Quiet Like Violence

Some things don't break all at once.

Sometimes they shift quietly.
In glances held too long.
In silence that starts to mean something.
In words never explained.

Janna Sokolova-King learned a long time ago that distance was safer than misunderstanding.

Nikita Morozov learned too late that silence could ruin everything.

Now, years after one mistake changed the way they looked at each other, they're forced back into the same spaces, the same rooms, the same lives that were never truly separate to begin with.

And this time-
there's no pretending it means nothing.

Not when jealousy turns dangerous.
Not when old feelings become impossible to ignore.
And definitely not when someone new starts watching Janna a little too closely.

In the world they were born into, loyalty matters.
Control matters.
Love?

Love is the thing that destroys people.