Chapter Twenty - Markian
Three and a half years. That’s how long she’s been gone.
Sometimes, it feels like yesterday: her scent lingering on the pillow, the soft click of her footsteps in the hall.
Other times, it’s as if she never existed at all, just a fever dream stitched together from longing and rage. But the city remembers.
The Bratva remembers. Every ruined safehouse, every broken informant is a scar on this empire, all because of the girl I let slip through my fingers.
Tonight, the mansion is quiet. Too quiet. I stand by the window, drink in hand, staring at the city lights beyond the gates. Behind me, the echoes of the past haunt the halls.
My men still answer my call, still bow their heads and follow orders, but I know they talk. Alexei calls it obsession. Lui calls it madness. I call it unfinished business.
There’s a soft knock at the door. I turn, half expecting the ghost I can never catch. Instead, it’s Alexei, impeccable as ever, jaw set, suit pressed. He lets himself in, closing the door behind him with a sigh.
“You’re missing dinner,” he says. “People are starting to ask questions. Honestly, some have been asking for a while.”
I laugh, bitter. “Not my problem.”
Alexei pours himself a drink, moves to stand by my side. “You could at least try. Make it easier for both of us.”
“Would you?” I shoot back. “If you’d lost—” I stop, clenching my jaw.
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t burn half the city down for someone who ran from me.”
“You’re not me,” I say quietly.
He studies me, eyes sharp. “No. I’m not, but you can’t keep doing this, Markian. She’s gone. You’ve turned every friend into an enemy, every asset into a liability. How many more bridges will you burn before you accept it?”
I drain my glass. “I’ll stop when I find her.”
A muscle jumps in Alexei’s jaw. “And if you don’t?”
I say nothing, just watch the rain streak down the window. He gives up, leaves me to my ghosts.
Later, I walk the halls alone. I hear voices from the dining room.
The woman I’m seeing, Elena, laughing quietly as she serves dinner to my guests, the clatter of silverware, polite conversation about politics and money and nothing that matters.
I don’t care about her. I never will. She’s just a name on a contract, a pawn in someone else’s game.
I drift toward the old guest wing, the one that used to be hers.
I open the door, breathing in dust and memory.
The sheets are fresh, but the room is empty, cold.
I touch the dresser, the faded photograph still tucked in the frame.
For a moment, I almost see her curled on the bed, reading, glancing up at me with those wary eyes.
I wonder if she hated me more than she feared me, in the end. I wonder if she ever loved me at all.
***
Alexei finds me there one night days later, standing in the dark.
“Boss.” He doesn’t ask what I’m doing. He’s seen it before. “There’s nothing left here. She’s not coming back.”
“You don’t know that,” I snap.
He sighs. “No, but I know you. You’re tearing yourself apart for a ghost.”
I glare at him. “Get out.”
He leaves without another word.
Nights are the worst. The mansion feels hollow, every footstep echoing down empty corridors.
I spend hours awake, wandering, searching for something I can’t name.
Sometimes I sit in her room, running my fingers over the cold sheets, and wonder what I’d say if she walked through the door.
Would I beg? Would I rage? Would I hold her or break her all over again?
Other times, I dream of her. In those dreams, she’s always pregnant—round and soft and broken, tears running down her cheeks as she begs me for mercy.
Sometimes she’s running, clutching a child to her chest, and I chase her through rain-slick streets.
Sometimes I catch her. Sometimes I don’t.
Every time, I wake up burning, empty, desperate.
One night, I see her—really see her—in the crowd at a gala. My heart stops. I push through the sea of bodies, ignoring Elena’s protests as she clings to my arm. But it’s just a stranger. Another ghost.
I curse, nearly break my hand against the wall in the alley behind the venue, and return to the party with blood on my knuckles and hatred in my veins.
Alexei corners me after. “You need to stop, Markian. For all our sakes. She’s not yours anymore.”
I smile, slow and cold. “She’s mine. She always will be. You just don’t understand.”
His expression hardens. “No, and neither does the rest of the Bratva. You’re making enemies of everyone because of her.”
I shrug, lighting a cigarette. “Let them come.”
In my most twisted moments, I see her with my child—my heir—living some half-life far from here.
I imagine her reading stories at night, tucking a little boy or girl into bed, whispering my name like a warning.
The thought should break me, but it doesn’t.
It fuels me. It keeps me searching, even as the city crumbles beneath my hands.
Tonight, I return to her room again. The bed is cold, the air thick with memories. I sit on the edge, head in my hands, and let the ache swallow me whole.
I don’t care about anyone. I don’t care about the Bratva, or the empire I’ve ruined chasing after something I can never have.
All I want is her, and if it takes burning down the rest of the world, I’ll do it.
