The morning after the dinner that had shattered the villa's fragile peace, the air itself felt different. The oppressive, pressurized silence had been cracked open, and in its place was a new, volatile energy—a current of defiance from Ante and a corresponding, seething rage from Jure that seemed to vibrate through the very limestone of the cliffs. Jure had retreated to his study, the door a solid, unyielding slab of oak, from behind which the low, furious murmur of a phone call could occasionally be heard. He was reasserting control in the only way he knew how: through the blunt instrument of his business, trying to dominate a world that still, at least partially, bent to his will.
Ante, meanwhile, felt a restlessness he hadn't known since he was a teenager chafing against his father's rule. The image of Mirna at the dinner table—pale, trembling, a beautiful bird with its wings pinned—was seared into his mind. It was more than just concern for a vulnerable person; it was a deep, moral revulsion that demanded action. He couldn't leave her in that gilded cage with the wolf who claimed to be her keeper.
He found her not in the solarium, but outside, by the infinity pool. The pool was another of his father's architectural statements, a sheet of flawless, cerulean water that spilled over a nearly invisible edge, merging visually with the sea and sky beyond. It was a place designed for spectacle, for cocktail parties and the display of wealth. But today, it held only a single, solitary figure.
Mirna was sitting on the rough, warm stone at the pool's edge, her back to the villa. She had discarded the provocative silk dress and was back in one of the simple, pale cotton shifts, this one the colour of sea foam. Her legs were drawn up, her arms wrapped around her knees, and she was leaning forward, her long, slender toes skimming the surface of the water, sending out tiny, concentric ripples that distorted her reflection. Her posture was not one of leisure, but of profound yearning. She looked less like a woman at a pool and more like a exile staring across the border into her lost homeland.
Ante approached with the same caution he would use nearing a rare and skittish marine mammal. He made sure his footsteps were audible on the stone, giving her ample warning. She heard him and went rigid, her head whipping around, her body coiling to flee. When she saw it was him, the panicked tension in her shoulders eased by a fraction, but the wariness in her magnificent violet eyes remained, a deep, watchful pool of its own.
"May I join you?" he asked, stopping a respectful several feet away.
She didn't nod, but she didn't shake her head either. She simply turned back to look at the sea, a silent, neutral permission. He took it, settling himself on the warm stone a safe distance from her, drawing his own knees up. The morning sun was warm on their skin, and the only sounds were the sigh of the breeze, the distant cry of gulls, and the gentle, hypnotic lap of the water against the pool's edge.
For a long time, they sat in silence. Ante didn't try to force conversation. He could feel the tremors of her fear, the way she was hyper-aware of his presence. He simply existed beside her, allowing the peaceful morning and the shared view to work as a balm. He watched her profile, the straight, delicate line of her nose, the full curve of her lips, the way the sun gilded the loose, dark-blonde curls that had escaped her simple ponytail. She was, without a doubt, the most stunningly beautiful woman he had ever seen. But her beauty was secondary to the air of tragic mystery that clung to her, a sadness so profound it felt ancient.
Finally, he spoke, his voice soft, blending with the ambient sounds. "My father said you don't remember anything. Is that true?"
It was a direct question, but he asked it gently, without pressure.
Mirna didn't look at him. Her gaze remained fixed on the horizon, on the seamless line where the sky met the sea. She gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head. "I don't remember," she whispered, her voice so faint it was nearly carried away by the breeze. "It is all… dark. And empty." She was silent for a moment, her toes making slow circles in the water. "Except for the sea. The sea… it is the only thing that feels familiar."
The way she said it—not with joy, but with a heart-wrenching homesickness—pierced him. It wasn't just a preference; it was a primal connection, the only solid ground in the earthquake of her existence.
"I understand that," Ante said, and he meant it. "I've always felt that way too. It's why I do what I do."
This caught her attention. She turned her head slightly, her violet eyes regarding him with a flicker of curiosity. "What do you do?"
"I'm a marine biologist. I study the sea. The life in it, the currents, the way it breathes."
A change came over her face. It was subtle, but to Ante, who had only seen fear and blank confusion in her expression, it was as dramatic as a sunrise. The tight, guarded set of her features softened. The deep, fearful shadows in her eyes seemed to recede, and in their place, a tiny, hesitant light kindled. It was the light of interest, of a dormant mind stirring awake.
"You… study it?" she asked, as if the concept were both foreign and fascinating.
"Yes," he said, and he began to talk. He didn't speak in dry, academic terms. He spoke as a poet of the deep. He told her about the diurnal migration, the vast, daily journey of trillions of tiny creatures rising from the abyss to the surface at dusk and descending again at dawn, a vertical river of life. He described the intelligence of the octopus, a creature that could change its shape and colour, that could solve puzzles and feel curiosity. He talked about the songs of the humpback whales, complex, evolving melodies that traveled for hundreds of miles through the dark water, a language of longing and community.
As he spoke, the transformation in her was breathtaking. The fearful, cowering girl began to fade, replaced by an alert, intensely focused young woman. She uncurled her body, turning fully towards him, her eyes wide and absorbing every word. She was no longer looking at the sea with yearning; she was looking at him as if he held the keys to a kingdom she had once known.
