Chapter 7 Dead Men Don’t Text
Dead Men Don’t Text
—Kira—
Ihated him. I hated him more than I hated anyone else in that godforsaken house.
The music pulsing through the floors made my skin crawl. I knew what was happening behind those doors. I knew what kind of filth my father welcomed into his estate—drunken men, overdressed whores, and enough arrogance to drown in.
I had been pacing outside that room until I forced myself to sit, rage bubbling under my skin, the light from that room slicing from under the door like a blade.
I kept telling myself I was being paranoid, that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—be part of that circus.
But then he stepped out. Shirt half-done, cigarette hanging from his mouth, walking out like he ran the whole damn place. And my heart just… dropped.
The noise in my head was deafening. I wanted to slap him. To scream. To claw at his face and leave marks he couldn’t erase. I wanted to fucking kill him.
But instead, I stood up and walked away before I did something stupid. Chin high. Back straight. He didn’t get to see what he’d done to me.
I must’ve been out of my fucking mind to believe there could ever be anything real between us.
It hurt like hell — stung like acid, burned like betrayal.
Because I’d fallen for him the second I saw him.
Even when he pushed me away, even when he kept me at arm’s length, some stupid, pathetic part of me still hoped we weren’t just playing games. That there was something more.
And the worst part?
I still had to marry Stanislav.
Everything felt tainted.
Even days later, I couldn’t shake the nausea that came with picturing him in that room. But at least the constant buzz of Stas’s messages had stopped. That small mercy was all I had.
At first, after the so-called date, Stas clung like a disease—message after message, pretending he hadn’t seen the disgust in my eyes.
Thank you for such a lovely evening.
You really are a very special girl.
I’m certain our next evening together will be even more enjoyable.
Special. Girl.
I stared at my phone in disbelief the first time I read that. Then in disgust. Then with something close to nausea curling in my stomach.
I didn’t answer. I never answered.
It didn’t stop him.
A day later, another message arrived.
I’ve made arrangements with your father. I’ll pick you up this weekend.
That was the moment I almost threw up.
No fucking way. Over my dead body.
If that man ever showed up to take me for a weekend like he owned me, he’d find me hanging from the ceiling before I went anywhere with him. Maybe that was my destiny—to die a virgin just to avoid letting a man like him touch me. Frankly, that felt like a fair trade.
But then, coincidentally on the day of that ridiculous fucking orgy—he went silent.
No messages. No calls. Nothing.
Days passed. Then more days. The silence was unsettling in its own way. I checked my phone more than I wanted to admit, half-expecting his name to light up the screen again. It never did.
Even my father noticed.
He asked me one evening, casually, like he was asking about the weather, if I’d heard from Stanislav.
I told him the truth—that Stasik had gone quiet.
My father furrowed his brows—just slightly, the kind of twitch that said he was weighing whether to believe me or not.
He tried calling Stanislav himself later that night. No answer.
The next day he called Stanislav’s father. Apparently no one had heard from him there either.
Just… gone.
But then the whispers started.
At school, in the hallways and cafeteria lines, the rumor spread fast—someone beat him to death. No names, no suspects, just the kind of hushed, vicious gossip that sticks.
When I heard it, a strange calm settled over me first. The cafeteria noise dulled, like someone had turned the volume down on the world. My fingers went still around my phone. Then I laughed. A short, sharp sound that didn’t feel like it belonged to me.
But I knew better than to think fate ever did me favors.
None of it sat right. Guys like Stas don’t just disappear and die quietly. Not unless someone made damn sure of it. And when I really thought about it, the timing almost made sense.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Maksym.
He hadn’t looked at me for weeks. Not once. Not in the hallway. Not near my father’s office. Not even by accident. Like I didn’t exist.
But I remembered his eyes when he saw me crying. I remembered the anger there. The way his jaw tightened. The way his whole body went still, like a predator locking onto something. That look hadn’t been indifference. I knew this was his kind of kill. Brutal. Final. Almost poetic in its ugliness.
He’d done something. Something real. Something final.
And the truth was, I didn’t care that Stanislav was dead.
Not even a little. If anything, I felt relief—pure and sharp, like a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Beneath that relief, though, was something darker, something I wasn’t ready to name.
