Nikolai leaned back against the leather seat of the car, his eyes closing as the city lights cast flickering shadows over his sharp features. The words she'd spoken inside the club clung to his consciousness like a stubborn poison. "I bet your mama is really proud of you." The sentence echoed, reverberating off the cold steel walls of his memory until it became more than a taunt—it became a curse.
Sofia. His mother.
Pride? What a joke.
Maybe she was proud when he was starving on the streets, his ribs visible beneath his torn shirt. Maybe she was proud when he sold his dignity for scraps of food, when he'd learned to swallow shame in place of bread. Maybe she was proud when he got thrown into juvenile prison at just twelve, forced to learn the language of violence and silence, where the weak didn't last a day. Moscow's juvenile prison had taught him many things—but mercy wasn't one of them.
She must have been proud, right? When he fought off stray dogs for food like a rabid animal. When he stole. When he bled. When he slept on sewer grates in the winter and begged strangers with dead eyes for change. She must have stood tall somewhere in hell watching her son sink lower than dirt, and thought herself a goddamn deity for not dumping him in a trash bin the night he was born.
The image of her face filled his mind—her smirk, the gaudy red lipstick, the tired eyes that never once softened when they looked at him. She never wanted him. Never loved him. Only tolerated him because he was useful.
Until the day he wasn't.
He was twelve the night he killed her.
Twelve. With blood-soaked hands and a cracked jewelry box in his grip. She had screamed and cursed him until the last breath rattled from her lungs. But Nikolai didn't stop hitting until her face was unrecognizable. Until the screaming stopped. Until the world was quiet for once. He had stood over her body, panting, broken, and smiling. Because he had finally taken something back.
And he never regretted it. Not once. If anything, his only regret was not doing it sooner.
His fingers twitched in his lap, and his jaw clenched. The ghost of that old grin danced on his lips.
"Sir," his driver said gently, glancing at him through the rearview mirror, "are we leaving Miss Woods behind?"
Nikolai didn't open his eyes. "She'll find her way back. Or she won't. Either way, this city belongs to me. There's nowhere she can go where I won't know. If she gets lost, I'll find her."
The driver said nothing more. He had learned a long time ago that silence was the safest choice. He started the engine, and the car rolled into the night.
----------
Meanwhile, Rose stepped out of Inferno and into the night, the heavy doors thudding shut behind her with a finality that made her flinch. The parking lot spread out like an open wound beneath the dark, yawning sky. The air hit her instantly—cool, biting, slicing through her skin like glass and seeping straight into her bones. It smelled of distant gasoline, old concrete, and the faintest trace of smoke drifting from the club.
Her arms instinctively wrapped around her torso. A shiver slid down her spine as she blinked up toward the heavens. Nothing greeted her. The sky once covered in stars and the moon was now just a black, indifferent sky—silent, unfeeling. It was like staring into the eyes of a stranger who didn't care she was there. It made her feel smaller than she already felt.
She glanced around the near-empty lot. Most of the cars were gone, the ones remaining scattered like relics abandoned after a battle. Her eyes swept the spaces near the club's reserved section, where Nikolai's sleek car had been parked when they arrived.
Gone.
Just a vacant patch of oil-stained asphalt now.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"Of course he left," she muttered under her breath, the words brittle and sharp as glass. Her voice sounded too loud in the silence, like it didn't belong. The echo of her own bitterness scratched at her throat. The tightness turned to a lump that rose fast and threatened to choke her, but she gritted her teeth and swallowed it down.
She was not going to cry.
Not here. Not now.
She stood frozen in place for a moment longer, then realized how stranded she was.
Her phone was at the penthouse. Along with her purse. Her ID. Everything she needed to function in the real world, not that she had any money but if she had her phone she would be able to make a plan.
It felt like the universe had stripped her bare.
A small surge of panic burst in her chest, but it fizzled out almost as quickly, smothered by the slow-burning irritation that had been simmering all night.
"Brilliant," she whispered to no one, the word barely escaping her lips.
Her heels pinched like shackles. She stopped, yanked them off, and held them by the straps. They dangled uselessly in her hand, the once-glamorous stilettos now nothing but a symbol of another ruined night. The cool concrete beneath her bare feet stung, but it was real, grounding. She welcomed the sting.
Her pride wouldn't let her turn around and walk back into Inferno and ask for help. Not after what had just happened.
So she walked.
The edge of the lot gave way to a street lined with tall streetlamps, their bulbs flickering like tired stars. She drifted past them like a ghost—no direction, no destination. Just motion. Just escape.
Block after block blurred by. The further she walked, the quieter it became. Storefronts were shuttered and dark. Alleys stretched out like jagged cuts between buildings. The orange glow from the streetlamps painted long shadows across her path, making every corner look like it could hide something watching.
Cars became rarer. Even the drunken hum of nightlife seemed to fade behind her. Her breath grew louder in her ears. Her legs ached. Her feet stung with each step, skin rubbed raw from the cement. Her fingers had gone numb from gripping the heels too tightly.
She passed by a bus stop, then a row of darkened houses, then a vending machine humming softly in the night, casting a lonely glow on a wall.
No one stopped.
No one noticed her.
By the time she reached the park, the city felt like a dream she was waking from.
The gate stood slightly ajar, creaking with the wind. Trees bordered the path, leaves rustling softly, like whispers between ghosts. The air had changed—cooler, gentler, more still. The silence here wasn't oppressive. It was peaceful. Not a single soul in sight.
The benches were old, metal curling at the edges from rust. But they were there. And they were empty.
She shuffled toward the nearest one, barely able to lift her feet anymore. Her legs trembled as she sat, the hard surface jarring her bones. She leaned back, exhaling through her nose like she'd been holding her breath for hours. The bench was cold beneath her, stealing the last of her body heat.
Her heels clattered softly as she dropped them at her side.
She curled forward, elbows propped on her knees, her face falling into her hands. Her palms pressed against her cheeks, trying to hold something in—something fragile and breaking.
This night… had been a disaster. Humiliating.
She let her hands fall from her face and leaned back again. Her head tilted up, eyes searching the night sky.
Still nothing. Just black.
Not even a single star to wish on.
She blinked once. Then again.
Her lips parted, drawing in the cold air, but it felt empty in her lungs.
And then—she heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft at first. But deliberate.
Measured.
Not stumbling. Not drunk. Not hesitant.
Just… sure.
Her spine straightened. Her body tensed.
Her ears strained, heart picking up speed. The steps were getting closer—shoes against gravel, then pavement. The quiet rhythm of someone approaching.
She slowly turned her head, every movement deliberate, like the world had slowed down.
There—on the path leading into the park.
A shadow.
A man.
Tall, broad-shouldered, framed perfectly beneath the amber cone of a flickering streetlight. For a moment, the shape blurred with the dark around it, like a dream she was afraid to focus on.
Then he stepped forward.
And the shadows slipped from his face.
Her breath hitched.
Alejandro.
His name didn't need to be spoken. It thundered through her mind, loud and disorienting. Her body forgot its aches. Her heart forgot how to beat normally.
He was standing there, not moving.
And then—he saw her.
Their eyes met.
Locked.
Frozen in the cold, motionless world around them.
And in that charged, silent second… the rest of the world ceased to exist.
"Rose?" He said.