Chapter 27 Nikolaj
Nikolaj
Arseniy’s absence feels colder than usual this time, and in that silence, the obsession creeps back in.
It starts the subtle way it always does, like a bad scent drifting in on a breeze I can’t block out.
I see him everywhere. I see shadows that remind me of the way he stands, the cut of his shoulders in his stupid tailored jackets, the infuriating elegance in his stride that always looks too controlled to be real.
I hear him in the way others speak—little inflections, sharp consonants, vowels that drag too long, like his voice is bleeding into the people around me.
I smell him on my own clothes, which is somehow worse.
It’s in the collar of my black jacket, the expensive cologne I used to mock him for.
I scrub it out twice, but it doesn’t matter. It’s in the lining now.
He’s in the lining of me, and I fucking loathe it.
…and I need it.
I don’t know which is worse.
The taste of his mouth still lingers some nights, especially when I’m tired and my defenses are down.
When all I want is sleep but my mind drags me back to that goddamn library, to the weight of his body against mine, to the way his hand fisted in my shirt like he wanted to tear me open and read whatever was inside.
I hate that I remember the shape of his lips better than I remember my own father’s voice.
I hate that I can’t forget the sound he made when I bit him, or the way he didn’t stop me.
I had to hack in and wipe the surveillance afterward, though, or my father would have put a bullet in my skull himself.
So that leaves me here.
I don’t usually drink. It’s not part of the discipline Arseniy drilled into me, and I hate being slowed down. But at night, when the obsession grows too loud to ignore and the walls feel too fucking narrow, I find a vodka bottle hidden in the bar supply drawer and I drink alone.
Slowly at first, then recklessly. Sitting on the floor of my room with my back against the dresser, the blade of my dagger resting on my thigh like an old friend I haven’t touched in weeks.
The alcohol hits hard, and I don’t bother fighting it.
I want it to hit hard. I want it to blur the sharp edges of Vincenzo’s fucking voice in my head, to make the memory of his mouth feel less like a wound and more like a hallucination.
But it doesn’t fade. It never does.
I pull the dagger into my palm and roll it between my fingers.
It’s familiar, the handle worn to my grip, the edge sharp from the maintenance I do even when I tell myself I’m not thinking about him.
My eyes fall to the drawer where I keep my ammunition.
There’s a round in there—just one. I don’t know why I kept it.
Maybe because it was the only one from a batch that I deemed imperfect.
Too heavy. Slightly off balance. It was meant to be melted down.
But I kept it.
And now it has a purpose.
I sit there in the dark with my legs sprawled out, drunk and breathing too loud, and I press the tip of the blade to the casing.
The metal is resistant at first, then it slowly gives.
It takes longer than I expected, but I don’t stop.
I carve each letter of his name with deliberate, angry precision.
Not sloppily. Not out of some romantic madness.
VINCENZO.
I hold the bullet up to the light when I finish. The name gleams back at me. I don’t load it. I don’t even touch my gun. I slide the round into the drawer and leave it there. Not to use and not to fire.
Because the reality—the unbearable, suffocating truth—is that I’ve already lost who I am.
He has his fingers around the inside of my ribs, and I let him in willingly.
I let him crawl into the space where my rage used to live, and now I’m not sure who the fuck I am when he’s not looking at me like I’m his mirror and his destruction all at once.
Hours pass, the bottle empties, and when the room stops spinning just long enough for me to move, I find myself walking someplace I know I shouldn’t be.
I end up outside the East Wing entrance to Vincenzo’s quarters.
I don’t knock. I don’t even move closer than five feet.
I just stand there, swaying slightly in the cold, breath visible in the early dawn air.
My jacket’s too thin for the temperature, but I don’t care.
The ache in my bones is nothing compared to the burn behind my ribs.
I stare at the door like it might open. Like he might know I’m out here. Like he might care. He doesn’t; I’m not even sure I want him to. Maybe I want him to hurt the way I do. Maybe I want him to be fine just so I can hate him for it.
The bottle’s long gone, but my fingers still feel too loose, my mouth still too dry. I walk toward his door, dig the dagger out from my sleeve holster, then drag the blade along the wood, slow and shallow. I don’t carve a threat; not tonight.
Just three words.
STOP HAUNTING ME
I press my hand against the mark for a second. Feel the groove. Let it sink in like a confession, then I turn and leave before the sun fully rises.
Over the next few days, I avoid everything. The simulation labs. The archives. Even the sparring circles. Maksim clocks it first. He tries to corner me in the cafeteria, nudging my tray with his like that’ll get me to talk.
“You look like hell,” he says, tone dry. “More than usual.”
“Fuck off.”
“Didn’t know ghosts could cuss.”
I glare at him. He grins, then leans in. “He saw it, by the way. The message.”
I don’t ask how he knows. I don’t want it to, but my pulse trips anyway.
“He didn’t say anything,” Maksim adds. “Just looked at it for a while. Touched it, then walked back inside.”
I don’t respond. The thread between us is fraying, becoming more volatile, less ignorable. I still see him—even more now. Not in the corners of my eyes, but head-on. In classrooms, across the courtyard, by the training fields. He doesn’t look away, he just watches… and I feel every inch of it.
The fall’s already started, but it’s not into love. It’s not into hate, either. It’s into madness. A spiral that doesn’t end with possession or victory, but with both of us bleeding in a place no one else can follow. And the worst part?
I don’t want to stop it.
I need to see how far we can go before one of us finally pulls the trigger.