Chapter 11 #4
“I will destroy the man who sent me here.”
Slow.
Merciless.
Without pity.
I had sworn on the life growing inside me.
Sworn that revenge would be my oxygen.
That justice would be my only purpose.
And now —
That man knelt before me.
Throat exposed.
Eyes steady.
Blue gaze unafraid of death.
The weight of the dagger pressed into my palm felt like destiny and betrayal colliding.
Ruslan didn’t move.
He didn’t beg. He didn’t flinch.
He simply waited.
Waiting for my decision. Waiting for judgment.
Waiting for me to either become the executioner I once promised myself I would be —
Or the woman who would choose something else.
I lifted the dagger.
Slowly.
My hand trembled as I pressed the razor edge against the soft skin just beneath his Adam’s apple.
The blade sank in just enough to draw blood.
A bright bead formed — thick, warm — and rolled down his throat like a silent accusation.
“You’re tempting me, Ruslan,” I whispered.
My voice shook.
But I didn’t remove the pressure.
He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t try to stop me.
“I don’t want to die cheaply,” he said quietly.
His throat moved carefully against the blade.
“If you take my life — let it mean something.”
His eyes locked onto mine.
“Look at me.”
His voice softened.
“Before the blade bites deeper... look at me and tell me you forgive me.”
My breath hitched.
“Even if it’s only a fragment.”
“Even if it’s just a sliver of mercy.”
“That’s all I ask before the dark.”
His words were raw.
Broken.
Like a man reciting his own funeral prayer.
I pressed the dagger harder.
The skin parted slightly.
Blood slid warm over the metal and onto my knuckles.
More memories followed — darker, sharper, more violent than the last — crashing over me in relentless waves.
Tears burned down my face.
I tried to hold them back.
Failed.
A violent sob tore out of my chest.
Then another.
The sound shattered something inside me.
My grip loosened.
The dagger slipped from my fingers and crashed onto the marble floor with a sharp metallic echo.
I turned away quickly.
Fists clenched.
Nails digging deep into my palms until skin broke.
“I can’t,” I whispered hoarsely.
Ruslan’s voice followed me.
“Nothing I do,” he said quietly, “can ever balance what I stole from you.”
“I know that.”
His words were steady.
“I see it every time you look at me.”
I spun back around.
My vision blurred through tears.
“If forgiveness matters so much to you,” I shot back, voice cracking, “why don’t you finish it yourself?”
My gaze dropped to the dagger on the floor.
“Pick it up.”
“Use it.”
“Prove you’re sorry.”
Without hesitation — without even a second of doubt — he bent down.
He grabbed the blade.
Then he pressed it to the skin beside his face.
Not theatrically.
But decisively.
The tip rested near his temple.
“Say the word,” he said.
His jaw tightened.
“One word.”
“And I end it.”
“Right here.”
“Right now.”
My heart pounded violently.
He meant it.
He would do it.
I stared at him — at the man who once commanded armies and controlled entire criminal networks — now kneeling before me, offering his pulse as payment.
Then my gaze drifted.
To the Moses basket.
Our daughter slept peacefully.
Tiny chest rising.
Fists curled.
Oblivious to the storm raging around her.
What would I tell her one day?
That her father died because I ordered it?
That I forced him to carve his own punishment in front of me?
That I made her grow up without a father out of vengeance?
My throat closed.
The anger inside me collided with something else.
Responsibility.
Mercy.
Fear.
My voice came out small.
Shattered.
“An eye,” I whispered.
His brow furrowed.
“What?”
“Take one.”
I swallowed.
“So every time I look at you...”
My hand trembled as I pointed at his face.
“I see the piece you lost.”
“A part of you gone forever.”
“Just like a part of me is gone.”
“Just like our baby never breathed because of what you did.”
The words broke me all over again.
Silence swallowed the room.
Then —
He moved.
Fast.
Not hesitant.
Not theatrical.
The dagger flashed.
But instead of aiming for a dramatic mutilation —
He turned it toward the side of his face — and drove the blade hard into the flesh just below his right eye.
Not a precise surgical strike.
Not a calculated removal.
But a violent self-inflicted wound.
The sound of steel cutting through skin and muscle ripped through the air.
He grunted — a guttural, animal sound.
His body jerked.
Blood erupted immediately, pouring down his cheek in thick streams.
He pulled the blade free.
Then — without hesitation — he drove it again.
Deeper.
Not aiming to preserve.
Not aiming to survive unscarred.
But to destroy what I asked for.
Pain exploded across his face.
He collapsed briefly before forcing himself upright again.
His hand gripped the dagger so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Then —
He raised the blade once more.
And with a brutal twist of his wrist —
He carved through the remaining tissue around the eye socket.
The scream that ripped out of him wasn’t controlled.
It was pure agony.
His right eye — destroyed — now hung in a ruined socket, partially severed but not fully detached.
Blood ran freely down his jaw and neck.
He reached up with trembling fingers —
And yanked.
The damaged eye tore loose with a sickening sound.
It dropped to the marble floor between us.
I screamed.
High.
Raw.
Primal.
My knees nearly gave out.
“No!”
The word tore from my throat as I rushed forward instinctively — catching him before he collapsed fully.
He was shaking violently.
Breathing through clenched teeth.
Blood soaked his face and shirt.
His remaining eye — wild, unfocused from shock — locked onto mine.
“Is that enough?” he rasped.
His voice was strained.
