A leash.
And I knew, with chilling certainty, that accepting it had just tightened the chain around my throat.
“You’re too naive,” Ruslan said quietly, voice measured, carrying the weight of inevitability, “and living in illusion if you think marrying Harris will get you that inheritance.”
I whirled to face him, heart hammering, voice trembling despite my effort to steady it. “What... what do you mean?”
He checked his watch—gold, understated, impossibly expensive. The metal caught the sunlight, glinting like a warning.
“You will never marry Harris,” he said, eyes still hidden behind dark lenses. “So there is no point in telling you. But everything you’ve believed about your family, your fortune, your life... may be a lie. Every story you thought was yours, every pain you carried... could already have been twisted.”
He turned and walked away, long, deliberate strides eating up the distance to the villa.
The sound of his footsteps echoed off the marble floors, crisp and final.
I stood frozen, heart hammering.
What lie?
What secrets could he possibly know about my family that I had never glimpsed?
The questions collided in my chest like jagged glass, sharp and unrelenting.
I felt the weight of every unspoken truth I’d tried to ignore since my father died—the hidden clauses, the cold legal maneuvers, the half-truths whispered by lawyers and distant relatives.
I looked past him toward the elephants.
Luna and her calf were moving slowly toward the small artificial pond at the edge of the clearing, their massive feet crunching on the gravel path.
The calf trotted beside her, ears flapping, trunk stretching up in tiny, tentative touches against her tusk. The bond was palpable, almost sacred.
My chest tightened as I watched them.
I stepped closer, slow, careful, measuring every sound, every movement. My bare feet pressed into the cool, uneven stone, toes gripping instinctively.
Luna noticed me first. Her ears flared slightly, the creases of her trunk flexing, before relaxing as she sensed no threat. The calf looked up, curious, blinking huge, innocent eyes at me. My heart stuttered.
I crouched a safe distance away, trying not to startle them.
“Hello, beautiful,” I whispered softly to the mother. My voice felt absurdly small beneath the vast sky, beneath her immense presence, beneath the memory of all the grief I’d carried the night before.
She rumbled—a deep vibration that rolled through the ground, through my bones—and took one slow step forward, lifting her massive head so that I could extend my hand.
I held out my palm, fingers trembling slightly.
She extended her trunk—warm, soft, surprisingly delicate—and sniffed my fingers, pressing the tip against my palm in a gesture that felt deliberate.
I laughed softly—shaky, unpracticed, and yet filled with a relief so deep I could feel it in my chest.
The sound startled the calf, who squealed excitedly and trotted over, trunk stretching toward me with eager curiosity.
I let him explore, my hands brushing over his smooth, earthy skin as he patted my arm, my shoulder, even my hair. He smelled faintly of hay, mud, and sunlight.
When he found the sugarcane stalk his mother had dropped, he seized it triumphantly, waving it like a tiny conqueror claiming a prize.
Luna watched with what seemed like amusement, rumbling low and deep in her chest, the vibration soothing, almost musical.
For a few precious minutes, the world contracted to this clearing, this moment: a mother loving her child, a baby full of joy, the sun warm on my skin, the scent of grass and sugarcane drifting in the breeze. No graves. No blood. No rain-soaked terror. No Ruslan. No conspiracies. No twisted family legacies. Just life. Raw, pure, beautiful.
