I wake from a heavy, fevered sleep, the kind where I can't quite tell where the dream begins and the memory ends. For a moment, I don't know where I am. The ceiling is too high, the light too warm, the sheet too soft. My heart pounds erratically, as if I've been running.
In the dream, it was him.
His eyes so close I could feel his breath against my lips. His hands on my waist, sliding slowly, confidently, as though he knew exactly where to touch me to make me forget everything. I could hear his voice in my ear—low, warm, almost husky.
"Little love…"
He whispered it the way he used to when I was beneath him, when he looked at me as if I were the only real thing in his world. He would stroke my cheeks, brush my hair away from my face, and there was nothing violent in the way he touched me—only desire, and something deeper, something that made me feel chosen.
"Duca…" I murmur in my sleep.
Then I jolt upright in bed.
"Duca!"
My voice breaks as it leaves me, desperate, and the room remains silent. Too silent.
Reality crashes over me, cold and merciless. He isn't here. No one held me. No one whispered anything. It was only a dream. A beautiful lie my mind built so I could survive.
I feel my throat tighten.
I start to cry, unable to stop myself. I cry for the illusion I lived inside his arms. For the way I let myself believe that, if only for a moment, I had been more than just a piece in a dirty game. I know it was an illusion. I know his world is not meant for me. And yet I miss him. The way he looked at me. The way his broad, protective palm rested against my back. The way he made me feel desired, not merely used.
I wipe my tears with the back of my hand, and only then do I notice.
On the armchair in the corner, there are clean clothes. A soft sweater, a pair of trousers, underwear. On the small table beside the bed, there's a tray with warm food, covered. A glass of water. Everything arranged with care.
Clarisse.
I swallow hard. The fact that someone took care of me hurts in a new way.
I rise slowly and step into the bathroom. The water runs hot over my skin, and for a moment I close my eyes and let the stream fall over my shoulders, my chest, my thighs. I still feel fragile, exhausted down to the bone, but the water brings me a little closer to myself again, back into my body.
And, without meaning to, I think of him again.
Of his hands. Of his eyes when they looked at me intensely, as if I were a secret he wanted to unravel. My fingers slide over my own body, shy at first, then more firmly, imagining they are his. That he is the one touching me. That he's whispering "little love" again in that voice that made my knees melt.
A sigh escapes me, long and trembling.
I know it's wrong, and I know it's dangerous to let these thoughts pull me back to him, but the truth is I can't stop—because desire has its own way of slipping beneath your skin and whispering that it's worth one more moment, one more fantasy, one more imagined touch.
When I open my eyes and look into the mirror, reality hits me all at once: it's me, alone, in a castle where any door can be locked over me without warning, where my life doesn't truly belong to me—no matter how clean the bed is or how warm the water runs. The fantasy bursts slowly, like a balloon pressed too hard, and I remain facing my own reflection, my breathing still uneven, until I draw a deep breath into my lungs and turn off the water, forcing myself back to solid ground.
I dress in the clean clothes, feeling the soft fabric against my still-sensitive skin, and for the first time since I arrived here, I have the sense that I can hold my back straight without wavering—that I can step out of the role of victim, if only for a few minutes.
I have to understand what's happening in this house, or I'll lose my mind.
I approach the door with my heart clenched, almost bracing myself to hear the key turning from the outside, and press the handle in a gesture that feels far braver than it truly is.
The door opens easily, without a sound.
I remain frozen for several long seconds, trying to process what this means, because I wasn't prepared for freedom—not even a freedom that stretches only a few meters down a hallway.
At last, I step out. My movements are hesitant at first, as if I'm testing the floor to see whether it's real, then gradually more certain. The silence in the house is so oppressive I can hear my own pulse in my ears—until, somewhere farther ahead, raised voices erupt. Sharp. Furious. This isn't an ordinary argument. It's pure chaos.
I follow the noise without thinking, my heart pounding in my chest, a knot tightening in my stomach, until I reach the threshold of a vast salon flooded with harsh light.
And I freeze.
Everything is organized chaos revolving around blood—around wounded bodies and orders shouted over the noise.
I see Duca first.
