WHAT HE ERASED
Ten years.
Ten years I gave Viktor Volkov everything; my hands, my loyalty, my designs, my silence. When his father stepped in front of a moving truck to save my life and died on that pavement, I became his son's by debt. By duty. And somewhere along the way, by something far more dangerous than either.
Love.
Foolish, one-sided, ruinous love.
Now the doors of the Volkov estate are closing behind me with the quiet finality of a verdict. No argument. No goodbye worth remembering. Just the click of a latch and the ghost of a matching tattoo Viktor had lasered off his wrist before she arrived Elara Conti, all silk and Italian marble, the woman he chose in the time it took me to stop pretending he ever saw me.
He gutted my studio. Erased my name from every wall. Turned ten years into a footnote.
What Viktor doesn't know is that I'm walking out of those gates carrying the one thing he can never erase.
His.
And I will burn this entire life to the ground before I let him find out.