"I didn't expect the Bratva's tech queen to be quite so... captivating," Lorenzo's voice dripped with irony as he observed Galina, who was absorbed in deciphering a web of encrypted data.
Galina's gaze remained fixed on her screens, her expression a...
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The restaurant was swallowed by an unsettling stillness, thick as fog and dense with anticipation, as though the very air had grown heavier, suffocating beneath the weight of unsaid things. My breath seemed to drown within the confines of the silence, the clinking of silverware and soft murmurs of other patrons fading into distant echoes. In this quiet cocoon, my college friends—the ones I once knew so well, the ones who should have been my safe harbor—now felt like distant figures from a life I could scarcely remember.
I sat across from them, my body rigid, yet somehow lighter than I felt inside. The candlelight flickered in the gloom, casting shadows that danced like ghosts upon the plush velvet booths, making everything feel unreal, as if we were all trapped within a dream that threatened to spiral into nightmare.
Anastasia Knight, seated beside me, was the first to speak with her eyes. They were dark and unyielding, a storm of brown that cut through me with an intensity that almost made me recoil. Her gaze was sharp, slicing through the carefully constructed layers of myself I had worked so hard to build. She wasn't asking questions—not yet—but looking at me as if she could tear through my soul, peel back the façade and expose the raw, unspoken truth buried underneath. Her brow furrowed with confusion, but beneath it, there was something darker—an accusation I could feel as much as hear.
Alex Knight, her twin, sat opposite me. His arms crossed defensively over his chest, his expression a portrait of betrayal. His lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. I could see the strain in his jaw, the way his eyes flicked from me to Anastasia, as if seeking answers he knew I couldn't provide. The resemblance between them was a knife twist, both of them so perfectly aligned in their anger, yet their faces betrayed the same quiet devastation, the same disbelief.
And Nico Walker, the one who had always been a little less vocal but no less intense, leaned back in his seat, his posture casual, though his eyes burned with a quiet fury that I knew all too well. His eyes spoke volumes, volumes of disappointment—disappointment I felt like a suffocating grip around my throat, making it impossible to breathe, impossible to explain.
They stared at me as if I were a ghost—a pale, hollow version of the person they had once trusted, once loved. I felt it then, that slow, creeping pressure in my chest, the knowledge that no matter what I said, nothing would ever be the same. They would never look at me the way they once had. And that knowledge cut deeper than any weapon could.
