"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin-
***
"You will be back to US tomorrow, right?" she asked him as they were walking down the Gorky Park, it would be his last destination in Moscow. They were passing by the ice skating rink, silently watching as people skated around with nothing but smiles and giggles on their face. The sky was getting slightly dark and they knew that soon they would have to go back.
"Yes, work will start soon." He replied briefly. She had gotten used to his cold attitude, which she found was mostly due to his introverted nature. Lana did not mind it at all, in fact she thought it was quite charismatic in a different direction
The two had spent so much time together for the last week, he had not realized it, but he had opened himself up to her and felt much more comfortable, they had gone to so many places, from getting a live view of Lenin preserved body at Lenin Mausoleum to visiting Moskvarium, she had helped him discover several places he would not have figured out otherwise, and despite being a well-organized man with fixed to do list, she had made him change several little details of his trip which he ended up enjoying, she was more carefree in her approach toward travel, it had made its influence on him.
One thing he still did not understand was why? Why would she spend so much of her time with him when they barely knew each, how she had so much free time to accompany him like that, at the end of their day together, he still knew absolutely nothing about her except a few basic things like her likes and dislikes.
At the end of their trip, before he went back to his apartment to pack his belongings, he handed her over an envelope filled with some roubles he had prepared since the night before, once she had a look at the inside, she quickly returned it back to him.
"No, I don't need it, I enjoyed our time together, you can keep it." Once more, Damian was silently baffled by this woman, she was an oddball in a positive way. On his first day at the city, he would have never expected his trip to turn out the way it did and he clearly was not expecting a company.
"You can just pay me back the next time we meet again, by then I'll be expecting lots of dinner dates. You'll pay for every dates." She winked. Damian felt himself blushing for the first time in his life. It was the strangest feeling ever. He still could not quite grasp it.
They called a taxi and drove back to the apartment together, while both of them were staring outside the window, he stole a few glances toward her here and there, unsure of what he was feeling at the moment.
The thought of no longer meeting her in the future brought a certain emotion in his heart, he tried to identify the feeling, it was a mix of sadness, a bit of disappointment and a dash of...loneliness? That could not be it, he must have misanalysed himself. Why would he feel lonely without her? Yes, she was a joy to be around with, but she was no one to him, if she was a timeline, she would be a momentary phase in his life, so why was his heart so deeply bothered by their definite farewell?
After the ride was over, they both stepped down from the car and was about to walk in when they saw two black cars parked right outside the apartment, which was unusual, they were not parked in the correct parking spot, yet no one seemed to confront them, not even the apartment's own security officer.
Lana knew right away that something was not quite right, she had a tight feeling in her gut that told her something terrible awaited for her inside, she flashed a frown to Damian who was understood the situation. Guess it was their mutual sense of sensitivity toward danger. Both of them took the emergency stairs instead of the elevator to reach their floor. Which fortunately was empty at the time. The made sure as they were reaching near the floor, they decelerated their steps to prevent anyone from hearing their presence.
The emergency door itself was sound proof, but sometimes someone would forget to keep them closed. It was better to take precaution that regretting it.
Her instinct was right, once they arrived in front of the door, she slowly opened the door without making any noise, she stole a peek to find several men in black t-shirt and jeans standing in front of the door, she had recognized some of them as Vincent's men. Not like she ever remembered their face, she just had a sharp memory for faces. What truly disturbed her was the fact that they were able to find her so soon, she predicted they would eventually but not that soon, and especially not when she was having a guest. She spun her head trying to come up with a solution, because she rather died than coming back to that vicious man.
"What's going on, who are they?" Damian whispered from behind her, she placed her index finger in front of her lips to silent him. From where they were hiding, she could hear their conversation with someone on the other side of the phone.
"We're here, it looks like she isn't home yet, her door is locked, we will wait here until we find her...yes...understood!" then the phone went silent. She was navigating the amount of people that was sent, there were seven in totals. If she was to make a scene on the hallway, the space would be way too small for her or Damian to tackle them on their own without damaging any of the property. Then she thought of an idea.
"Can you help me?" Damian had no idea what she was thinking, but whatever it was, he knew he would not like it. She opened the door and went down to the end of the staircase, grabbing the attention of the men who were standing on the other end. They were frozen for a minute as she flash them a seductive smile before running down the stairs, they soon reacted by chasing her down, it was like a game of tag, she went all the way from the tenth floor down to the ground floor and went outside, where Damian was already waiting on the other side.