Because some part of me, the part that should have been horrified, was hoping.
I was fucking furious at Maksym for being part of that disgusting party, but I still hoped it was him. Hoped he’d done it. Hoped he’d protected me in the only way he knew how.
If there was a line I’d crossed, I didn’t care. Stas got what he deserved and I slept better because of it. Maybe that made me twisted. Maybe it meant something inside me was already too far gone. But I didn’t care. That prick was dead, and the world felt cleaner for it.
By lunch, I was practically humming.
Valeria was sitting on the old stone ledge outside the law building, legs crossed, black sunglasses perched on her head like she was too hungover for sunlight. She had a croissant in one hand, joint in the other.
I dropped beside her, swinging my bag down with a grin.
“That bastard is dead,” I said, voice low but giddy. “We’re going out tonight.”
She raised an eyebrow, croissant halfway to her mouth. “Which one of them?”
I grinned. “The one my father wanted me to marry.”
Valeria let out a short laugh. “Stasik? The oil goblin?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Him. From what I heard, someone turned his face into abstract art in a bar bathroom.”
Valeria took a drag, held it, exhaled slowly. “Wow. What a fucking loser.”
I laughed. “Right?”
“But you know me, baby—I’m always down to party,” she said, flicking ash into her empty coffee cup. “How are you gonna get out?”
I leaned back, eyes on the gray sky. “I’ll ask my mom if I can go study at your place. Group project excuse. I’ll take her credit card too—say we’re ordering takeout and need to split the bill. Quiet night in. Laptops. Maybe a face mask.”
Valeria grinned. “You’re such a good little liar.”
“I could always sneak out through the service gate like I’ve done a hundred times before, but that route is better saved for emergencies. The more you use it, the higher the chance someone catches on.”
“Smart. But if we’re going out—where?”
“Not our usual spots,” I said. “I want it to be just you and me. I definitely don’t wanna hang out with Ruslan. So we need something different. Different crowd. Somewhere no one expects us to be.”
It had been weeks since I’d gone out with my best friend, and honestly, I needed it.
I needed a night away from that house, away from my father’s plans to marry me off like I was part of a business deal.
I wanted to celebrate the simple fact that, for now, I was still free.
But I also needed to clear my head of Maksym.
Because the infuriating man hadn’t said a word to me since that night.
And even though I was furious at him—for standing there while my father slapped me, for participating in that disgusting orgy—I still couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Which was exactly why I needed a drink. Or five.
Valeria tilted her head. “I might know a place. No Ruslan. Just us. And maybe some pretty strangers.”
I looked at her, that familiar rush bubbling under my skin. “Then it’s settled.”
Everything went according to plan.
The driver dropped me off at Valeria’s place just after seven. For the first couple of hours, we just sprawled on her couch, passed a joint between us, drank wine straight from the bottle, and bitched about the world.
By the time we started doing our makeup and choosing outfits, it was already past ten.
I wore a sequined skirt that caught the light like broken glass—silver with flashes of gold—and a black silk dress shirt, open just enough to show the edges of the lace bra beneath.
Valeria went with something red and reckless, short enough to draw stares from across the room.
Her heels were impossibly high. Her perfume, dizzying.
The club was tucked behind a row of shuttered bakeries and half-lit storefronts somewhere east of the city center—the kind of place you pick specifically because nobody you know would ever be caught dead there.
From the outside it already looked questionable.
The sign above the door was cracked and crooked, blinking like it had lost the will to live sometime in the early 2000s.
I had asked for a place where nobody would recognize us.
Apparently my friend had taken that request very seriously.
The bouncer barely looked up before waving us in.
Inside was worse. Sticky floors, neon lights that tried very hard to look edgy, and music so loud it felt like someone punching my ribs from the inside. The kind of place that thought it was scandalous but mostly just looked… embarrassing.
I wrinkled my nose. “How do you even know this dump?”
Valeria just grinned like a little devil. “Guy who owns it sells me party favors. He said I could get us free drinks.”
“We’re literally rich,” I muttered, glancing around.
“Yeah, but free tastes better,” she said, already sliding onto a barstool.
She ordered two shots of vodka and handed me one. “To dead bastards.”
I smirked. “To clean slates.”
We clinked glasses.