When he paused, she didn't just offer a polite murmur. She asked a question. Her voice was still soft, but it was clear, intelligent.
"The light… it changes, doesn't it? The deeper you go? The blue… it eats the red."
Ante stared at her, stunned. It was a perceptive, technically accurate observation about how water absorbs different wavelengths of light. It wasn't common knowledge.
"Yes," he said slowly, his curiosity now fully ignited. "That's exactly right. It's why so many deep-sea creatures are red—it appears black in the depths, a form of camouflage."
She nodded, as if this made perfect, instinctual sense to her. "And the currents… they are like roads. Under the surface. They carry the young, the seeds of things, to new places."
Another sharp, intuitive leap. She was describing larval dispersal, a fundamental concept in oceanography, but she wasn't using scientific jargon. She was describing it as if it were a story she had always known, a piece of folklore from a lost culture.
"How do you know these things?" he asked, his voice filled with wonder, not accusation.
The light in her eyes flickered, and a shadow of the old confusion returned. She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. "I… I don't know. It just… feels true. When you speak, the words… they find a place inside me that is not empty."
The admission was so vulnerable, so honest, that it stole Ante's breath. He was no longer just a concerned bystander. He was a man witnessing the emergence of a remarkable soul from a prison of amnesia and terror. Her knowledge wasn't learned; it was innate, woven into the very fabric of her being, as integral to her as the colour of her eyes. It was a knowledge of the sea.
He continued to talk, now tailoring his stories to her intuitive understanding. He spoke of the bioluminescent creatures that lit up the midnight zone with their own cold fire, of the strange, pressure-adapted life around hydrothermal vents, of the silent, graceful dance of the manta rays. And she listened, her questions becoming more insightful, her comments revealing a deep, pre-conscious sympathy with the marine world. She didn't just understand it; she seemed to feel it.
For the first time since he had arrived, Ante saw a glimpse of who she might have been before the void claimed her. Not a passive victim, but a creature of profound connection and intelligence. A spirit as deep and mysterious as the ocean she longed for.
And as he watched the morning sun illuminate her face, now alight with a passion that had nothing to do with his father, Ante felt something shift irrevocably within himself. It was no longer just a desire to protect her. It was the beginning of something far more dangerous, and far more beautiful. He was falling, not into the abyss of her past, but into the luminous, violet depths of her present. The war for Mirna was no longer just a moral crusade; it had become profoundly, terrifyingly personal.
The study, Jure's command center, his sanctuary of control, had become a prison of his own making. The monolithic desk, once the fulcrum upon which he leveraged fortunes, was now just a barren landscape of polished ebony, the abandoned contract for the Hvar hotel development a stark symbol of his neglected empire. The world of Barišić Holdings, with its clean, brutal logic of profit and loss, felt like a childish game compared to the primal, high-stakes war being waged within the confines of his own villa.
He stood at the window, his back to the room, a crystal tumbler of rakija held so tightly in his fist his knuckles were a bloodless white. The liquor, usually a smooth, warming comfort, tasted like ash on his tongue. His entire being was focused, with the predatory intensity of a hawk circling its prey, on the scene unfolding below him in the terraced gardens.
The infinity pool, his architectural marvel, his statement of dominance over the very edge of the continent, had been defiled. It was no longer a symbol of his power; it was a stage for a betrayal that felt more personal and more devastating than any business rival could ever conceive.
They were there again. Ante and her.
A cold, hard knot, like a fist of frozen stone, had taken up permanent residence in the pit of Jure's stomach. He had felt it form during the disastrous dinner, and now, watching them, it tightened another vicious turn, squeezing the air from his lungs and sending a dull, throbbing ache through his jaw, which he had been clenching for the better part of an hour.
From his elevated vantage point, he had a god's-eye view of the corruption of his property. Ante was sitting on the warm stone, his posture easy and relaxed, his face animated as he spoke. And Mirna… his Mirna… was listening.
It was her posture that inflicted the deepest wound. For weeks, her body had been a language of terror and submission around him—shoulders hunched, spine rigid, head perpetually bowed as if awaiting a blow. She was a closed fist, a shuttered window.
But down there, with his son, she was… open. She was turned towards Ante, her body uncoiled, her shoulders soft and rounded instead of tense with dread. The defensive, cross-armed barrier she always held against the world was gone; one of her hands was resting on the stone between them, palm up, as if in receptivity. Her head was tilted, a gesture of genuine interest, of absorption. It was a posture of trust. A trust she had never, for a single second, granted to him.
And then it happened. The ultimate violation.
Ante said something, gesturing out towards the sea. And Mirna's head dipped slightly, and a soundless laugh shook her shoulders. A moment later, the corners of her mouth—those pale, perfect lips that had been so cold and stiff beneath his—curved upwards. It wasn't a full smile, not yet. It was a ghost of a smile, a fleeting, fragile thing, like the first, tentative crack in a sheet of winter ice. But it was there. A smile. For Ante.
