Emotional vulnerability.
Identity reshaping itself around someone else’s needs.
Would it have been easier if Ruslan were here?
A dangerous question.
Even if part of me — the wounded, tired part — sometimes imagined what it would feel like to have him standing beside me during those long nights.
To share responsibility.
To share weight.
But imagination wasn’t reality.
And reality had cost me too much already.
If not for Yannis —
I would have left months ago.
I would have packed my luggage, gathered what remained of my independence, and returned to New York.
The city called to me in a way California never could.
Skyscrapers rising into endless sky.
Anonymous crowds.
Freedom hidden inside noise.
No mafia surveillance.
No constant reminders of my past.
No empire built around a man who once controlled every aspect of my life.
New York represented reinvention.
Escape.
Control over my own narrative.
A place where I could exist without being defined by Ruslan Baranov’s shadow.
Ten months living here — under protection but still confined — had worn me thin.
I had adapted.
I had survived.
But I had not thrived.
My energy had gone almost entirely into Yannis.
And watching him transform over the past nine months had been the only true reward.
He had changed.
