Chapter Twenty-One
Osip
“I’m not having this conversation again,” I say, my voice cutting through the silence of my bedroom. “Marriage is not in my plans.”
“But why, baby?” Anett purrs, her manicured fingers tracing patterns across my chest that feel more calculated than affectionate. “I love you and I can give you everything a woman can give you.”
Blyad.
Here we go again.
Anett Kovács— my Hungarian… what? “Girlfriend” feels too generous.
Convenient fuck sounds more accurate, though she’d probably claw my eyes out if I said it aloud.
We met in some overpriced bar in Pest six months ago, all platinum hair and designer heels, the kind of woman who knows exactly what effect she has on men and wields it like a weapon.
What was supposed to be a one-night stand to help me forget turned into several nights, then regular fucking, then this— whatever the fuck this is.
She keeps showing up, keeps worming her way deeper into my life like a parasite I can’t quite shake.
And I haven’t been fed up enough to dump her, which says more about my current state of mind than I care to analyze.
I feel empty inside. Have been that way since Boston, since everything I had was ripped away in a single night of blood and betrayal. Even the therapy sessions my brothers bullied me into attending can’t fill the void where my future used to live.
The house around us is a monument to wealth without purpose— eight bedrooms, marble floors, tall windows overlooking the Danube. Buda Hills real estate doesn’t come cheap, but money has never been the problem. It’s everything else that’s fucked beyond repair.
“Osip,” Anett continues, her voice taking on that wheedling tone that makes my teeth clench. “You live in this beautiful house all alone. Don’t you want someone to share it with?”
Share it. Like she’s offering me some grand gift instead of slowly moving her shit into my space without permission. First it was a toothbrush, then spare clothes, now she’s practically redecorated my guest bathroom with enough cosmetics to stock a department store.
“I like alone,” I say, reaching for the tumbler of vodka on my nightstand. The burn feels familiar, comforting in ways human contact no longer does.
After Galina died, I couldn’t stay in that house.
Couldn’t even stay in Boston. Every corner held ghosts, every room echoed with conversations we’d never have and dreams that died with her.
Melor and Radimir had already been here in Budapest, building new lives away from all the Bratva bullshit, and after the nightmare with Galina, their invitations had begun to make sense.
“Come to Hungary, bratan,” They’d said. “Start fresh. Nobody knows you here.”
They were right. In Budapest, I’m just another rich Russian expatriate with too much money and too few questions asked about where it came from. The kind of anonymity that money can buy, distance from everything that defined my old life.
The therapy was Radimir’s idea— persistent little mudak wouldn’t drop it until I agreed to see someone. Dr. Szabó, a soft-spoken Hungarian who speaks perfect Russian and doesn’t flinch when I describe dreams that would send normal people running for the hills.
The nightmares still come. Always the same twisted theater of horrors— someone in a mask killing Galina with a knife while I watch, paralyzed by invisible chains.
Then the masked figure cuts my son from her belly and disappears, leaving me alone with blood and silence.
I wake up drenched in sweat, reaching for sedatives that make the world blur around the edges.
“You’re not listening to me,” Anett says, her voice sharper now. She’s sitting up in bed, designer lingerie doing its job of demanding attention I don’t want to give.
“I’m listening.” I drain the vodka and set the glass down harder than necessary. “You want marriage, babies, the whole domestic shitshow. I told you— not interested.”
Her face cycles through emotions like a slot machine— hurt, anger, calculation. “You said you wanted children someday.”
Someday.
Back when I thought I understood what that meant, when the future felt like something I could build instead of survive. Before I lost everything that mattered and learned that hope is just delayed disappointment.
I miss Galina’s simplicity. The way she never demanded more than I could give, never pushed for declarations or promises I couldn’t keep. But even more than that, I miss her — the masked woman from Room Five, whose presence haunts me more than any ghost.
Her gentle spirit. The way she trusted me with her pain while I sat there carrying the knowledge that I’d caused it. No woman has ever affected me the way she did. And I’ll never see her again. Can never see her again. The truth would destroy us.
Anett lacks both Galina’s simplicity and the mysterious woman’s depth. She’s all surface and strategy, manipulation dressed up as affection. And it’s starting to get on my fucking nerves.
Suka!
Her hand slides down my torso, fingers working at the waistband of my pants. “Let me show you how much I love you,” she breathes against my neck.
“Not tonight.” I catch her wrist, stopping her advance. “I’m not in the mood.”
Her eyes narrow, beautiful features twisting into something uglier. “You’re never in the mood anymore. Are you fucking someone else?”
“ Yob tvoyu mat’. ” The curse escapes before I can stop it. “Here we go.”
