FLASHBACK
3 years ago
Igor Vasiliev sat among shadows, marble pillars looming around him like specters from another life. Power thrummed beneath his skin, a steady drumbeat forged from years of betrayal and blood. In the world's dark corners, his name was a warning—a word spoken in trembling voices, pressed against quivering lips. He was the storm, the blade, the cold reckoning from which no man could hide.
Yet beneath the black suit and the unyielding expression, fragments of a forgotten childhood flickered. Once, there had been laughter—a boy whose eyes caught sunlight, whose hands touched kindness. That child was buried now, suffocated under the weight of legacy and the iron laws of survival. In its place stood Igor, ruthless, solitary, a heart beaten into stone by fate and family.
The present offered no solace. The throne he commanded was strength balanced on knives, alliances stitched by fear and secrets. The quiet hours found him haunted by ghosts—echoes of innocence and warmth—memories he could not kill, no matter how deeply he buried them.
But tonight, something unsettled him. The memory of movement—a dance caught beneath temple lights—pulled at the edges of his resolve. For months, he had searched, drawn by a vision he could not explain, compelled by a longing that turned his pulse to ice and fire.
Radha. He did not know her name, but the image of her—fragile, defiant, alone—had carved itself into the marrow of his ambition. She was a paradox he could neither possess nor forget, a light flickering dangerously close to his darkness.
Igor's orders had gone out across continents: Find her. Protect her. Claim her, whatever the cost. And as he stared into the Sicilian night, the surrounding silence crackled—the empire he ruled trembled at the dawn of a storm he did not yet understand.
The sleek black car glided down the rattling streets of an unfamiliar city, dust swirling in its wake like forgotten dreams. Igor sat rigid, his gaze cold and distant, the sharp lines of his face cutting through the cabin's shadows. Beside him, his trusted friend leaned closer, breaking the silence with a casual suggestion.
Igor Vasiliev's car rolled steadily through the crowded streets of Mumbai, the city's chaotic heartbeat pulsing outside the tinted windows. Beside him, a trusted friend glanced toward the approaching temple, then back to Igor. "Stop the car at the temple side," he ordered lightly to the driver, who nodded and eased the vehicle to a halt.
The friend turned to Igor, a smile flickering with ease. "Hey man, would you like to go to the temple? I'm going, actually. It's been a while." His voice was casual, unaware of the storm beneath Igor's calm facade.
"No," Igor replied flatly, his voice cool, folding silence around him like a blade.
Yet as his eyes flicked toward the ancient stone walls, worn smooth by years of prayers and whispered secrets, something stirred deep inside—a fleeting shadow of something lost, a flicker of memory he had long buried. The temple's quiet presence was a stark contrast to the ruthless empire he commanded—a momentary crack in the armor of the man who had learned to fear softness as weakness.
Outside, unaware of the tension cloaked in the car, life carried on in fragile rhythms—the delicate play of sunlight filtering through leaves, the soft rustle of passersby, and somewhere beyond, a faint echo of dance and dream.
Igor's gaze lingered, his mind tangled in the threads of fate weaving relentlessly toward a girl dancing in that very temple—a fragile, defiant light threading through his darkness, a secret he was destined to find.