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No. It’s impossible-

It was. Her.

I could have stood blind in a crowded room and still found her. I knew her scent the way one knows a forgotten song.

She was carved into me like a beautiful scar, untouched by the very concept of healing.

It. Was. Her.

My solnyshko was here.

My eyes widened, my hands trembling and without thinking, I reached forward to touch her. Just one fucking touch.

My heart wasn’t beating or maybe the pounding in my head dulled every sound, because the world ceased to exist the moment she was in front of me.

I wrenched Roman’s hand away from her forehead and stepped closer.

Her gaze shifted, her beautiful, beautiful eyes landed on me and the world stopped.

Her eyes.

A green so rare it felt stolen from nature itself.

The same unseeing eyes. I couldn’t see anything behind them apart from darkness that consumed everything in her and light gold eyelashes sitting atop them.

Fuck, she was beautiful, breathtakingly so.

Just as pretty when I first saw her, the girlish features turning into sharper elegance with time. She stole the air from my lungs just as effortlessly as she had years ago.

I gulped as she tried to study me.

Is she real? God, tell me this isn’t some twisted joke.

I was already half a dead man. If this moment wasn’t real, there’d be nothing left of me to kill.

She took a cautious step back just as I was about to touch her cheek, her brows knitting together in confusion.

“Sergei?” Roman’s voice reached me like a distant echo.

I blinked. And again. A smile tugged at my lips, growing wider with every blink she refused to vanish.

“Sergei.” His voice was louder this time causing her to take another step back. Another inch farther from me. Another inch slipping through my fingers.

I wanted to ask her—Doesn’t my name ring a bell? Why was she pretending we’d never met?

“You.” The desperation in my voice was barely restrained.

She halted mid-step, golden hair cascading over her shoulders, veiling half her frame.

Her head tipped to the right, hollow eyes fixing on mine, then she tilted it to the left, squinting her eyes. Hope bloomed in my chest, only for her to roll her eyes.

She turned around, dismissing me, as if she didn’t fucking even notice me.

Me?

She doesn’t even fucking remember me and here I am, ready to kill for her.

Chasing this piece of shit. Because he touched her.