LOGINTATIANAIt wasn’t the kind of silence that soothed. It pressed in from all sides, thick and contained, like the air itself had been stripped of anything unnecessary. My head throbbed faintly as awareness sharpened, my breathing uneven for a moment before I forced it to steady.I tried to move.My hands didn’t.The realization settled heavily, not as panic, but as something more measured. My wrists were bound tightly behind a post, the position pulling my shoulders back just enough to make every slight movement strain against the restraints.There was something in my mouth.Cloth.Rough enough to dry out my tongue, to make swallowing uncomfortable.I exhaled slowly through my nose, grounding myself in the sensation rather than fighting it immediately. Panic would only make this worse. It always did.So I stayed still.Listened.Waited.Footsteps broke through the silence.Slow. Deliberate.They didn’t rush. Didn’t hesitate. Each step carried a quiet certainty that made something uneasy
TATIANAA breath left my lungs quietly, controlled, like my body was trying to hold itself together despite what my mind had already understood.Out of everything they could have used—They chose her.Because they knew. They knew exactly where to aim.Emily, who had already paid for my mistakes once. Emily, who had struggled on her own to rebuild her life after everything fell apart. Emily, who had nothing to do with any of this.I locked my phone, the image still burned into my mind, and pushed myself off the shelf.The bottle remained where I left it and moved toward the door without hesitation.The hallway felt colder when I stepped out, quieter in a way that made everything seem more deliberate. Like the house itself had withdrawn from me the moment I crossed that threshold, leaving me to stand in the open with nothing but the weight of my own decisions pressing down on my shoulders.And then I saw the van sat just beyond the gates, exactly where the message said it would be. The
TATIANAI knew Hasan hated me.It wasn’t something I had to guess at or piece together from fragments. It was there, plain and unhidden, in the sharpness of his voice, in the way his eyes held mine like I was something he would rather erase than face. He had said so a thousand times.If given the chance, he would ruin me. I had no doubt about that.And yet, standing there with my back pressed against the door I had just been kicked out of, my palm flat against the wood like it could somehow ground me, I found myself thinking something far worse.I would rather he run me over with a truck than touch another woman the way he had touched me.The thought was ugly, and painfully honest.Because no matter how much hatred lived between us, there had always been something else tangled beneath it. Something neither of us had ever been able to bury properly, no matter how much time passed or how far we tried to run from it.He hated me. But he had never been able to stop wanting me. And that wa
HASANI froze mid-kiss.Althea’s presence made the room collapse in on itself, thick with tension. Tatiana’s body stiffened beneath me, her breath catching as she realized, too, who had intruded. My hands didn’t release her immediately, but I felt the shift in her energy, the sudden awareness of eyes on us that were not mine.In the blink of an eye, Tatiana was pulled away from me as Althea’s hand fisted in her hair, yanking her off me with such force that the warmth of her body disappeared before my mind could process the movement itself.Tatiana stumbled, her balance thrown off as Althea forced her back. A sharp inhale left her lips, more shock than pain, but it cut through the fog in my head all the same.I should have moved. That thought came and went in the same instant because the heat inside me didn’t loosen its grip. If anything, it tightened, coiling through my body in slow, suffocating waves that made every limb feel heavier than the last.“What the hell do you think you are
HASANThe dizziness didn’t leave with Althea. Even after the study door had clicked shut behind her, the room still spun. My head pounded in rhythm with the fire coursing through my veins that was impossible to ignore.I had barely managed the call with my PA when I slammed my laptop shut. The sound did nothing for the heat that had taken residence in my body. My shirt clung to me like a second skin, every nerve alert and screaming, and I could not stand it.My fingers fumbled at the buttons as I dragged myself toward the stairs, a sluggish, heavy dizziness turning each step into a chore, a challenge my body had no business failing.By the time I reached the first door I saw, I barely registered its location. Instinct carried me forward, my body reacting before my mind had fully processed. The door opened with a push, and I froze for the briefest of moments before registering the figure before me.Althea.I didn’t even think. The accusation ripped from my throat before I could stop it
HASANTatiana was hiding something.I had known it the moment I saw her outside the boutique struggling with those ridiculous shopping bags while clutching her phone like it contained the key to her survival.People thought they were subtle when they were nervous.They weren’t.Tatiana had always been especially bad at hiding fear. Her eyes widened slightly. Her shoulders stiffened. Her breathing changed.Five years had passed and apparently, she hadn’t learned a thing.My suspicions had solidified the moment I approached her from behind. The second my voice sounded, she jumped like someone had fired a gun next to her ear. Her phone slipped straight out of her hand.For a brief moment I had seen something in her expression that I hadn’t expected. Pure panic.It was the kind of reaction someone had when they were caught with something they shouldn’t have.And that meant only one thing: Tatiana was hiding something.As I wrapped my arm around Althea’s waist and walked her into the house
Tatiana’s POVI stood there for a while, not sure what to do with myself. My legs felt like they didn’t belong to me anymore. The music pulsed through the hall, all glitter and laughter and perfect people who didn’t know what it meant to crawl.I tried to breathe, but every inhale was shallow, like
TatianaI felt suffocated. My lungs refused to pull in enough oxygen as I stumbled through the crowd, weaving past strangers whose faces blurred out completely. Hasan’s laugh echoed behind me, mocking and haunting through the five fragile years I had spent trying to bury him in the darkest corners
Tatiana’s POVThe air left my lungs the moment the words left his mouth. Who are you planning to destroy this time? It was as if someone had reached inside my chest and crushed my heart between their fingers. I wanted to say it wasn’t like that, that I’d changed, that I’d spent every damn night pay
TATIANAThe night had barely started and it was already falling apart.I stepped into the club, music pounding through my chest, club lights slicing through the smoke as I forced my body into motion. It was supposed to be easy, just my everyday routine to smile, dance and collect my tips. But tonig







