chapter 5
Matleon
Today, she has ordered borscht with sour cream. She likes Beef Stroganoff, borscht with sour cream, pelmeni, and blini with caviar from this restaurant. Though I’ve kept the best Russian chef, she is an extremely picky eater.
This was originally an Italian restaurant, but when she moved here a week ago, it transformed overnight into a Russian restaurant and was also renovated.
A glass cabin was placed in the far corner for me to sit in, and the number of chairs was reduced.
Now, only ten people can dine here at the same time.
After she enters, they close it until she leaves.
She comes here at six in the evening, and I arrive exactly five minutes before her.
She stays for more than an hour—eating, sitting, doing her work.
For that hour, I watch her from this place, so close to her.
She always sits in the chair closest to the cabin.
The staff are instructed to make sure of that.
It’s a single chair seat, placed here solely for her.
She is so close to me that I can see every little detail of her features, every shift in her expression.
That’s how I know when she doesn’t like something she’s eating.
When she enjoys a dish, she closes her eyes at the first bite, humming without a sound, a tiny smile tugging at her lips, and her next bite is bigger than the first. When she dislikes something, she drinks water after the first bite and doesn’t touch the dish again.
She finishes eating, and the waiter clears the table. She takes out her tablet from her bag—she carries it everywhere.
Now she is writing something, occasionally glancing outside the window or at the glass in front of her, behind which I’m standing.
From her side, the glass looks like a beautiful screen.
Below my eye level, it’s adorned with plants and other interior design elements, making it look elegant and easy to sit in front of.
Her phone rings, and she picks it up.
“Hi, Dex.” My brows shot up. Dex, as in Dexter? When did this transition happen?
“Sure. I’ll send it to you.” She then disconnects the call.
I’m still undecided about letting Dexter live.
He’s at that precarious spot where he could die at any moment; all he would need to do is look at her with hearts zooming out of his eyes.
And yet, I can’t understand how he’s not looking at her that way.
Is he gay? Possible. There seems no other reason for someone not to fall for her when she’s giving this much attention.
I smile. He needs to die, the sooner, the better. What if she gets attached to him, or worse, falls for him? She’ll be hurt when he dies. I rub my chest; I didn’t know burning jealousy could feel this literal.
She puts her tablet back in her bag and rises from her chair. She leaves the restaurant, and I follow her out. She walks along the footpath toward her apartment. I’m exactly ten steps behind her. I don’t usually follow her this closely, but today I want her to notice.
I close the distance, reducing it to six steps. She slows down and then turns.
I wave my hand as I walk closer. “Hey, Iselyn. Long time no see.”
“Why are you stalking me?” she asks in a serious, cold tone. Where does she even find this much coldness, considering she’s a warm person in general?
Well, I’m special to her. So special treatment it is.
“I know you must be having some fantasies about me stalking you,” I say with a charming smile, “but they can’t be fulfilled. I’m just doing my healthy evening walk. Burning calories.”
She starts walking again, ignoring me.
I match her pace. “The weather has changed, right? But I don’t think you’re feeling much of it. After all, it’s a lot less cold than Vlad.”
She keeps walking, still ignoring me.
Her phone rings. Treating me like I don’t exist, she picks it up. I catch the name Dexter flashing on the screen.
She responds to something he says. “Which part?”
He talks for more than a minute.
“Okay, I’ll check it,” she replies, and the call ends.
Utterly pissed, I chuckle. “He’s a good guy.”
She doesn’t respond.
“I heard somewhere that good people die young,” I add lightly. “I’m sorry in advance for his upcoming death.”
That gets her attention.
She stops and glares at me. “Don’t you even dare think about doing anything to him.”
I smile, tilting my head. “So protective.” I lift my hand and hold her chin gently. “Keep a black dress ready… to attend his funeral.”
She grabs the collar of my shirt. “If you so much as shake hands with him, I’ll kill you.”
The burning inside me flares, climbing from my chest to my head. I need destruction—real destruction. Opening someone’s skull, chopping someone apart, no, none of that will work.
I need more. I need destruction that imprints my ownership into her, so deep it sinks under her skin and settles into her bones.
Destruction that rewires her instincts and turns every other man in her world into a mistake simply for existing near her.
I want her to know she belongs to me with every breath she takes.
I fucking need her to understand that any man she ever tries to protect will meet his end in the most merciless way imaginable.
I grab her neck, leaving her chin. Her eyes widen instantly. I lean down, my mouth hovering near hers. “I’ll tear him apart with my own hands,” I whisper, locking my gaze into her eyes, “and then”—my voice drops lower—“I’ll make you bathe in his blood, angel.”
I release her face.
“Tonight.”
Iselyn
Have you ever seen the devil?
I have.
