire.

He lunges toward the door, pulling his heavy caliber pistol from his holster. Before he steps out into the chaotic crossfire, he turns back to me, with a ferocious, protective fury. He hits the security console on the door panel, activating the emergency lockdown. The heavy deadbolts click into place with an iron finality.

"Do not move. You are safe in here," he commands fiercely.

He throws the door open just enough to slip his massive frame out, slamming it shut behind him. The automatic locks instantly engage again, locking me completely inside the impenetrable, armored cage for my own safety.

Through the heavily tinted, cracked glass, I can only watch in breathless terror as Maksim joins his men, stepping directly into the storm of fire and blood to face the danger head-on.

The deafening roar of gunfire and shouting muffled through the reinforced glass makes my heart slam violently against my ribs. Outside, Maksim is an absolute force of nature. He moves through the chaos like a ghost of death, firing with lethal precision, dropping men left and right without a single second of hesitation.

For a few torturous moments, I just watch him fight, breathless and frozen. But the sight of blood on his shirt, mixed with the reality of bullets flying all around us, snaps something inside me.

I refuse to sit helplessly in a shiny metal cage while men die to keep me safe.

My eyes dart frantically around the back of the SUV. I dive across the floorboards, tearing at the hidden leather paneling near the center console until my fingers catch on a heavy latch. Click. The concealed emergency weapon compartment pops open, revealing a pair of loaded semi-automatic handguns and extra magazines. My hands wrap around pistol, and I rack the slide, chambering a round, as I had watched my father’s men do often enough.

Through a small spiderwebbed break near the top edge of the side window, my eyes lock onto the chaotic scene outside.