Jure felt a white-hot spike of fury so pure it momentarily blinded him. The knot in his stomach liquefied into a seething, acidic jealousy. The obsession that had driven him, the possessiveness that had been a dark, thrilling fire in his blood, now curdled, transforming into something uglier, more dangerous. It was no longer just about owning her beauty or her mystery; it was about the annihilation of this new, smiling version of her that existed only for his son.
How dare he? The thought was a roar in his mind. How dare this boy, with his soft hands and his sentimental notions about fish, come into my house and coax a smile from my possession?
He saw Ante point to something in the water, a leaf or an insect, and Mirna leaned forward to look, her hair falling over her shoulder in a dark-golden curtain. The movement was natural, graceful, utterly devoid of the frozen panic that characterized her every movement in Jure's presence. It was the movement of a woman, not a hostage.
He watched as Ante stood and offered her his hand. Jure's breath hitched. Would she take it? Would she allow that physical connection, the one she recoiled from in Jure with a violence that was both insulting and arousing?
She hesitated, looking at Ante's outstretched hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, tentatively, she placed her slender, pale hand in his. It was not a grip of passion, but one of trust. A simple, human assist to her feet.
But to Jure, watching from his Olympus of rage, it was an obscenity. It was a betrayal that felt more intimate than if he had walked in on them in bed. This was a meeting of minds, of spirits, and it was a territory he could not conquer with force or gifts. He saw the way Ante's hand held hers for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, the way his thumb brushed over her knuckles in a gesture of unconscious tenderness before releasing her.
They began to walk, slowly, along the path that wound through the oleander and lavender bushes, their heads close together, still talking. Ante was taller, his dark head inclined towards her, his expression one of focused attentiveness. Mirna was listening, her face turned up to his, that faint, haunting trace of a smile still playing about her lips.
Jure could not hear their words, but he could imagine them. He could imagine Ante's voice, calm and warm, not the low, commanding growl that made her flinch. He could imagine him speaking of the sea, not as a boundary to be dominated or a view to be owned, but as a living, breathing entity to be understood. He was speaking her language, the only language her soul seemed to remember, and in doing so, he was building a bridge to her that Jure, with all his power and wealth, could never construct.
The jealousy was a physical sickness now. It was a vine of thorns wrapping around his heart, each beat a fresh puncture wound. He saw the way the sun caught the silver threads in her hair, the way the breeze molded the simple cotton dress to her body, outlining the gentle swell of her hips. He had seen her naked, had felt the cold marble of her skin under his hands, and yet, in this moment, she was more exposed, more truly seen by his son's gentle, curious gaze than she had ever been by Jure's hungry one.
This was not part of the plan. She was supposed to be his beautiful, broken doll, dependent and grateful. Her fear was supposed to be the proof of his ownership. Her obedience was the music to which his power danced. But this… this quiet, growing connection with Ante was a rebellion. It was a silent, insidious coup happening in broad daylight, right under his nose.
He thought of the dinner, of the way Ante had challenged him. "She's a person, not a responsibility." The words had been a declaration of war. And now, Ante was on the battlefield, winning the only prize that mattered, not with force, but with kindness. It was a tactic Jure despised because it was one he could not replicate. He could buy her silk and silver, but he could not buy the light that was now dawning in her violet eyes.
He watched them until they disappeared from view, following the path down towards the cliff edge, towards the sound of the sea that called to her. The space where they had been felt charged, haunted by the ghost of her smile.
Jure finally turned from the window. The room was dark and cool, a tomb. He drained the rest of the rakija, the burn in his throat a pale imitation of the fire in his gut. He looked at his reflection in the dark screen of his dormant computer. The face that stared back was not that of a powerful king, but of a threatened, aging predator. The lines on his face seemed deeper, the silver in his hair more pronounced. He saw the desperate, hungry gleam in his own eyes, and he recognized it for what it was: the terror of losing what he had never truly possessed.
The obsession had mutated. It was no longer a simple, linear hunger. It was now a dual-headed beast: one head still desired her with a ferocious, physical need, while the other head wanted to punish her for the crime of smiling at another man, for the sin of finding solace in someone who was not him.
He would not allow it. This… this infection of happiness, of connection, had to be cauterized. Ante had to be driven out. And Mirna… Mirna had to be reminded of the fundamental, unalterable truth of her existence.
She was his.
He had pulled her from the sea. He had named her. He owned the roof over her head, the clothes on her back, the food she ate. Her life was a gift from him, and he could revoke it just as easily.
The cold knot in his stomach was back, harder and more determined than ever. The plans began to form in his mind, dark and ruthless. He would separate them. He would remind her of her place. He would reassert his ownership in a way that would shatter this newfound, fragile trust and send her scuttling back into the terrified, obedient shell where she belonged.
The view from his window was now just a view. The battle was no longer out there; it was inside these walls, inside his own heart, a civil war between his desire to possess her and his rage at her refusal to be truly possessed. And as the sun climbed higher, casting long, distorted shadows across the villa, Jure Barišić knew, with a chilling certainty, that he would rather break her completely than share a single, smiling glance with another man. The hunter was cornered, and a cornered hunter is the most dangerous beast of all.