The Name
Monika
Idreamed of the farm.
Not the way it was at the end—empty and sad, the animals gone, the silence pressing against the walls like something alive.
I dreamed of the farm the way it was when I was small, when my mother still sang in the kitchen and my father still laughed and the barn smelled like hay and summer and the particular sweetness of things that haven't learned to die yet.
In the dream, I was walking through the pasture, barefoot, the grass wet with dew. Mercy was following me—Mercy, the calf I'd delivered when I was ten, grown now into a cow with a white blaze and dark, patient eyes. The sun was warm on my shoulders. The sky was impossibly blue.
And then the sky turned grey. The grass turned to gravel. The barn became a warehouse, and the warehouse became a cage, and I woke up with my heart pounding and my sheets tangled around my legs.
The bedroom was dark. The fire had died hours ago, leaving only the faint glow of embers and the cold light of the moon through the windows.
I lay still for a long moment, listening to the house settle around me—the creak of old wood, the whisper of the heating system, the distant sound of something that might have been footsteps or might have been nothing at all.
I couldn't sleep. I'd known I wouldn't sleep. The bed was too soft, the room too quiet, the name too new on my tongue.
Monika Mire.
I threw off the covers and padded barefoot into the hallway.
The mansion at night was different.
The portraits on the walls seemed to watch me as I passed, their painted eyes following my movements.
The chandelier in the foyer was dark, the crystals catching the moonlight in small, cold glints.
I walked without thinking, my feet finding their own path, carrying me through corridors and past doorways until I found myself in front of a door I recognized.
Aleksander's study.
There was light beneath the door—a thin line of gold against the darkness. I could hear movement inside, the soft clink of glass on wood, the creak of a chair. I raised my hand to knock, hesitated, then pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.
He was sitting behind his desk, a glass of whiskey in his hand, his eyes fixed on something I couldn't see. The fire had burned low, casting his face in shadows and light, carving the lines around his mouth into something deeper than I remembered.
He looked old. Tired. Human in a way he never allowed himself to be during the day.
"Can't sleep either?" I asked.
He looked up. His grey eyes found mine, and something in his face shifted—softened, opened, became something I hadn't seen before.
"No," he said. "I can't."
He didn't ask why I was here. He didn't tell me to go back to bed. He just gestured to the chair across from his desk, and I sat, pulling my robe tighter around myself. The silk was cold against my skin, and I wished I'd worn something warmer, something that didn't make me feel so exposed.
We sat in silence for a long time. The fire crackled. The clock on the mantel ticked. Somewhere in the house, a branch scraped against a window, and I shivered.
"You're cold," Aleksander said.
"I'm fine."
"You're lying."
He stood and walked to the fireplace, adding another log from the stack beside the hearth. The flames caught, flared, and the room grew warmer. He stood with his back to me for a moment, his hands on the mantel, his head bowed.
"I used to sit in here for hours after she died," he said. "My wife. I'd drink and stare at the fire and try to remember the sound of her voice. But I couldn't. I'd been with her for twenty years, and I couldn't remember what she sounded like."
"What did she sound like?"
"I don't know anymore." He turned to face me. "That's the worst part. Not the grief. Not the guilt. The forgetting. The way the people you love become ghosts in your own mind."
I thought about my mother. About the sound of her laugh, the way she'd hummed while she cooked, the soft lullabies she'd sung when I was small. I could still hear them. Barely. Like an echo from a very long distance.
"I remember," I said. "My mother. I remember everything."
"That's a gift."
"That's a curse."
He smiled. It was a sad smile, tired at the edges, and it made him look older than he was. "Yes," he said. "It is."
He walked back to his desk but didn't sit. Instead, he leaned against the edge, facing me, his arms crossed over his chest. The firelight caught the silver in his hair, the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the small scar above his left eyebrow that I'd never noticed before.
"Monika Mire," he said, like he was tasting it. Like the name was something sweet on his tongue.
"It's strange," I said. "Being called that."
"You'll get used to it."
"What if I don't want to?"
He was quiet for a long moment. The clock ticked. The fire crackled. The house settled around us like a living thing, breathing in the dark.
"Then tell me," he said. "And I'll let you go. Right now. No consequences. No debt. Just walk out that door and I'll never bother you again."
I stared at him. "You mean that."
"I always mean what I say."
"No, you don't. You lie. Nathan told me. He said you lie to protect yourself. To protect the people you love."
"Nathan talks too much." But he didn't deny it. He just looked at me with those grey eyes, steady and patient, waiting for me to make a choice.
I should have left. I should have stood up, walked out the door, gone back to my room and locked the door and pretended this conversation had never happened.
I should have called Viktor, asked him to drive me back to my apartment, reclaimed the life I'd had before Aleksander Mire walked into my diner with a bullet in his side.
But I didn't.
I stayed.
"Why me?" I asked. "Of all the women you could have—why me?"
He pushed off from the desk and walked toward me. Slowly. Deliberately. The way he did everything. He stopped in front of my chair and looked down at me, and I felt small and seen and something else—something that might have been want.
"Because you're the first person in twenty years who looked at me and didn't see a monster," he said. "You saw a man who was bleeding. And you helped him. Without asking for anything in return."
