Chapter 30
A Body Still Breathing
—Kira—
Iran, tears blurring my vision as I took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping over the hem of my dress.
My breath came in sharp gasps, my chest burning with each desperate inhale.
The moment I reached my room, I slammed the door shut, turned the lock, and collapsed against it, my body giving out.
The sobs erupted before I could stop them—ugly, raw, uncontrollable waves that tore through my chest and left me hollow. My hands shook as I wiped at my cheeks, my nose, my mouth, smearing everything with the sleeve of my dress.
This couldn’t be real. He had to be lying. There was no way everything we’d shared meant nothing to him. No way he could look me in the eye, say those words, and mean them.
But it didn’t matter.
Because even if it was a lie—even if the whole thing had been some cruel performance—I still heard him say it. Still watched him laugh like I was a joke. Still saw the way he looked right through me, like I was disposable. Delusional.
The pain wouldn’t stop. It lived beneath my ribs, sharp and twisting, and no matter how tightly I wrapped my arms around myself, I couldn’t hold it in.
I slid to the floor, curling into a ball, and let the tears fall. I had no idea how long I stayed that way.
Eventually, I reached for my phone. I needed someone. Anyone.
I called Valeria.
“I could use a friend right now,” I said, my voice raw and cracking. “Can I come to your place? Can you pick me up?”
“Oh, babe,” she said, her concern immediate. “I can’t. My license got taken a few days ago.”
“Jesus, were you driving drunk again?”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Don’t start.”
I exhaled shakily and swiped beneath my eyes with the edge of my sleeve. “Fine. I’ll figure something out. Either way, I’m coming.”
I ended the call and grabbed my head in both hands, fingers pressing into my temples as I tried to think.
I needed to get out of this house, and I needed someone to drive me.
Sneaking out was the only option—but since mom had been taken, even that wasn’t easy.
Back when she was here, she’d cover for me, let me slip out sometimes, even hand me some money.
But now, with father being the control freak he is, I couldn’t step outside without a prison warden’s shadow.
Still, I hadn’t really needed to sneak out—not lately. I had Maksym. He was my escape, my rebellion, my sanctuary. He was all I wanted. All I craved.
The thought of him sliced through me again, sharp and merciless.
I didn’t want to call him. But deep down, I knew he’d be the only one who’d come. The only one who could.
And I needed to be out of this house. Now.
I called Ruslan.
“Hey, want to hang out at Valeria’s?” I asked, trying to sound normal, like my world hadn’t just been ripped apart. “Can you give me a ride?”
“Absolutely,” he replied, no pause at all. “Should I head out right now?”
“Yeah. But don’t come to the house. I’ll meet you down the road a bit, past the service gates. I’ll send you the location.”
“Leave the headlights off,” I added.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just hurry.”
I slipped out through the staff gates, past the cameras and the guard taking a smoke—just like I had done a hundred times before. Then I kept walking.
Ruslan was already waiting when I came around the corner, engine running low at the curb, headlights dark exactly the way I told him. The moment he spotted me, he got out—like some fucking gentleman—and pulled the passenger door open.
It should have felt sweet, the kind of gesture girls are supposed to melt over, but instead it sent a slow, crawling discomfort over my skin.
The last thing I needed was some guy trying to play hero tonight. But I slid into the seat anyway, too tired to fight.
He got in behind the wheel and glanced over. “Kira, what’s going on?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said flatly. “Can we just go to Valeria’s and get smashed?”
He hesitated. “You know you can tell me, right?”
I looked at him without blinking, like he was a stranger asking the wrong question. “There’s nothing to say. Drive.”
He shut up and did what I asked.
When we pulled up in front of Valeria’s apartment, I got out before he could make another gentlemanly move. He followed, glancing at me like I might fall apart at any second.
Valeria opened the door in pajama shorts and a crop top, a glass of wine already in hand. The second she saw me, her expression shifted. “What the hell happened?” she asked, stepping aside to let us in. “Did that psycho do something to you?”
I slumped into the couch and dropped my bag like it burned me. “Just leave it alone.”
Valeria scoffed, setting down her wine. “Of course he did. I knew this would happen.”
Ruslan’s brows pulled together. “Who are you talking about?”
Valeria looked at him like he was the dumbest person alive. “The Reaper.”
My head whipped toward her. “Lera,” I hissed. “Why would you say that?”