He doesn’t have horns. He isn’t red. He isn’t ugly. In fact, he is so devastatingly handsome you’d want to keep him in front of your eyes all day, just to look at him. But he is evil, so evil you cannot stand before him without burning in his hell.
And somehow, I’ve stepped straight into it.
I see it in his eyes, the depth of his madness. There isn’t a single word he said that I doubt. He will do exactly what he promised. He will kill Dexter. He will make me bathe in his blood. And I won’t be able to stop it.
I have a family behind me, people powerful enough to protect me, to destroy anyone who dares touch me. But he is the ruler of devils. Satan. Manipulative. Calculating. So dangerously clever that he can make you turn against yourself without you ever realizing it.
He will charm them into believing him, just like he did a week ago.
The realization leaves me hollow. I feel powerless. But the fear of becoming the reason for someone’s death is worse. It clenches my gut, tight and merciless, stealing the air from my lungs.
I start running after him. He hasn’t walked far. Not in the few minutes I stood frozen in shock.
I grab his arm and force him to stop. “You don’t have to do any of this,” I say, my words rushing out.
“I’m only protective of him because he’s a nice man, a good friend, and I have a lot of sympathy for him.
He’s fighting against his own family. He loves someone, and his family is against it.
He also has cancer.” My breath stutters, but I don’t stop.
“His life is already so difficult, and the girl he loves is completely dependent on him. If you kill him, her life will be ruined. She’s just seventeen years old. ”
I say everything in one breath. His expression doesn’t change. Not even slightly.
But his eyes—God, his eyes—are locked on me with an intensity sharp enough to bore holes through flesh. It feels like he’s dissecting me, stripping me bare layer by layer.
I can’t believe this is the man I once loved.
How could I have loved someone like him?
Then he smiles. The shift is so sudden it feels unreal, like he removes one mask and replaces it with another in the span of a heartbeat. I stay rooted to the spot, watching him, unable to move.
He cups my face in his palm, bends down, and presses a kiss to my cheek. It’s tender. Gentle. Almost reverent. For a second, it feels like he’s someone else entirely, not the man who just promised to make me bathe in an innocent man’s blood.
I used to think I knew everything about Matleon. I was so, so wrong. I release his arm—the one I’d been clenching so hard my fingertips now ache—and step back. His hand slips from my face. I turn and run.
He doesn’t chase me. But I don’t stop until I reach my apartment.
I lock myself inside, clinging to the flimsy, false sense of safety it gives me.
I don’t doubt for a second that if he wanted to, he could break in here easily.
The helplessness settles deep inside me, a clear mirror reflecting the truth of my position.
I can’t do anything to him. But he can do whatever he wants to me.
He will never harm me physically, but he doesn’t need to in order to break me. I sit on the floor, holding my head. He said he would pursue me, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. No sane person would pursue someone like this, but can I complain?
I don’t want to love him again. I can’t. And if I were to love someone else, he would kill him. The demonstration I saw today… it’s a relief I don’t have any such feelings for Dex, or he would be dead by now.
I get up from the floor, take my phone out from my trench coat pocket, and call my dad.
He picks up instantly.
“Papa. Matleon thinks he likes me, and he was about to kill a friend of mine today.”
The line goes silent. I check if the call is fine. It is.
“Papa?”
“I’m at a loss for words, little one.”
“Papa, tell him to stay away from me. I don’t like him.”
“How can I do that? He’s helped you so much, and besides, it would look rude and wrong. A man wants to pursue you, and I stop him without a solid reason?”
“Isn’t me not liking him enough?”
“If we see it from his perspective, it’s not. Think of it like this: there’s a man you like, but he doesn’t like you, and you want to pursue him. What’s wrong with that? You’re doing nothing wrong.”
He’s right, but it’s not as simple as ‘I don’t like him because we have different favorite colours.
’ It’s because he hurt me so badly that I’m still not completely over it, but I can’t tell him that.
That’s something only Matleon and I know.
My cousins, Kaz and Zan, also have an idea of it, but not in detail.
I pinch the bridge of my brows. “Give the phone to Mom.”
He does.
“Hello, dear,” Mom’s voice comes through.
“Mom, please make Dad understand that I don’t like Matleon and I want him to stay away from me. I don’t know how you’ll do this, but you have to do it.”
“Okay, I’ll try my best,” she says after a pause.
Usually, she doesn’t have to do much to make Dad agree. All she needs to do is smile. My father is madly in love with my mother. I hope this one also works out with a smile.
“Okay, bye-bye. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetie,” she says.
I cut the call. If my dad asks him to stay away from me, will he obey? He doesn’t look like a man who obeys anyone, but it should work, even a little bit is fine. I don’t have to stay here for that long. Just one more month.