Right before they were out, Damian who had been waiting on the ground floor near the exit, pretending to be another visitor went and beat up two men who were running on the back, simply by chopping the neck with his hand, a very dangerous move he would never do unless it was a case of emergency, like what they were facing. Once they were unconscious, he quickly tied their hands and legs before following her outside where she was once more surrounding by the men.
He was about to attack them when a smirk suddenly appeared on her face, confusing him, and then out of nowhere, she began attacking the men one by one, she used both her arms and her legs in a way which resembled a dance. Capoeira? No, it was not exactly that, it looked more like MMA, the way she threw her punches looked like a mixture of boxing and karate, her kicks looked like enhanced version of Tae Kwon Do and Muay Thai with a few personal twists. When one of the man grabbed her by the shoulder, she swiftly caught his wrist and flipped him to the ground, which was a move learnt in Judo.
It was only when he snapped out of his amazement did he make a move and started to threw his punches as well. Unlike the gangster members he had fought earlier that week, these men were a bit more difficult to defeat.
They were more experienced, and their movements were so much smoother, as if they had years and years of experience, however, the goddess of luck was on their favor that day because somehow, the two of them managed to take these men down. It took quite a bit and by the end, they were exhausted, which is why both preferred short term, but explosive fight, because it was also a battle with time.
After ensuring that the men were completely unconscious, they tied them up one by one and took out any weapon they might carry with them, but surprisingly, none of them were carrying any gun.
I want her to be delivered unharmed.
They dragged them one by one to the basement where they had to wait for someone to release them when they gained consciousness. The street was dark and people barely walked pass the side of the building. It was a quiet winter night. Almost too serene for what had just happened. After they were done, they rushed upstairs to pack their belongings.
"Why are you packing as well?" He asked her after returning the key to the host. She was already waiting outside in the lobby with a large suitcase on her hand and a large carry on around her shoulder.
"This place is no longer safe for me, I'm coming with you." He raised his eyebrow in bewilderment, but she casually pulled up her sleeve and walked outside.
"Come on, the taxi is here!" she casually said as she placed her luggage on the garage. He was dumbfounded. It was one of the most unexpected thing that ever happened in his life, and he had been through a lot. As he stood still, she turned once more to him.
"Are you coming or not?" she entered the car and he had no choice but to follow, he placed his own luggage and got in the car, seated side by side with her.
"Would those men be fine?" he asked her.
"Don't worry, they'll be fine. He'll probably send another wave soon, this is why we must leave as soon as possible." she said with such ease, as if it was nothing.
Just who are you, Lana?
"You can't master your future if you are a slave to your past."-Unknown-***Lana was smuggling her way into the airplane as the passengers started to enter one by one. She did not want to admit it but she really hated flying. Slowly, she turned to find her seat which was located in the middle of the row. Both her and Damian had booked themselves tickets with seats number beside each other. Hers was supposedly in the middle of the three row seat, but instead she picked the seat near the window, gaining herself gazes of displease from Damian."What? You can surely take the middle seat, can't you?" she grinned made him unable to get mad. Something about the way she smiled was magical. It was almost as if she knew she could get whatever she want with that sweet yet wicked smile of hers.Definitely a fox.
"Opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams. That is being naked."-Rob Bell-***Lana had finished telling her part of the story and Alexander could see she was trying her best to hold back the tears which had gathered around the rim of her eyes. For some strange reason, Damian did not understand why but in his heart he felt a sharp pang, his insticnt had told him to grab some tissue to wipe away her tears but he held himself back because he did not want her to get the wrong idea. Before long she continued the story."It was probably the second most traumatizing thing in my life. The first one was the loss of my father and a few years later just whe
"Sociopaths are often quite satisfied with themselves and with their lives and perhaps for this very reason there is no effective 'treatment'."-Martha Stout-***The room felt dark, cold and uninviting. The young master was sitting behind his desk wearing a black suit and pants which matched his personality. The guards inside the room were quiet as they silently watched him. Every movement he made made them nervous, for they had never known what he would do afterward. Such unpredictable temper he had, it was almost impossible to predict his mood, one moment he would be laughing, the next second he would snap someone's head off.Vincent pulled out his second cigarette from its pocket, placing it in between his lips and signaled one of the guard to lit it up. The tan muscular guard stepped forward with a match placing the fire on the edge of
"We cling to hierarchies because our place in hierarchy is, rightly or wrongly, a major indicator of our social worth."-Harlod Leavitt-***The heavy sounds of footsteps against metal floor echoed throughout the room. From the front door one could see dozens of computer being turned on as dozens of people in the hood sat in front of the computers clicking and typing codes only few would understand.One man in particular had just entered the room. He stood there and watched everyone from afar, ensuring briefly that none of them were slacking. Though that was not his intention of the day, he had something much more important to do than observing others, he walked to the end of the room where there was another door which could only be accessed by certain people. They had installed the most ad
"One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt."-Georgia O' Keefe-***"Lana, Lana, wake up, the plane is about to land." Damian softly nudged on Lana who was still asleep. It was not always the easiest thing to wake her up, but since all she did in the plane was either sleeping or eating, she had enough of those. She was still in a trance when she straightened her body on her seat. Unable to stretch her hands like she usually did without hitting Damian. The window was already opened and she could feel the sun touching her face.Her fingers softly rubbed her eyes while she closed her mouth with her other hand as she yawned. She had never slept so deeply in a plane before and she actually had a decent dream. She thought having Damian beside her might have something to do with it. Maybe his presence besides her made her feel a l
"Unexpected things happen in life more often than you expect."-Plautus-***Damian woke up in his bed half naked, his head was still spinning from jet lag, which apparently he had not gotten used to despite have been through it for years. It was his first day of work for the new year and to be honest he did wish he could take a few more days off, but since he was a responsible man, he would not neglect his responsibility due to personal reasons. He stood up, dragged himself to the bathroom and took a quick shower, before going out, put on his shirt, jeans, and jacket, then made his way to work.On his way there, he suddenly felt as soon as he walked into the door's building that something was incredibly wrong, because unlike usual, he saw people from the cyber security department running back and forth on their computer to each other with t
"I do not believe in meaningless coincidences. I believe every coincidence is a message, a clue about a particular facet of our lives that requires our attention."-Deepak Chopra-***Lana woke up the unfamiliar bedroom, her head was still trying to process everything that had happened. So much had happened in the course of two days she did not know if it was even real. She got off from the bed and took out some of her personal care from the luggage. She still had some unboxing to do, but before anything else, she needed to get ready. It was a priority fo her.Despite everything, she still had the Russian habit in her, since she was in Russia, she had hung around a lot of Russian women, whom were truly beautiful. They took high regard to their appearance, they were always so polished and she admired them. They had taught her many things and
"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the only beginning."-Ivy Baker Priest-***When she arrived, she walked into the building and was greeted by the receptionist. The man was asking her who she was looking for and she told him she was called by Damian Heart. The receptionist recognized the name and he told her to wait for a moment as he was making a call upstairs.Damian who received the news was relieved because the place had been filled with too much chaos, he really could use an extra hand. By the time she came over, most engineers in the room had developed a massive headache due to what happened. He wasted no time and ordered her to be summoned immediately. The receptionist gave her the directions around the building and she was eventually left on her own to find the room, which was not a problem be
"Maybe it's a fairy tale, but I believe in happily ever after."-Jennifer Aniston-***A lot of things happened to Damian and Lana throughout the year. After the proposal was over, the two of them quickly set up their dreams together with the resources they had in hand at the moment.They had bought a comfortable penthouse in New York near their newly established company office. Lana remained true to her words and used the money she inherited to invest in the company with Damian as the CEO and her being the board member director. She would be watching everything while advising Damian in every move he made. Basically it belonged to both of them by title, but Lana was the one controlling everything.Yes, she thought in the tech industry it would be better and much comfortable for her to use Damian as the front face of the company while she became the mastermind. It was not that she was incapable of handling the company herse