Somewhere, out there in the dark, I know she’s thinking of me too. She has to be. She always will.
***
It is long past midnight when Lui steps into my office without knocking. Most nights, I barely notice when people come and go. These days, the manor is just a backdrop of empty rooms, hollow corridors, and memories clinging to every stone.
Tonight, the air shifts when Lui appears. He does not bother with pleasantries or caution. He walks straight to my desk, drops a worn folder in front of me, and settles into the chair across from mine.
“Got something,” he says. His voice is gruff, but there is an undercurrent of excitement—something hungry, electric. “Might be nothing. Might be everything.”
I blink, slow and heavy, dragging my gaze up from the glass of vodka in my hand.
My eyes are bloodshot from too many sleepless nights, too much drink.
I force them to focus, pushing away the numbness that has dulled me for years.
There is something in Lui’s face, an edge I have not seen in a long time.
I set the glass aside and reach for the folder, my hand steady even though my pulse leaps. The cheap manila creaks as I flip it open. There is a photo clipped to the first page—blurry, grainy, caught at a distance, but I would know that silhouette anywhere.
A woman, slim and blonde, stands on a sun-washed street, a stroller at her side. She is wearing sunglasses, her hair caught by the wind, her chin tilted down as she fusses with a child’s hat. I stare at the image until it burns into my mind.
For a moment, everything is silent. My world narrows to the thin slip of paper in my hands. I take in the small, careful details like her posture, the way her hand curves protectively over the stroller, the slight arch of her back. I know her body as well as I know my own.
My hand tightens on the edge of the desk. The wood creaks beneath my grip. “Where?” I ask, voice low, every syllable laced with warning and hope.
Lui’s grin is all teeth, sharp and wild.
He leans back, stretching out like a man who has waited a long time to be right.
“Somewhere warm,” he says. “Little coastal place. Fishermen, tourists, old folks. Nobody with a past. Took a while to get the lead, but our man down south swears that’s her. Got the kid too.”
He taps the photo, just above the stroller.
“Saw her at the market. Pays in cash. Keeps her head down. Never uses the same shop two days in a row. Woman’s a ghost. She let someone take this.
Probably a neighbor, just being friendly.
That’s how it ended up on a Facebook page for new mums. Our guy’s girlfriend spotted it. Lucky break.”
A shock of adrenaline punches through me.
I thumb through the rest of the folder. There are a few more photos, just as blurred—her leading a toddler down a sandy lane, the back of her head as she chats with an old woman on a bench.
In one, a small child’s face is barely visible.
They have round cheeks, pale hair, a look that is half mine and half hers.
I sit back, letting the weight of it all settle into my bones.
For three and a half years, I have burned this city to the ground for a ghost. Every lead was dead, every whisper a lie, every safehouse I raided full of nothing but shadows.
I have ruined alliances, toppled rivals, paid snitches and broken informants until their memories ran dry.
The Bratva calls me a madman behind my back. Elena, my fiancée, barely tries to hide her contempt. Only Lui has stayed by my side. Watching, waiting, following my madness to the bitter end.
He is watching me now, waiting for the old fire to return. “What’s the play, Boss?” he asks. His voice is careful, but there is something eager beneath it.
For a moment, I see the old days—the two of us at the start, hungry for power, chasing dreams that tasted like blood and smoke.
I let the folder fall closed, flattening my palms against the desk. I meet Lui’s gaze and let him see what this means to me. “We go,” I say. “We watch. We make sure. If it’s her, we move fast. No mistakes.”
Lui nods, already planning. “I’ll get the plane. Keep it quiet. Just you and me, maybe one other. We don’t want word getting back to her before we’re ready.”
I nod, eyes never leaving the folder. I picture her on a beach, wind in her hair, a child at her side. I wonder if she ever thought I would give up. I wonder if she ever dreamed I would find her.
The hunt has been long. The losses have been many. As I sit in the quiet office, the world outside dark and restless, I know one thing for certain—this time, I am not letting her go. Not ever again.
Lui stands, stretches his back, and gives a last nod. “I’ll call you when we’re ready to leave.”
As the door clicks shut behind him, I reach for the photo once more.
My hand shakes, just a little, as I trace the outline of her figure, the tiny form in the stroller.
My child. My legacy. I will cross continents, oceans, empires for them.
I will tear the world apart and put it back together if that is what it takes.
For the first time in years, I feel alive. The emptiness lifts, replaced by purpose sharp enough to cut. I will have her. I will have my child. And nothing, not the law, not fate, not even her stubborn fear, will keep us apart.
I sit alone for a long while, eyes fixed on the photo, planning every step, every shadow. Somewhere warm, he said. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere she thought I would never find her.
She was wrong. The hunt has begun again. This time, it ends with me.