KYLO’S POVThe stillness of the world outside was interrupted and stars flickered like burning coal on the black velvet sky. My breath turned into vapor in the coldness of the night as I crouched behind the high walls of the mansion. It wasn’t Theo’s home but it served as a prison for Varya.Every beat of my heart counted down to when I would soon arrive at her location.For weeks, I have been pursuing ghosts, sifting through dead-ends and false trails. But tonight, everything fell into place. Theo had slipped up, his increasingly erratic behavior leading me to this secluded property on the outskirts of the city.It was a heavily guarded fortress—too secure for a man simply protecting his business.He was hiding something, and I knew what. No, who?Varya was here. I could feel it in my bones.I slipped through the darkness, my movements precise and deliberate. Every step had been planned, every security measure calculated. I’d spent days watching the property, noting the shifts of the
“Varya,” I whispered, stepping into the room. Her head lifted, her eyes widening in disbelief as she saw me.“Kylo?” Her voice was hoarse, barely more than a rasp. She attempted to sit up but couldn’t, her body was helpless, helpless after being held captive for weeks. I was by her side in an instant lifting her up from the ground and pulling her close to me.“I’m here,” I whispered back, pulling her as close to me as she could get. “I am taking you out of here. ”She began crying and the both of us embraced each other and stood there strangely. But this is what we did not have time for. I note that I could feel the sense of impending doom surrounding us. Theo could come back at any moment, and if he saw us cuddling he would never let me live it down.“We have to go,” I whispered and retreated a little so we could properly look at each other. “Can you walk?”She agreed, even if she very much looked like she’d prefer sleeping instead of getting out of bed. I walked her to the door, hol
Varya’s POVThe hospital room was cold. The soft humming of machines was the only sound in the room, interrupted only by the steady beep of the heart monitor next to my bed.However, that did not do anything to calm down the storm swirling around inside me; the sore body I possessed with every muscle in it aching from all that trauma was nowhere near compared to that tornado made up of emotions taking over me.Kylo was by my side now, his hand resting gently on mine. He had been there since they brought me in, his presence a source of comfort even though he barely spoke.Theo and Tia had been arrested during the rescue, taken the moment they lost control. It was a cruel irony, one that left me feeling hollow inside.They had been the ones who orchestrated my kidnapping, yet now they were the ones in captivity. It should have brought me some satisfaction, but it didn’t.My thoughts were tangled, heavy with the weight of betrayal, fear, and confusion. And now, sitting beside me was some
I inhaled, allowing the quiet to linger in the air. My head was filled with the most diverse of feelings and my heart felt divided between wrath and kindness. There were words on the tip of my tongue but they remained unuttered. I only gazed at her, my face betraying no thoughts.Jasmin’s eyes filled with fresh tears, but she nodded slowly. She understood. She knew that my silence wasn’t forgiveness, but it was something. It was an acknowledgment of her pain, of her remorse. And that, for now, was enough.She rose from the chair slowly and tried to take a step towards the door, but her legs were like jelly. Her hand rested on the handle for a second then she looked back at me, her voice barely audible.“I am really sorry Varya, I don’t know what came over me. ”With that, she left the room quietly and I was left all alone to ponder all by myself. Still, it happened the door closed and the silence enfolded me again.I found myself lying on the bed with my eyes wide to the ceiling, the
Jasmin's povI sat alone in my upscale apartment, the silence pressing heavily against my ears. The room, immaculate and orderly, reflected the controlled life I had built for myself, but tonight, it felt stifling.I absently traced the rim of my coffee cup, the warm liquid long forgotten, as if its warmth could somehow counteract the cold weight of my guilt.My eyes strayed to the letter I had been scribbling for days—a cursory note of apology to Varya, trying to elucidate why I couldn't remain.But those words were devoid of substance, weak gestures to atone that hardly sufficed. No matter the earnestness, printed statements on paper with ink pens could not reverse the harm I'd caused.The framed photo of Varya on my desk—one from our last carefree summer together—was a cruel reminder of what once was. Her laughter seemed to echo through the empty apartment, mocking my regret.My eyes filled with tears as I considered the friendship I had violated and the trust I had broken. I had t
VARYA’S POVThe walls of the hospital room were pale, and the hard fluorescent lights made it feel sterile. I sat in an uncomfortable chair, staring blankly at a hanging IV drip while what Kylo revealed spun around in my head.It was not until his words got through to me like a knife that I started to bring back fragments of the deep-buried memories.Kylo had revealed everything about the accident—my father’s death and my mother’s life-changing injuries as a result of Mr. Anderson driving their car into the side of our truck.The information itself was mind-boggling but what shook me to my core is that Kylo, my husband, was still that very young boy from that night.It had been years since I'd gone into detail about the accident. These memories were closed off from each other; they couldn't be opened up for examination because they were too traumatizing for me to remember them again.However, with Kylo's revelations and bits of my past coming together again, there is now something fro
KYLO’S POVThe room in my apartment was a chaotic mess of documents, photographs, and scattered papers. Each item represented countless hours spent piecing together the truth of Varya’s harrowing ordeal.The city lights outside cast a muted glow, highlighting the seriousness of the task at hand. In preparing to face Theo, and his family, who we had accumulated the evidence against, my heart raced.I stood by the window staring out into the enormous city below with my mind focusing on the confrontation waiting ahead.This was not only about seeking justice for Varya but also making sure that those responsible suffered consequences for their actions: every decision had to be exact; thus, there couldn’t be any mistakes on my part.Turning away from the window I looked at Varya seated at the table whose face showed both determination and anxiety mixed together. Although she had gone through a lot of pain herself, there was still an unyielding flame inside her eyes indicating her willpower
Kylo's PovMy vehicle sped down urban routes where all I could hear was a soft buzzing from the machinery and patterns echoing my car’s tires on the pavement.There was an enormous load resting on my back considering how stressful life can be at times yet; a daunting activity awaited me: discussing with Dora her involvement in Varya’s abduction case.This incident becomes more complicated just as much as it reminds me that she was once my friend and it is very evident that she played a critical role in this entire disaster.Dora had always had a thing for me, an obsession that had bordered on unsettling. I hadn’t realized how far she was willing to go until now.The jealousy and resentment she harbored towards Varya—my wife—had pushed her to orchestrate a kidnapping, a crime that would forever alter our lives.Dora had been working behind Theo and his wife, Tia, pulling the strings in a twisted drama of betrayal and malice.As I navigated through the city, the memories of my past with