The headquarters of "Volkov Holdings" was not merely a skyscraper of glass and steel gleaming under the city's cold sun; it was a towering temple erected to glorify the power of one man, an edifice reflecting the boundless might of Alexander Volkov. That morning, as we crossed the vast marble lobby where the echo of his regimented military steps resonated, I felt the gazes of the employees piercing my back like poisoned needles. I walked beside him—his private secretary—in a tight, formal black uniform he had designed specifically to accentuate every curve of a body that had become his private property. The white collar was pulled tight around my neck, a velvet shackle choking my breath, reminding me with every inhalation that I was nothing but a trace of his dark shadow.
The moment we entered his office on the top floor—that suite overlooking the world like the eye of an angry god—he closed the door behind us with a decisive, mechanical click, sealing us off from the noise of humanity. Alexander gave me no time to set down my bag or catch my scattered breath; he drove me toward the massive ebony desk, trapping me between his powerful arms that felt like gilded prison bars. His grey eyes shone with a predatory glint as he ran his long fingers, with provocative slowness, along the length of my neck, touching the racing pulse that was clearly visible on his private desktop screen, where he monitored my electrocardiogram just as he monitored stock market shares.
"Tell me, Ayla," he whispered, his sonorous voice brushing against my ear, smelling of tobacco and sovereignty. "Did you enjoy the men looking at you in the lobby? Did you feel the hunger of their eyes devouring this silk I chose for you?"
"I didn't look at anyone, Alexander," I whispered dryly, my lungs beginning to constrict under the weight of his overwhelming presence. "You know I see no one in this universe but you... whether out of love or terror."
My words were not enough; he wanted total subjugation. He tore the buttons of my shirt with a sharpness that knew no softness, pulling me to him to begin a new chapter of his physical possession of me. The connection between us was not merely a touching of bodies; it was a process of "soul laundering." He possessed me upon that luxurious desk, amidst billion-dollar deal papers and merger contracts, as if proving to me with every touch, and every moan of pain mixed with pleasure, that I was nothing but a "clause" in his eternal contract. My whimpers blended with the sound of the surveillance devices recording the ecstasy of my sick heart, while he whispered words into my ear that were crueler than an executioner's whip: "Do not ask about the past... I am your present, and I am your future, and I am the breath that rattles in your chest. I am the God who bought you a new life, and I am the only one who owns the right to consume it."
In the midst of those moments where the boundaries between pain and euphoria vanished, I summoned the courage to ask him the question that had been gnawing at my bones like rot: "Alexander... who are you really? From where do you know me with such depth? Those details you tell of my childhood in the orphanage... how did you know I was afraid of the dark? How did you know the secret of the copper ring before I told you?"
His body suddenly stiffened above me, and his eyes cooled until they resembled two pieces of steel beneath the rain. He did not utter a letter. Instead of answering, he doubled the intensity of his physical obsession with me, as if escaping his memories by ravaging my body. When he was finished, he left me lying on the desk, shattered like a vase fallen from a great height, trying to gather the fragments of my soul and my torn clothes. He stood before the large glass window, lighting his cigar with a terrifying coldness, the smoke rising around his head like a crown of ash.
"Martha will bring you new clothes," he said without bothering to turn toward me. "I do not want anyone to glimpse my marks on your skin... those traces are forbidden to human eyes; they are my private title deeds, readable only in the dark."
I began to feel a terrifying addiction to this type of existence. Despite the cruelty, and despite the dense mystery surrounding him like an enchanted forest, I began to find in his obsession a kind of "savage safety" that I had missed all my orphaned life. He treated me like a rare diamond he feared the breeze might damage, yet at the same time, he broke my will with every passing moment. I began to await the opportunities for him to approach me, even if wrapped in pain, because it was the only time I felt "alive," and that I was the center of this mighty man's universe.
Late that evening, as we were leaving the company, I saw from afar a luxurious black car carrying "Adrian/Alfred" leaving the hospital, heading toward his new mansion. I felt a prick in my heart, but it was not a prick of love; it was a prick of "disappointment." I looked at Alexander, who was watching my gaze through the car mirror.
"Why do you help him with such generosity?" I asked him in a broken voice. "Why return him to his family and shower him with millions when you harbor such hatred for him?"
He smiled a mysterious smile, dripping with cunning. "Because the strong, successful Adrian, immersed in his new wealth, is the greatest punishment for you, Ayla. I will make you watch him from behind the glass of your office as he moves among the most beautiful women of velvet society, and I will make you realize in every moment that he has completely forgotten your features, so that no harbor remains for you to anchor upon in this desolate world but me. I do not raise him up out of love for him; I raise him so that your fall into my arms is deeper and more final."
When we returned to the palace, a new medical team was waiting for me. I entered the medical lab in the basement, where the bright white lights stripped you of your humanity. Alexander sat me on the leather chair, and the doctors began injecting a new substance into my vein. I could feel the coldness of the liquid flowing, while Alexander held my hand, his eyes never leaving mine.
"This treatment will ensure your heart is unaffected by shocks," the doctor whispered.
But Alexander interrupted him roughly: "Rather, say it will make her heart beat only to my rhythm. I want her to feel dizzy if I am away from her, and I want her to feel perfection when I am beside her."
That night, as I lay in his grand bed, my body trembled from the effects of the new "addiction." Alexander was not content with owning my body and my labor; he was rewriting my biochemical makeup so I would become a part of him. I asked him once more as he extinguished his cigar: "Alexander... were you that boy who saved me from the stray dogs behind the orphanage? Were you the one who left me a piece of chocolate on the windowsill every night?"
He stopped moving. A silence heavy as mountains descended. Then he turned to me, and in a tone void of any emotion, he said: "The child you speak of died the night you decided to leave with Alfred. As for the man standing before you now, he has come to harvest the price of every minute he spent waiting for you."
He engulfed me with his body, and we drowned in the abyss of obsession once again. I realized then that I had not entered a palace, but had entered an "altar" prepared specifically for me, where "mercy" is the elegant mask for a sacred brutality, and where my freedom had been slaughtered as an offering upon the altar of a sick love—one that had begun to creep into my veins until I could no longer imagine living without him. I had become addicted to my jailer, and a lover of the chains that granted me life and stole it from me all at once.