It has been a month since I last saw Duca and, if I am honest to the very end, this month has torn me apart inside more cruelly than any cellar, any fear, any humiliation I have ever endured.
I have suffered like a small, abandoned animal, like a creature left out in the rain without understanding what it did wrong. A deep, dull pain—one that gnaws without pause—has settled in my chest and has not let me breathe normally since.
My life is, in theory, good. We have a safe roof over our heads, Elena smiles, the refrigerator is full, the bills are paid. And yet, inside me there is a hole that nothing can fill.
I miss him so much that every morning I wake with tears on my cheeks.
I don't dream every night. Most nights are black holes—dense, without images, without sound, without anything. I fall asleep and wake as if I've been thrown into a bottomless void. But when I do dream, I dream of him.
I dream of his eyes.
Those blue eyes, too clear for a man who lives in darkness. The way they looked at me as if he saw me whole, even when I felt shattered into pieces. I dream of that heavy, intense gaze that made me feel desired and protected at the same time, even though I knew his protection came wrapped in chains.
I dream of that barely-there smile, the slight lift at the corner of his mouth when he said, "little love," as if I were the only soft thing in his hard world. I dream of his hands—large, warm, steady—the way they cupped my face as though he wanted to memorize it, the way his fingers slid through my hair, patient, possessive, tender.
I dream of his broad shoulders, his straight back, the way he stepped into a room and the air shifted instantly, as if gravity itself had decided to tilt around him.
And when I wake, reality hits me.
The bed is cold.
The room is silent.
And I cry.
I cry every morning when I dream of him, my face buried in the pillow, trying not to wake Elena. I cry because I miss him in a way that makes me feel weak and ridiculous. I cry because a part of me is still searching for him, even though my mind knows too well that I will never see him again.
I am realistic enough to understand that he is not good for me.
That a man who, at the first flicker of doubt, ties you up instead of believing you cannot be your salvation.
That love that arrives wrapped in fear is not love at all—it is dependency.
I know all of this.
And yet longing does not obey logic.
The days are just as heavy. I try to occupy my mind with simple things—laundry, grocery runs, job searches, making lists, arranging closets—but my thoughts stray back to him again and again, like a stubborn dog returning to the same place.
I catch myself wondering what he is doing.
If he is well.
If he ever searches for me in his thoughts.
If he misses me even half as much as I miss him.
Sometimes, in the middle of the day, when Elena is telling me something about school, I realize I am looking through her, that my mind is elsewhere—in a dark room scented with cigarette smoke and expensive cologne, with a man sitting in an armchair watching me as if he is waiting for me to open my eyes.
And I hate myself for it.
Because I know that if I were to see him again—if he appeared in front of me with that intense gaze and that low voice murmuring "little love"—a part of me would want to run straight into his arms.
And I am not allowed. I am not allowed to forget what he did. I am not allowed to romanticize the chains.
But there are days when the longing drives me mad.
Days when I feel as though I am walking through the city with an open wound no one can see. People look at me normally, speak to me normally, life moves forward, and I smile and answer—yet inside me there is a constant echo, a name repeating itself against my will.
Duca.
And no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I made the right choice—that my freedom is worth more than any embrace—the truth is that I still love him.
And perhaps, in time, I might have managed to place this longing into some bearable corner of my soul, if life did not possess such a cruel sense of irony.
Nikolai is here, and the entire past spills over me.
For a fraction of a second, the noise in the club dulls, the music turns into a distant murmur, and the lights feel too bright. I stare at him, unable to control my expression, and he looks back at me. At the corner of his mouth, a smile slowly stretches—neither surprised nor confused.
It is calculated.
As if he had known.
"Alla," he says calmly, almost amused, as though we had run into each other by chance at a café on a lazy Sunday.
I feel my fingers freeze around the tray I'm holding.
"What a coincidence," he adds, his eyes measuring me without hurry.
A coincidence? In their world, there are no coincidences.
Emma looks from him to me, slightly confused.
"You know each other?" she asks, still smiling.
I force my lips to move.
"We've crossed paths before," I say, in a voice I hope sounds normal.
Alex lifts his gaze, sensing something in the air, but says nothing.
Nikolai rests his elbows on the bar, relaxed, as if he owns the place.
"It's a small world, isn't it?" he says, and there is something cold and sharp in his eyes, a stillness that makes me understand he did not come here by accident.
Then he turns to Emma as if I no longer exist.
"A vodka. Neat. Belvedere, if you have it," he says lightly.
Emma nods quickly and pours from an elegant, chilled bottle with a minimalist label—a clear Belvedere that glints beneath the bar lights, the kind of drink that burns smooth down your throat and costs half a month's salary. The small glass lands in front of him, and he takes it between his fingers with a natural ease that betrays long habit.
He lifts it to his lips and throws it back in a single swallow, without blinking, without so much as a flinch, as if he were drinking water. Only after the alcohol slides into his chest does he roll his neck slightly, rotate his shoulders, and give a brief, almost animal shake. Then he turns his gaze to me and smiles.
It isn't a warm smile. It's the kind that tells you he knows something you don't.
And then my body reacts before my mind does, with brutal clarity.
Run.
That's what every tensed muscle, every overstretched nerve screams at me.
But I don't move.
I remain there, tray in hand, as he takes a small step toward me and extends his hand without haste. The gesture is calm, almost ordinary—and that is precisely what paralyzes me. His fingers brush the strands of hair near my neck and smooth them slowly, absently, as if testing the texture of a fine fabric.
My blood freezes in my veins.
He isn't rough. He doesn't grab me, doesn't squeeze.
But there is nothing innocent in that touch.
I stand motionless, breath caught in my throat, unable to push his hand away, unable to say a word, and in his eyes I see clearly that he is savoring the effect.
"See you soon, Alla," he says quietly, almost gently.
He withdraws his hand, adjusts the cuff of his shirt with a calculated gesture, and walks away without looking back.
And with him disappears that light, clean feeling I had carried all evening.
All that remains is the music blaring too loudly, the lights that seem to blind me, and the certainty that my past just walked in through the door and left calmly, knowing it hasn't lost me.
And I am left with the realization that no matter how hard I try to move forward, their world still knows the way back to me.
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