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The moment I stepped into my apartment, I turned towards the small cabinet to the left of the door. I was quick to pull out my gun and flick the safety off. My eyes narrowed as I took a few careful steps into the living-room area.
Someone was in my apartment. My body grew tingly, and the smell of an unknown cologne hit my nose.
The air shifted as soon as I closed the door behind me. I was silent, almost unmoving. I couldn’t place where the twist in the pit of my stomach had come from, but the feeling had never let me down, so I wasn’t about to ignore it.
Vile thoughts and images flashed behind my eyes, and my bottom lip trembled as shivers ran down my spine. I tried to push the fear to the back of my mind, yet it seemed impossible to get rid of it completely.
It was dark inside. I found the first switch and turned it on.
No one was in sight. I searched through my home, looking for any sign of a break-in. Aside from me and my housekeeper, no one had access to it—no one else had a key. I searched through my home with a fine-tooth comb—twice, because once wasn’t sufficient. A small sigh of relief escaped me when I found no one.
The only place left to search was my room and guest rooms, which were located on the second floor, but I wasn’t bothered. I had my gun, and I’d had enough practice that I knew I could pull the trigger faster than any opponent.
And as I started up the stairs, I felt a strange sense of safety and fear overwhelm me. It was a bittersweet feeling, one I couldn’t explain. Was it possible to feel exhilarated by the possibility of an intruder being hidden in plain sight, in a place I called home?
It was dangerous to think like that, but danger brought me satisfaction. It was a darkness flowing through my veins; a delirium born of being so close to death. One I wanted to drown myself in, to become one with the sin.
A slow, wicked grin tugged on the corner of my lips as I found myself standing in my bedroom.
A set of pitch-black silk sheets were on my bed. The pillowcases matched them perfectly. It was Sunday, and my housekeeper had weekends off—and they weren’t the sheets I’d put on yesterday before I went out. My eyes moved to the left, and I saw a candle burning. It looked like it’d been lit not long ago.
It smelled like freshly cut grass in the spring. I inhaled the scent, wanting to smell nothing else for the rest of my life. It was terrifying, yet it was satisfying to know I’d been right.
Someone had been in my apartment while I was gone.
In the middle of the bed, a small object, the size of my fingernail, shone.
It was a dice. It looked like it was made of pure gold, and the number on top was two.
My heart began to race. With shaky hands, I took it in my hands. The cold object made me flinch. So small, it could be destroyed within a second, yet so pretty that I wanted to keep it forever. A souvenir.
I took some time inspecting it, but I couldn’t understand the meaning behind it. Whatever it was, I was eager to figure it out though. To see who was brave—or crazed—enough to play silly little games with me. No matter how long it took, I was going to find the person who’d done this, because there was nothing I loved more than games, and I had yet to lose one.
Didn’t they know that the Devil always won?
T H R E E
WHEN I first moved to New York, I’d lived with Aleksei. I was only eighteen and had just enrolled in the university that had been chosen for me. Quite frankly, I hadn’t cared which one it was, as long as it had a good background. But instead of choosing medicine, as my family had wanted, I’d opted for psychology.
From a young age, I’d been able to read people, knowing almost exactly what they thought or felt, but my classes would teach me how to do it better, quicker, and how not to make any mistakes. I never planned on using the degree to work in the field, as dealing with people who needed help was definitely not something I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.
It was tiring.
Since I graduated, I’d found myself easily bored. Nothing kept me occupied for long, not even the various new hobbies I found. I’d thought about getting a PhD, but that would require a lot of work, a lot of studying, and I didn’t have the patience—or the need for one.
So aside from reading a lot of psychological thrillers, I’d been struggling to find a good pastime. That was, until the incident at the club—and what happened afterwards. It had been a day since I’d found the dice on my bed, and a new set of sheets, and I’d been unable to think of anything else. It had slowly become an obsession, and I couldn’t help my fixation on the strange man I’d encountered.
My intuition was strong, and when Aleksei mentioned the name Davorin, something had clicked in my brain. It would’ve been too much of a coincidence to be anyone else. Something in my stomach twisted at the thought of him.
It was dark outside, a snowy night. The snowflakes filled my balcony and made a beautiful pattern on the glass door. I’d grown up in the mountains of Russia, so cold and snow weren’t foreign to me, yet no matter where I went, the winters weren’t quite as beautiful as they were at home. It made me nostalgic.
Those cold, winter nights had been the only thing that kept me alive. There was something special in the crisp air that made me feel safe. Perhaps it was why I loved seeing snow. It reminded me that no matter how cold it got, it would pass. Yet once it passed, every year, it was a reminder of how quickly my freedom was taken away from me.
A glass of whiskey with two ice cubes was in my hands. I sat on the floor, in front of the fireplace, my laptop on the small coffee table before me. The warmth of the fire provided me with a feeling of safety, for reasons unknown to me.
I had access to Aleksei’s database, where all the important information was kept. Of course, I was only given limited access, as he didn’t want me to know everything there was to know. It was annoying, but I couldn’t do anything about it, since I wasn’t in the family business.
It took me a while, but I was able to find a file on Davorin, whose name still amused me. It was a pretty name, though it wasn’t used as much today. I was surprised to know that he was Slavic, probably either Croatian or Russian.
