The business prospered. Not because I loved it, but because I was built for it. Money flowed. Order followed. My men were everywhere—Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv—loyal not out of affection, but out of respect sharpened by fear. They trusted my decisions because they knew I wouldn’t hesitate. I never did.
Small gangs still surfaced now and then. Idiots who thought chaos was opportunity. They never lasted long. The city swallowed them whole, and no one asked questions.
I existed. That’s the word. Not living—existing. Waking up. Working. Killing when necessary. Ruling because someone had to. Days blurred together, cold and mechanical, stripped of color or meaning.
I kept myself empty on purpose.
Because emptiness was safer than memory. And memory meant Kira.
If I let myself think of her—I felt something inside me buckle. And a man in my position cannot afford fractures. Cracks become weaknesses. Weakness gets you killed.
So I learned how not to feel.
For over a year, I didn’t touch another woman. I was so numb. Hollowed out. There was nothing left in me that wanted.
Eventually, even that emptiness began to decay.
So I started fucking.
Not for pleasure. Never that. I fucked because animals fuck. Because bodies are warm and sound drowns out thought. Because for a few minutes, I could forget that I was a grave walking upright. Faces blurred. Names never stayed. Theirhands clawed, their mouths begged, and I felt nothing but a dull, animal satisfaction that disgusted me the moment it was over.
Anyone decent would have been repulsed by me.
I was repulsed by myself.
And still—I kept going. Because stopping meant silence. And silence meant her.
I checked on Anton at first. Quietly. From afar. Private investigators. Blurred photos. Reports stripped of emotion. He was just over two and he was perfect. And that was the problem. Every part of him reminded me of the one person I could never let go of, no matter how much I tried to rot it out of me. Every time I saw him, something inside my chest twisted violently, like my ribs were trying to cave in.
Eventually, even that became unbearable.
So I stopped asking for pictures. I stopped reading the reports. But I never stopped paying. Never stopped making sure he had everything—safety, comfort, anonymity. He would never know my name. That was the point.
I was poison.
And poison doesn’t raise children.
Mila…
I watched her too. Less directly. Just enough to know she was alive. Functioning. Existing in a world that had no idea what it had almost done to her. I told myself it was protection. That I was keeping distance for her sake.
The truth was simpler.
I was afraid.
Afraid that if she looked at me too closely, she’d see exactly what I was.
Then everything broke.
The report came in like any other—routine, mundane, something that should have passed across my desk withoutconsequence. Mila Harrington. New position. New firm. I barely reacted at first.
Roen Architecture.
The name scraped against something old and buried, something I had tried to seal off years ago. I told myself it was coincidence, that paranoia was a habit I’d never quite shaken. I was wrong.
I dug.
And then I dug until my hands were covered in blood.
