Elena
He doesn’t release me when the silence stretches.
The heat of his hand seeps into my skin, and I realise with irony how no one has ever touched me with purpose.
And now they have and it’s fury that beats from him, not lust or desire.
The air between us vibrates with something I don’t understand, but I don’t fight.
I don’t even ask him again about what he wants.
He turns, guiding me back into the hotel with a grip that brooks no argument.
People still drift through the corridors, masked and laughing, but they don’t look at us.
I could scream, twist away, make a scene, but the thought never solidifies.
Instead I walk where he leads, the sound of our steps echoing in time, like a slow procession to a place I’ve already been.
I’m not afraid. I left fear behind the night Lev died. Whatever happens now feels like a continuation of that loss, the world finally catching up to what has already broken inside me.
The elevator doors close, sealing us into mirrored quiet. He stands close enough that I can see the reflection of his eyes, blue, storm-dark and unreadable. The longer I look, the more something stirs in the back of my mind, an old familiarity I can’t name.
When the elevator stops, he takes me down a hallway lined with gilt doors. At the end, he opens one with a keycard and draws me inside. The suite is all plush carpet and glass, impersonal, expensive. The city glitters beyond the windows like a sea of false stars.
He finally lets go of my wrist. I rub the place where his fingers had been, the skin pink from the pressure.
“You don’t recognise me,” he says. His voice has softened, but it carries the same gravity as before.
I shake my head. “Should I?”
He studies me for a long moment, then steps into the light. “I share his eyes.”
The words fall heavy and sure. My breath catches. Dark blue eyes. The memory slams into me all at once, Lev’s laughter, the way he’d gesture when he spoke about his family, the older brother who never smiled for photographs.
The man in front of me is Lev’s brother.
My knees nearly give way. “Artem,” I whisper.
He doesn’t confirm it, but he doesn’t deny it either. The truth hangs between us like a storm about to break.
I should be terrified. I should beg or run. Instead, a strange calm settles over me. Perhaps this is what I’ve been waiting for. The reckoning. The part of me that has carried guilt for six months finally exhales.
“I thought you’d come sooner,” I say quietly.
His eyes narrow, confusion flickering through the fury. “You knew I would?”
“People always return to what haunts them.”
He takes a step closer, and the distance between us collapses. I can feel the warmth of him, the danger, the grief. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be seen just before dying.
Somewhere deep inside, an ironic thought surfaces: that I will leave this world the same way I’ve lived in it, without ever knowing what it means to be loved.
Lev was the only person who ever saw me, and even he kept his distance out of decency.
My father kept me locked behind respectability and promises I never made.
Maybe this is easier. To end it here, with someone who once belonged to him.
The silence between us hums until it feels like the room itself is holding its breath.
“Tell me,” he says finally. “Were you there that night?”
It’s an accusation wrapped in disbelief.
I nod once. The movement feels slow and clunky. “Yes.”
“Then you watched my brother die.” His words land like stones.
My throat tightens. “I watched him fall.”
The admission tastes like salt. I can still see it, the blur of motion, the shock of the impact, the terrible stillness that followed. For months I’ve tried to fold the memory away, but it opens easily now, as if it has been waiting for him.
Artem’s jaw hardens. “You let your family say it was self-defence.”
“I let them say whatever they needed to survive.”
He takes a step closer. “Survive?”
I meet his eyes. “You know the world we live in. We’re all monsters to some degree. This way it looked like business gone wrong.” I sigh and shake my head.
He hesitates. It’s the smallest pause, but it’s there. The mask of vengeance flickers, and I see the man behind it. He is exhausted, hollowed out by loss.
“I didn’t know you were there,” he says, quieter now. “You were never mentioned.”
“If it was business, I wouldn’t have been.
” The silence stretches again, so I fill it.
“I was supposed to be asleep. Lev asked me to come outside with him for air, he was saying something about an argument—” I shake my head, wishing I could remember more details about our last conversation.
“We were talking, nothing more, but Lev was so riled up. My brother found us. He thought—” I stop, breath catching. “He thought Lev was hurting me.”
Artem’s eyes close briefly. When he opens them, they’re darker. “So he killed him.”
I nod again. “He didn’t mean to. It happened so fast. One moment they were shouting, then they started throwing punches.
The next Lev was falling backwards…” I press my hands together to keep them from shaking.
“I didn’t see at first. Then I tried to stop the bleeding.
I thought if I could just hold on to him, if I could just keep him awake—”
He looks at me then, really looks, and for the first time I see uncertainty in him.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because I didn’t want my brother to carry it too. He thought he was protecting me. I couldn’t take that from him.”
Artem exhales, a sound between anger and something else. “So you carried it yourself.”
I manage a small, humourless smile. “Someone had to.”
The silence stretches again, but it isn’t empty this time. It’s full of everything we can’t undo.
He moves to the window, staring out at the city lights. “You make it sound like you expect me to understand.”
“I don’t,” I say softly. “Even if you did, it doesn’t change what happened.”
His reflection shifts in the glass, a tall, motionless shadow. “I came here to kill you.”
“I know.”
“You’re not afraid.”
“I was, once.” I let the words settle. “Now I’m just tired.”
He turns back to me. Something in his expression has changed. It’s still sharp, still dangerous, but touched with confusion. I can almost feel the battle inside him: the need to punish, the need to finally stop hurting.
For a long moment we stand there in silence, two people bound by the same ghost.