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments. but what is woven into the lives of others."-Pericles-***She did not know who the woman was or how she was able to know her name, it was the first time she had ever seen her. The woman was definitely not an ordinary woman since she had this strong presence of mystique on her. Her eyes were pitch black, almost as if they were tattooed and she had a futuristic, almost robotic impression. Lana was not sure what kind of business she had with her.However, she could already tell the woman was not welcomed into her life. The woman did come alone which was sort of a relief because she was not in the mood to fight anyone. There was no threat and no signs of attack coming from her. Still, Lana was not going to let her guard down, experience had taught her to never do so in front of strangers.“Who are you and how do you know my name?” She questioned,
"Love the giver more than the gift."-Brigham Young-***“Yes, of course I’ll marry you.” Lana chuckled as she accepted his proposal. Her heart was beating like crazy. She had never felt such strong joy in her life before. Perhaps it was because her life was mostly filled with crazy events concerning her family background, but for the first time in her life she felt so giddy and happy like a little girl. Damian too was relieved and he could not stop smiling as he gently inserted the ring on her ring finger.As he had expected, the ring fits her perfectly. She had shown him her ring collection before and he had secretly measured them. Could not help it, he had planned on marrying her since they returned back from Vincent’s old manor. Almost losing her was what made him realize he could not bear the thought of losing her. He thought the only way to secure her for himself forever was by making sure she became
"The expected is what keeps us steady. It's the unexpected that changes our lives forever."-Grey's Anatomy-***Walking around with the necklace on made her felt so precious, although the necklace did go well with the jewelry she had at the moment, she felt like it still stood out due to the fact that it was made from 22K gold and contained real diamond on it.Damian had told her to put it on throughout their entire date because he wanted to make sure that she was aware of the man beside her, who had promised to granted her a life full of security and stability, both literally and figuratively.The necklace was just a small part of his promise for their future. Beside that, She thought it was adorable so she kept it on."Make sure you keep on holding my hands, I want people to see that you are mine." He stated casually as he held her hand tightly.Lana was not sure why he was acting a bit more protective of
"You will never find a woman without ready answer."-William Shakespeare-***Damian felt like an absolute fool. He could not believe himself since he was not able to properly meet up with Lana just because he was still thinking about what her reaction might be. He knew both of them were not teenagers and they had been through a lot together but there was a part of him that was still afraid if Lana took his gifts the wrong way and ended up feeling even more upset than before.Usually he would come and visit her everyday ever since Dimitri was murdered however he had not visited her in the past two days since he received all the items he needed to give her because of his own personal fear. Truly, Damian felt like he was acting like his old self who was too unbothered to approach a woman.He knew he could not continue acting that way because Lana might get the wrong perception of him, although the two of them had been commun
"There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on."-Zayn Malik-***Ivana walked down the airplane with a huge smile on her face. For the first time in years she felt a sense of freedom she could never did before. She could already smell the joy which the future held for her and her heart was beating in excitement. Who would have thought fate would eventually led her there? It was truly a miracle.After Vincent’s death which made her stomach turned, she thought her future was hopeless, after all it was Vincent who had provided everything for her these entire time, but then she spent a few days contemplating about it and realized that his death was far from being a curse and ending of her life. No, it was the opposite, his death was truly a blessing in disguise. For a man who have hurt so many innocent
"God prunes us when He is about to take us into new season of growth and expansion."-Christine Caine-***Lana woke up that day feeling a bit more refreshed than usual, she had cried so much these past few days that she ended up being unable to cry any longer. She had also been taking a break from work and spent most of her time sleeping as she tried to forget what had been happening and the day finally came when she could cope with reality and felt slightly better. She felt like she was starting to recover from the trauma. It had been exactly a week since it happened and although it might be a brief amount of time, for her it had been the longest week. She decided she no longer wanted to feel like useless crap, so she did a bit of meditation that morning and some light exercises as she got her body used to the movement again.Afterward she showered and made a light breakfast, the past week she had been eating pretty unhealthy b
"Revenge is a confession of pain."-Latin Proverb-***When Vincent was much younger, his family still lived in their old house in the countryside area of the city far away from the rest of the population. Even though it was located in the countryside, the neighborhood was still considered an upper class neighborhood with high security system and access to beautiful view.The man might not remember it as an adult, but as a child he used to have a neighbor couple who had a young daughter who was one year younger than he was. She had the most stunning pale blue eyes and classic golden blonde hair which made her perfect as a cast of They used to play together for years until he was sixteen and she was fifteen. While Vincent was busy learning about business and caring for his education, the young girl would often sneak into his house and climbed through his window, since his room was on the first floor.The young girl was alwa
"Sometimes the biggest disappointment leads you to the right place."-Carey Graeber-***The woman was dressed in a black sleeveless A-line dress. She crossed her legs and placed her red bottom shoes on top of the man who was on all four right underneath the table. The tip of her heels was right on top of his head but the man did not seem bothered at all, in fact, he remained still without making any sound in fear of disappointing her.She had been watching everything through the hundreds screen within the large room, each played using tiny robotic projectors within the place. Through her pitch black eyes, she saw what had happened and tapped her fingers on the table. She was supposed to be happy the man she hated the most in the world was eventually dead, however she felt extremely dissatisfied with how things turned out simply because it was not her who got rid of him, it was someone else and the thought of him dying without ex