“Is the price... paid?”
His body swayed.
But even half-blinded and bleeding —
He didn’t let go of the dagger.
Blood was everywhere.
It pulsed from the ruined socket in heavy, rhythmic bursts — spilling down his cheek, soaking into his shirt, dripping onto the marble floor in thick crimson splashes.
The stain spread fast.
Too fast.
Ruslan remained on his knees.
His body swayed slightly.
His remaining eye was half-lidded from shock and pain, veins visible in the whites, breathing coming in shallow, strained gasps.
My chest seized.
The reality of what he had just done crashed into me violently — stripping away whatever control I thought I had over the situation.
Panic detonated inside me.
“Petros!”
My scream tore through the room.
“Petros!”
My legs moved before my mind could catch up.
I stumbled backward — almost tripping over the edge of the bed — then turned and bolted out of the bedroom.
Bare feet slapped against cold marble as I ran through the corridor.
“Petros!”
My voice echoed off the high ceilings.
It sounded broken.
Hysterical.
A door opened somewhere down the hallway.
Petros emerged almost instantly from the service wing — his posture always alert, always ready.
The second he saw my face, his expression shifted.
Alarm.
“Elena — what happened?”
I couldn’t form coherent words.
“Ruslan— he—”
My throat tightened.
“He took out his own eye.”
Petros froze for half a second.
His brows snapped together.
“What?”
“His eye—” I gestured wildly behind me.
“Blood — everywhere — he just— he just cut it out!”
The words sounded insane even as they left my mouth.
But they were true.
Petros didn’t question me further.
He moved.
Immediately.
He ran past me toward the bedroom, boots pounding against the floor as he disappeared through the double doors.
I stood frozen for a moment.
Then my body gave out.
I slid down the wall slowly until I was sitting on the cold marble floor.
My back pressed against the wall for support.
My breathing came in sharp, uneven bursts.
I looked down at my hands.
They were coated in his blood.
Warm.
Sticky.
Dark red staining my skin and running between my fingers.
His blood.
On me.
I stared at it like it didn’t belong to reality.
Like it was evidence of something irreversible.
My blouse was splattered — soaked near the collar and chest where blood had sprayed when he tore the eye free.
The metallic scent filled my nose.
Thick.
Sickening.
It clung to the air.
It clung to me.
Inside the bedroom, I heard Petros shouting commands in rapid Greek.
“Pressure! Get pressure on it!”
“Bring gauze — now!”
“Call the doctor!”
Metal clattered.
Drawers slammed open.
The sound of fabric being ripped.
Then —
Ruslan’s breathing.
Hoarse.
Pain-strangled.
A low sound escaped him — something between a growl and a suppressed scream.
It wasn’t theatrical.
It was raw survival.
My throat tightened again.
I pressed my forehead to my knees and let the tears come.
They weren’t rage now.
Not entirely.
The anger that had fueled me for years felt hollow after witnessing what he had done.
He had taken my demand and turned it into punishment.
Into sacrifice.
Into something irreversible.
Why?
Why would anyone do that?
My mind replayed the moment over and over.
He could have resisted.
He could have argued.
He could have told me no.
Instead —
He chose pain.
He chose permanent damage.
To prove something.
To me.
Or maybe to himself.
The guilt hit harder than the anger ever had.
Unwanted.
Unfair.
I didn’t ask him to mutilate himself.
I asked for a symbolic price.
Not this.
Not something that would permanently change his face.
Not something that would haunt our daughter when she grew older and noticed the scar where an eye once was.
The thought made my chest ache.
Inside the room, Petros’s voice lowered — calmer now.
“Hold him steady.”
“Don’t let him move.”
Then softer:
“Ruslan... stay with me.”
Silence followed for a few seconds.
Then Ruslan spoke.
His voice was broken.
Hoarse from pain.
“...Is it enough?”
The words were strained.
Barely audible.
“Is it enough?” he repeated.
“Did I pay?”
Petros didn’t answer immediately.
Medical urgency replaced emotion.
“Pressure is holding,” Petros said instead.
“Bleeding is slowing. We need to get him to the hospital — now.”
I stayed sitting in the corridor.
Listening.
Frozen.
My hands trembled uncontrollably as I stared at the blood staining my skin.
Part of me wanted to run back inside.
To scream at him for being reckless.
To demand he stop trying to atone through self-destruction.
Another part of me — the darker part — understood.
He had chosen punishment because he believed suffering might be the only language I would accept from him.
And maybe —
He was right.
The bedroom door opened suddenly.
Petros stepped out first.
His face was tight with focus — blood smeared on his gloves and cuffs.
Behind him, two security men carefully carried Ruslan out on a stretcher.
He was pale.
Sweating.
His head tilted slightly to one side.
His right eye socket was wrapped tightly in thick gauze, already turning dark as it absorbed blood.
His remaining eye flickered — searching.
Looking for me.
When his gaze locked onto mine —
It softened.
Even through the pain.
Even through the shock.
He whispered weakly:
“Is it... enough?”
My throat closed.
The stretcher moved past me.
His blood still marked the floor.
Marking the space where forgiveness and revenge had collided violently.
I turned my head and watched them carry him away.
My body felt numb.
My emotions were shattered into fragments I couldn’t identify anymore.
I pressed my palm against my stomach instinctively.
Then whispered to myself —
“What have we become?”
The hallway remained silent long after they disappeared.
But the consequences of what had just happened —
Echoed loudly.