Hidden Mafia Love with a campus girl

The University College London lecture hall was vibrating to the silence of nervous Economics undergraduates in their final year. High windows of those windows pierced the sunlight, lines flashing across the hard features of the rows of expectant faces. Nalia Mensah was sitting close to the entrance with her pen and notebook ready. Her dark hair was pulled back, and accentuated the resolute jaw of her face. It was not another lecture, and it was him today.

Professor Volkov came to the podium, and a sort of wave of consciousness ran through the room. He was impeccably groomed in an elegant, tailored suit of charcoal and was in a commanding yet strict presence. There was nothing wrong with his silver-streaked dark hair, and his eyes, which were a piercing blue-grey, swept the audience with an unnerving intensity. His notes were laid aside with a sharp clicking noise.

Good afternoon, it was such a smooth, low, carrying voice. We are dipping our toes into the dark waters of the shadow banking today. Distribution systems that exist outside the conventional regulating frameworks. He hesitated and stared at Nalia directly. "You would say, Miss Mensah, maybe you would start us out on the ethical implications.

Nalia was experiencing the same electric shock as he electric burner. This was the case since the first lecture weeks ago. The moment of instantaneous, intense connection which was illogical. She got up, adjusting her dress, the swish telling off in the quietness. "Thank you, Professor. There is a paradox behind shadow banking. It provides liquidity in areas that the traditional systems cannot, which is imperative to the world markets. However, there is opaqueness that creates systemic risk. A severe reminder was the crisis in 2008.

Well, I think you have, Adrian said, with a small smile. And what conceals the necessity in peril must engage? What is the control of the uncontrollable? He stepped nearer to the first row and never took his eyes off her. The atmosphere felt strengthened and laden with something powerful.

Their conversation was easily a wit of wit. Nalia put his presumptions on market resilience to the test, and he responded with historical examples. The rest of the class faded. And it was only her and him and a matching game of finance and intricate political negotiations that they conducted using only their lips. As the lecture came to an end, students leaving their table pushed past her desk and Adrian came up to her desk.

Incisive indeed are your thoughts, Miss Mensah, refreshingly so, with this low, intimate voice. Maybe you would like to continue a conversation with coffee? My treat."

The heart of Nalia beat like her ribs. This was a threatening ground. There were rumours concerning Professor Volkov - his riches, his contacts, his... passion. There was attraction in him, there was something magnetic about him, there was a depth that attracted her in spite of her better judgment.

Thanks, Professor; thanks, she thought, and swung her head round, feeling as though she were moving through a stormy sea. "But I have a prior engagement."

His facial expression showed a tightening of the eyebrow with an alternation of amusement in the eyes. "Very well. Perhaps another time." He walked away, without leaving her a whisper. This, I tell you, Nalia, it is ultimately resistance.

She could see him walk away, how he was swinging his hips, the proud walk. She felt the shiver down her spine and she was scared and fascinated at the same time. Why did she feel so helpless and alive about this man?

Lita Warren, her best friend and roommate, came up as she put her books in the bag. "Wow, Nalia. That was... intense. Is he always that... focused?"

Nalia glanced and was obliged to smile casually. And, by the way, just enthusiastic about his subject, I guess.

Her charge was conspiratorial; her gaze bent nearer to her. "Passionate? Honey, that man oozes power. Be careful. “Men like that are those who do not take no so well,” Lita said.

Nalia shook her head, but the message Lita gave caught her off guard. "I'm just a student, Lita. Nothing more."

However, as she was walking out of the lecture room, the tune of Adrian Volkov resonated, a hint of something much more complicated and dangerous than a simple date with coffee. The game was started, and Nalia, all her will as it was, was thrilled beyond reason contemplating it. Little did she suspect that this apparently trivial lecture would trigger a series of occurrences that would shatter her world, hold her beliefs, and make her question the definition of love and power as we know it.

The sun was setting behind the horizon, and she was walking towards her little flat in Bloomsbury with the burden of the scandal of her father on her conscience. She opened the door with the pleasant smell of dinner and heard her sister, Amara, humming in the kitchen.

Dinner is nearly ready, Peeta, I called, I am not looking up yet; I only have to stir a pot. "How was your day?"

“Thought-provoking enough, I guess”, as I put my bag down, said Nalia. The flash of Adrian’s face came to her mind. After the lesson, I had an interview with Professor Volkov.

Amara looked up, and there was an intelligent expression in her eyes. "The handsome one? Lita commented he is... well-connected.

Nalia was filling a glass of water and looking away at her sister. "He offered coffee."

"And you said no?" Amara raised an eyebrow. It is like: Since when have you refused interesting men?

Nalia said, on the contrary, I did not want to encourage him, but the truth was more than that. To flatter him was what her body requested, and her head screeched to warn. We did not have any problems, Amara. We don't need more."

Her relation groaned, and a knowledge settled in her face. "You're right. However, perhaps a bit of complication would not be as bad? For once?"

Nalia smiled feebly and touched her sister on the shoulder. "Let's eat. Tomorrow's another day."

However, lying in bed later than evening the same day, she could not stop dreaming about Adrian Volkov. His eyes, his voice, the speechless challenge which he had flung. Resistance, she said, may be entirely in vain. And maybe, somewhere in her heart, she did not want it to be. The prohibited sense of forbiddingness was heady, a seductive flute song that she felt herself at first unable to resist. The lecture came to an end, but the actual ordeal had just begun.