He's shirtless, seated in a chair, and a man in a white uniform is trying to stitch a deep wound in his shoulder. Blood still runs down his chest, his arm, dripping onto the floor. He's been stabbed. Badly. Very badly.
My breath catches.
He isn't the only one hurt. Artem is leaning against a wall, a cut across his forehead, dried blood streaking down his neck. Nikolai is pressing down on the abdomen of a man who's gasping for air, and the floor is stained in several places. Somewhere near the wall, two men lie motionless.
Dead.
Mikhail Volkov is giving orders in a loud voice—calm, cold—while everything around him seems to be coming apart.
Yelena stands beside Duca, almost pressed against him, her eyes red and wet, holding his hand as if simply not letting go might stop the blood from pouring from that ugly wound in his shoulder. For a fraction of a second, she looks so involved, so desperate, that the image hits me straight in the chest.
She's the first to see me and react before anyone else.
"Who let her out?!" she screams, her sharp voice slicing through the air in the room, making every head turn toward me almost at once.
In the middle of the chaos, Duca lifts his gaze slowly, as if every movement costs him pain, and the moment his eyes settle on me, everything else fades away.
For a few seconds, there is no blood on the floor, no wounded men, no bodies lying still by the wall—only him and the way he looks at me, as if he needs to convince himself I'm not just another hallucination.
I see the pain in his eyes—physical, unmistakable—tightening his jaw and weighing down his breathing. But beyond it, there's something far stronger: a raw, unfiltered longing, a desire that hits me straight in the stomach and knocks my balance off more violently than any fear.
The intensity in his gaze is so overwhelming that my knees almost give out, and I hold myself upright out of sheer pride.
My body reacts before I can think—to his bare chest, to the blood covering his skin, to the way, even wounded and weakened, he radiates the same force that drew me to him from the beginning, the same dangerous energy that makes me feel alive and exposed at the same time.
Part of me wants to run to him, to touch his shoulder, to make sure he's breathing, that the wound isn't fatal, that he's still here. The other part whispers furiously that this is madness—that this man kept me prisoner, that because of him I'm trapped in this house, that in theory I should hate him, not fear for his life.
But my body doesn't care about theories.
"Alla…" he murmurs, almost voiceless, yet clear enough that I feel my name vibrating inside my chest.
The way he says it—with that mix of relief, longing, and something dangerously close to need—makes my heart tighten until it aches.
Mikhail intervenes immediately, his cold voice shattering the moment between us.
"Clarisse. Take her out of here. Now."
Clarisse appears beside me without hesitation and places her warm hand on my arm—firm, but not brutal.
"Come," she says softly, gently pulling me back.
I don't protest. I'm too shocked to form a coherent reaction. And as Clarisse guides me back into the hallway, I look over my shoulder, clinging to the image of him as if it were the last solid thing in that blood-soaked room.
He's still watching me.
He doesn't blink. He doesn't look away. As if he needs to be certain I'm real—that I'm not just another hallucination born of pain and loss.
The door to my room closes slowly behind me, and that dull sound feels as if it snaps the invisible thread between us.
I collapse onto the bed, curling in on myself with my knees pulled to my chest, and only then does everything I held inside while standing in the doorway of the salon—trying to seem stronger than I am—crash down on me.
Why was I afraid for him?
Why did the sight of him, covered in blood, his jaw clenched in pain, almost bring me to my knees when it should have left me cold?
Shouldn't I be relieved if he dies? Wouldn't it be easier for me if he disappeared from my life—if everything tying me to his world were severed suddenly and for good?
And yet the thought that he might die steals my breath so violently it feels as though the air itself is tightening around me.
I bolt upright, nearly stumbling over the rug, and rush to the bathroom with the overwhelming sense that if I don't move, I'll suffocate.
I barely make it to the sink before I vomit everything I had eaten earlier—everything I forced myself to swallow with so much effort. My body rejects it mercilessly, as if trying to expel not just the food, but the fear, the longing, the confusion that have gathered in my stomach.
I grip the edge of the sink, trembling in every joint, eyes shut, breathing ragged.
I don't want to lose him.
And that truth—one I haven't even dared to admit in my own thoughts until now—terrifies me more than any wound I could have seen on his body.
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