“Don’t speak Russian when I’m talking to you!” Her voice rises, the practiced seduction replaced by the kind of shrill anger that makes my skull throb. “I know you’re hiding something from me, Osip. You disappear for hours, you won’t touch me half the time, you act like I’m some kind of burden—”
“You are a burden.” The words come out cold, but I’m past caring about her feelings. “This was never supposed to be permanent, Anett. We fuck, we part ways, nobody gets attached. Simple.”
She recoils like I’ve struck her, tears springing to her eyes with suspicious speed. “How can you say that? After everything we’ve shared?”
Everything we’ve shared?
A few months of meaningless sex and one-sided conversations where she talks about her modeling career and I drink until she becomes tolerable. Some foundation for forever.
“Get dressed,” I say, standing and reaching for my clothes. “I’ll call you a taxi home.”
“A taxi?” The tears come faster now, though I suspect they’re more manipulation than genuine hurt. “Osip, please. I gave up my flat.”
I stiffen. “You what?”
“My lease expired last month. I didn’t renew it.” She’s using that little-girl voice now, the one that probably works on most men but just makes me want to throw her out the window. “We’re together, aren’t we? You live in this huge house. Why should we live separately?”
Blyad.
Glupaya suka!
She gave up her flat without telling me? Backed me into a corner where saying no makes me the asshole? This is exactly the kind of bullshit that makes my trigger finger itch.
“When were you planning to mention this?” My voice is deadly quiet.
“I thought you’d be happy.” But her eyes dart away, confirming what I already suspected— this was calculated, designed to force my hand.
“Osip,” she continues, sliding closer and pressing her lips to my neck in a gesture that feels more like marking territory than affection.
“I know how much you want a child. I can give you one. As many as you want.”
The mention of children is a knife between my ribs. She doesn’t know about Galina, about the son who died before drawing breath, about the nursery that still haunts my dreams. She knows I like kids because I mentioned it early on, back when I thought casual conversation was harmless.
Now she’s weaponizing it, using my losses to manipulate me into a future I never agreed to.
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I move toward the phone, fingers already dialing for a taxi service. “I’ll get you a room at the Four Seasons. You can figure out your housing situation tomorrow.”
“Please, baby.” She grabs my arm, nails digging into skin through the thin fabric of my shirt. “Just let me stay tonight. I promise I won’t push anymore. We can talk about this tomorrow when we’re both calmer.”
Fuck.
The smart move is to throw her out now, before this gets more complicated. But she’s crying— real tears this time, I think— and there’s something pathetic about watching her fall apart. Maybe it’s the therapy, maybe it’s exhaustion, but I find myself nodding.
“Guest bedroom,” I say firmly. “And tomorrow we have a conversation about boundaries.”
A conversation about boundaries?
What fucked up bullshit is this? Szabó would come in his pants if he heard me now. All the goddamn therapy has turned me into a fucking pussy.
Relief floods her features, followed quickly by offense. “The guest bedroom? Osip, we’ve been together for months—”
“Guest bedroom or the street. Your choice.”
She stares at me for a long moment, probably calculating whether another tantrum might change my mind. Whatever she sees in my expression convinces her to back down.
“Fine.” The word comes out sharp and bitter. “The guest bedroom.”
She gathers her clothes with theatrical dignity, clearly trying to show me what I’m missing. The door slams behind her hard enough to rattle the windows, followed by the unmistakable sound of her throwing things around the guest room.
Yobani urod.
Fucking pain in the ass.
I pour another shot of vodka and walk to the windows overlooking the city. Budapest spreads below me like a circuit board of light and shadow, beautiful and foreign and nothing like the life I thought I’d be living by now.
In another timeline, I’d be tucking my son into bed about now. Reading him stories in Russian, teaching him the constellations visible from his nursery window. Galina would be in our kitchen, humming while she prepared his bottle for the middle-of-the-night feeding.
Instead, I’m standing in an empty house with a woman who sees me as a ticket to the life she thinks she deserves, drinking away memories of the family that died a year ago.
The vodka burns, but not enough to erase the taste of guilt and regret that’s become my constant companion. Tomorrow I’ll deal with Anett’s drama, find her a new place, probably listen to more tears and manipulation to make me change my mind.
But tonight, I’ll drink until the ghosts stop talking and the nightmares feel manageable. Until I can close my eyes without seeing masked figures stealing everything I care about.
Do svidaniya, malysh, I whisper to the window, to the son who never got to breathe, to the woman whose face I’ll never know but whose absence defines everything I’ve become.
Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to be human again.
Tonight, I’ll just try to survive the weight of everything I’ve lost.