"I asked for money."
"After. Not before. There's a difference."
He knelt. I watched him do it—this powerful man, this king of an empire built on blood—lowering himself to his knees in front of me. His hands came up to my face, cupping my cheeks, his thumbs tracing the curve of my cheekbones.
"Tell me to stop," he said. "And I will."
I didn't tell him to stop.
He kissed me.
It was not like Gabriel's kiss. Gabriel's kiss had been soft, hesitant, full of questions and trembling hands.
Aleksander's kiss was certain. He kissed me like he'd been waiting to do it for years, like every moment of his life had been leading to this one, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
His mouth was warm. His tongue traced my lower lip, and I opened for him without thinking, and he made a sound—a low, rough groan—that I felt everywhere. His hands slid into my hair, cradling the back of my head, holding me in place while he kissed me deeper.
I clung to his shoulders. The fabric of his sweater was soft beneath my fingers, and beneath that, the solid warmth of him, the strength of him, the steady beat of his heart.
"Monika," he said against my mouth. "Monika."
He stood, pulling me up with him, and then I was in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist, my robe gaping open. He carried me out of the study and down the hallway, his steps sure despite the dark, and I buried my face in his neck and breathed him in.
Cedar. Smoke. Something clean.
Something that felt like home.
His bedroom was larger than mine, darker, the curtains drawn against the moon. There was a fire here too, burning low, casting shadows that moved like dancers on the walls. He laid me on the bed—his bed, the sheets cool and crisp beneath me—and stood at the edge, looking down at me.
"Have you done this before?" he asked.
"Not... not like this."
"Good." He reached for the hem of his sweater and pulled it over his head.
I watched his body emerge—the broad shoulders, the muscled chest, the scars.
So many scars. Some old, some new, some still pink and healing.
A map of violence, written on his skin. "I want to be your first for everything that matters. "
He undressed me slowly.
Not the way Gabriel had, fumbling and desperate.
Aleksander took his time. He untied the belt of my robe and pushed it from my shoulders, letting it fall to the floor.
He pulled my nightgown over my head, his fingers grazing my skin, raising goosebumps in their wake.
He unhooked my bra—one hand, practiced, efficient—and slid it down my arms.
He looked at me. Just looked. His eyes traveled over my body like he was memorizing it, like he was learning a language he'd been waiting his whole life to speak.
"Beautiful," he said. "So beautiful."
He kissed my collarbone. My shoulder. The hollow of my throat. He kissed the space between my breasts, the curve of my ribs, the soft skin of my stomach. He kissed me like I was something sacred, something to be worshipped.
"Aleksander—"
"Shh." He looked up at me, his grey eyes dark with want. "Let me."
He kissed lower. His mouth found the waistband of my underwear, and he hooked his fingers in the elastic and pulled them down my legs. I was naked beneath him, completely naked, and I should have felt exposed. Vulnerable. Afraid.
But I didn't.
I felt seen.
He stood and removed the rest of his clothes—his pants, his boxers, the watch he wore on his left wrist. His body was beautiful in the firelight, all hard lines and shadows, and I reached for him without thinking.
He came to me. He settled between my legs, his weight braced on his elbows, his forehead pressed against mine.
"Last chance," he said. "Tell me to stop."
I wrapped my legs around his waist.
"Don't stop."
He pushed inside me slowly—achingly slowly, inch by inch, giving my body time to adjust. I gasped. My nails dug into his shoulders. He was bigger than I'd expected, thicker, and the stretch of him was almost too much.
"Breathe," he whispered. "Just breathe."
I breathed. He waited. The fire crackled. The clock ticked. Somewhere in the house, a floorboard creaked.
When I relaxed, he moved.
The pace he set was slow. Torturous. He withdrew almost all the way, then pushed back in, his eyes never leaving mine. He watched me the whole time—watched my face as I came apart beneath him, watched my mouth open and close, watched my eyes flutter and close and open again.
"You're so good," he said. "So perfect. My good girl."
The words did something to me. Something I didn't expect. They settled in my chest, warm and heavy, and I felt myself tighten around him.
"That's it," he said. "That's it, Monika. Let go. I've got you."
He increased his pace—not fast, not frantic, but deeper, harder, hitting something inside me that made me see stars. I cried out. He covered my mouth with his hand, his eyes dark, his jaw tight.
"Quiet," he said. "The house—"
I bit his palm. He groaned, and the sound of it—the raw, animal sound of him losing control—pushed me over the edge. I came apart with his name on my lips, my body shuddering around his, my vision going white.
He followed a moment later, his hips stuttering, his face buried in my neck. He said my name like a prayer. Like a curse. Like something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Monika. Monika. Monika.
We lay together in the dark afterward, his arms around me, my head on his chest. His heartbeat was slow now, steady, a rhythm I could fall asleep to.
"Monika Mire," he said again. "It suits you."
"I don't know who that is yet."
"You have time." He kissed the top of my head. "You have all the time in the world."
I closed my eyes. The fire crackled. The clock ticked. Somewhere in the hallway, I thought I heard footsteps—soft, deliberate, moving away.
But I was too warm, too safe, too full to care.
I slept.