I march back to her, closing the distance in three long strides. My hands find her face—warm, trembling beneath my palms—and before I can stop myself, the words tear out of me.
“I love you so much, Elara.”
For a split second, she stares at me, eyes wide. Then she exhales, almost as if it’s a confession she’s been holding forever. “I love you too.”
It hits me like a punch. It’s raw, dizzying, perfect.
I kiss her again, not with desperation this time, but with the kind of certainty that could burn through a war.
When I finally pull back, I rest my forehead against hers. “Wait for me,” I whisper.
Then, because if I stay another second, I won’t be able to leave at all, I turn and walk away.
Chapter 21 – Elara
I wake to the soft hush of morning, the kind that should bring peace—but doesn’t. The manor feels too big, too still, too empty without him. Sunlight filters through the window, warm and golden, but it only sharpens the ache in my chest.
Roman is gone.
He’s gone to lead his men into battle. This time against my father’s network. Against the same darkness that’s haunted both of us since the beginning.
I pull the sheets closer, his scent still clinging to them—smoke, cedar, something warm and restless. My chest tightens.
Last night replays in my mind like a fever dream. His hands on my face. His voice breaking open the silence between us.I love you so much, Elara.
I didn’t think I’d ever hear those words from him. Roman has always shown it—in the way he touches, shields, and fights for me—but to hear it out loud…it undid something inside me.
I love him too.
I want him to return so I can scream it to the skies, sing it from the rooftops until the whole world knows—I love him. So much it almost hurts. The kind of love that burns through fear, through reason, through everything I used to believe about safety.
Tears sting my eyes as I stare out the window, the morning stretching endlessly before me. I hope he’s safe. I hope he comes back to me in one piece.
Because I know my father. I know the kind of man David Chang is—vicious, cruel, unrelenting. He doesn’t forgive, and he doesn’t lose.
And Roman…Roman has walked straight into his storm.
I stay in bed all day, cocooned in silence. Even when the maids knock with breakfast, I tell them to leave it by the door. I can’t eat. I can’t move. The sheets still smell like him—cedarwood and smoke—and every breath I take feels like punishment.
I stare at the ceiling until the light shifts from morning to afternoon. The world moves on outside my window, but nothing interests me. Not food. Not conversation. Not even the sunlight that used to make this room glow.
All I can think about is Roman. Where he is. Whether he’s still breathing. Whether the man I love is fighting for his life while I lie here, useless and afraid.
By late evening, I finally cave and turn on the TV, hoping for a distraction—anything to stop the loop of worry in my head. Maybe a mindless movie. Maybe some noise to fill the silence Roman left behind.
But as the screen flickers to life, my heart stops.
My father’s face fills the screen—stern jaw, eyes red and swollen like he’s been crying for days. He’s seated in some glossy conference room, a microphone in front of him, press lights flashing from every direction.
“My daughter,” he says, voice trembling, “has been kidnapped by the Russian mafia.”
I blink once. Twice. The words hit me like a slap.
He pauses, just long enough for the cameras to drink him in—his grief, his supposed pain—before lowering his head. When he looks up again, tears spill down his cheeks, perfect and practiced.
“She is being held against her will,” he continues, his voice breaking. “By a man named Roman Rusnak.”
My stomach flips. I can’t breathe. I can hear the sniffles, the reporters murmuring, the clicking of camera shutters.