She lifted a brow and gave a pointed look. “Don’t look at me—I wasn’t the one who invited him.”
His jaw clenched, voice dripping with judgment. “You let that fucking animal put his hands on you?”
My voice cracked as I tried to hold it together. “Yes. I gave him everything, and he tore it up like trash. And no, I’m not explaining shit. I didn’t come here for judgment or sympathy. I came for a joint and a blackout. Now are you in, or are you useless?”
Ruslan muttered something under his breath, and Valeria gave one of her trademark awkward grimaces—but, thankfully, neither of them pushed the topic any further.
Lera flopped onto the floor in front of the coffee table, pulling out the weed she always kept stashed.
She lit a joint, took a long drag, and passed it to me.
I took it silently and sat beside her, staring straight ahead at the blank white wall, watching the faint shadows slide across it from the passing headlights outside.
Ruslan joined us a moment later—quiet, brooding.
“That new shit I was talking about,” he said after a while. “The one that turns your brain into static. Try it. You’ll forget that bastard ever touched you.”
Normally, I would’ve turned it down without a second thought.
I despised that kind of high—the feeling of losing control, of watching people drift into a glassy-eyed haze, disconnected from the world and themselves.
It turned my stomach, the way they looked so far gone, so out of it, like ghosts pretending to be alive.
But right now, all I wanted was numbness. To drift, unseen and untouched, like I’d already disappeared.
I swallowed once, then nodded. “Yeah. I don’t care anymore. Give it to me.”
Lera smirked. “Finally, someone’s speaking my language.”
That was it—the moment I stopped being fully there.
We ended up in Valeria’s bedroom—not by choice, but by momentum. The dim lamp cast soft, strange shadows, the bed swallowing us in fabric and limbs. The weed dulled everything, but the other stuff? It crept in like fog, slow and insidious, curling around my mind like smoke I couldn’t cough out.
My body felt warm and far away, like I was floating underwater in someone else’s skin. Sound warped, echoing like I was at the bottom of a well. Thoughts slowed to a crawl. I wasn’t really there—I was somewhere just outside of myself, watching everything happen from a distance.
Someone took my hand. Ruslan.
His fingers laced with mine. I felt the pressure faintly, like it was happening to a mannequin version of me—plastic limbs, hollow bones. It should have mattered. But nothing felt real.
He rolled to face me, his gaze locking on mine. “You know I love you,” he said softly. “I’m crazy about you.”
Love. Crazy. The words didn’t land. They drifted past, untouchable, meaningless.
“I don’t care who you were fucking,” he said, voice rough. “You could crawl in here smelling like him, and I’d still want you. I always fucking want you.”
It felt wrong. Every word. Every movement. But I couldn’t react. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even remember how.
My chest tightened, like my heart remembered how to scream—but the drug kept me pinned beneath layers of velvet weight. Heavy. Helpless.
He leaned in, breath warm and wrong, and his mouth skimmed mine before settling in a kiss I couldn’t return.
I didn’t move at all; I just lay there, frozen and unresponsive, aware of what was happening yet unable to gather the strength or clarity to stop him.
His hand cradled my jaw, thumb dragging up with a sick kind of care, fingers circling my neck like I was something breakable—or something begging to be broken. Then his lips met my throat, slow and possessive.
Something deep inside me twisted. A silent, distant scream.
No.
But it didn’t come out. My limbs were slow, my mouth dry, my brain an echo chamber. The world spun too fast and I couldn’t keep up.
Ruslan’s hand slid lower, deliberate and unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world to claim what he thought was already his.
His palm flattened against my chest, cupping my breast through the cotton of my hoodie. The pressure was firm, possessive—thumb brushing, over the peak like he was testing my response. There was none.
He made a low sound in his throat—half groan, half sigh—like my stillness was permission.
Then his hand moved to the waistband of my sweatpants.
Fingers slipped beneath the elastic, cool against the warm skin of my stomach, then lower still.
He didn’t rush; he savored the slide, knuckles grazing pubic bone before dipping inside the fabric entirely.
The intrusion was slow, intimate, wrong in a way that finally cracked through the haze.
Ice.
It hit me like a bucket dumped over my head—sharp, shocking, freezing every sluggish nerve awake at once. The fog didn’t vanish, but it tore open just enough for revulsion to flood in behind it.
His fingers curled, seeking.
“No,” I rasped.
The word came out small, cracked, barely audible, but it was mine.