Ilian
So this is what it feels like to be a ghost in someone's life you've burned yourself into. Forgotten, while I remember every scar she carved into me. Her padded footsteps behind me were slow and deliberate, and every inch of my soul begged to turn, to grab her, to end this torment.
For I could not take it anymore.
Since the moment I saw her on school grounds, the flood of memories crashed into me with merciless force. Her laugh, her eyes, her hair tangled with the fragments of childhood—pieces I had kept alive like relics, and now they burned through me with fire in my veins.
But when I looked at her, I knew. She remembered nothing. Not me. Not us. While I remembered every inch of her soul.
She was every bit the angel I had imagined her to be. All these years.
How cruel of God to place her before me when He knew all she could do was ruin me again.
When she fainted at the sight of me, my heart nearly broke from resisting what I've wanted for years. To run to her. To touch her. To see if she was real.
And now she was following me. To Corkin Lake, the garden I bought from the mafia to gift the nearby orphanage. If she truly didn't recognize me, then why trail me? Why risk herself in shadows she couldn't possibly understand?
She had heard me with Kai. She knew I was speaking Russian. That alone was dangerous enough.
I prayed she would stop before the gate. But when it opened, she stepped inside behind me.
Fucking hell. She was with me when bullets flew yesterday. Does she not understand what being near me means? That if she got hurt, it would kill me a thousand times over?
Over my dead fucking body.
I turned sharply, and her steps froze. She looked like a caught trespasser, smile crooked and nervous, hands behind her back like a child trying to hide her guilt.
"Are we going somewhere?" My voice was calm, but inside I was fire.
Her curls fell like black pearls down her shoulders, one strand crossing her eye, the other caught by the wind. Her blush betrayed her. Her lip was trembling, bitten raw with nerves, yet she still tried to summon courage.
"W-Well, I wanted to talk to you."
Heaven, she looked ethereal.
A dry laugh escaped me. "You could have called me. Not..." I gestured to the garden. "Follow me into a place you don't know."
She ignored the warning, gathering herself. "Regarding yesterday—"
"Forget about it." I cut her off, too quickly. "A random drunkard with illegal weapons. It won't happen again. Don't worry."
It was a lie. A cover. Dmitri had sent his men as a warning. But those men were now in pieces, one buried here, the other there.
She bit her lip again, sharper this time, and looked at me from beneath her lashes. Pissed.
"I wasn't going to ask that. Sir." She stressed the word like it burned her tongue.
Her eyes locked on mine, sharp, accusing. "I was going to ask how you know my mother."
Mrs. Vance. The only woman who ever fed me with her hands. The lap that gave me peace for the first time in my life. The woman who gave me her. How could I forget her?
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. "If you really want to know, why don't you ask her yourself?"
Her laugh was bitter, sarcastic, but her eyes glistened with sadness. "Seems like there are more secrets waiting for me."
I frowned, closing the space between us before I could stop myself. "Are you quite alright?"
Up close, her scent blurred my vision, her presence clawed at my restraint. I should have stepped back. I should have reminded myself—I was her teacher here.
But she gave me that strange, unreadable look, tightened her grip on her bag, and stormed off through the garden gate.
Leaving me alone. Again.
****
The elevator doors slid open, and I stepped inside my penthouse. The echo of my shoes clicked against the glass hallway, the city of London sprawling beneath me like a kingdom I never asked to rule. Up here, I lived alone with my misery.
And the ghost of Gloria.
I could no longer tell the difference between reality and dream. Yesterday had blurred everything. The girl I once held in my arms—my little star—stood before me again, grown, radiant, untouchably beautiful. She carried herself like a young woman now, but thank God, she hadn't lost the soft curve of her cheeks. The part of her that still belonged to me.
I chuckled bitterly as I collapsed onto the couch, undoing my shirt buttons with one hand, staring up at the ceiling as moments replayed in my head. Her hug when I shielded her from the gunfire. The way her eyes had flashed a storm of emotions I couldn't read.
And her voice.
God. Her soft, creamy voice that slid into my ears like holy water.
I dragged a hand down my face and exhaled.
Get over it, Ilian. You won't. You don't want to. She will be yours. Soon.
I pulled off my shirt and tossed it in the basket, heading for the shower. But my phone rang.
I grabbed it from the nightstand, irritation lacing my voice. "What do you want?"
Kai's grumble spilled through the speaker. "Dmitri's about to unalive your friend. Thought you should know."
I rolled my eyes. "As long as you keep my location hidden, you don't have to worry about your damn payment."
His chuckle was sharp, grating. "Payment? Please. My net worth is in billions, asshole. Unlike you—who could own the world but insists on hiding from it instead of becoming the legend you were meant to be."
I sighed. Dmitri. If I went back and agreed to his terms, he'd stop haunting me. The problem? I'd probably hang the bastard the second I saw him.
"Why did you really call?" I snapped.
"Because Adrian's girl exists," he muttered, irritation laced with warning.
The blood drained from my face. "How the fuck do you know about her?" My chest clenched, adrenaline tearing through me.
"Dmitri caught her location. He'll use her as bait to put you on the throne."
My jaw tightened. If Gloria got dragged into this, if her name so much as left his filthy mouth, I would burn his empire to ash. I would carve his name into hellfire and make sure generations of his bloodline suffered for it.
I swore under my breath, pacing the room.
"The governments are crawling at Dmitri's feet," Kai continued. "But everyone knows he's powerless unless he breaks you. Just make sure the girl doesn't get touched. I'll stall him if I can."
The elevator alarm chimed. Someone else was coming up. Who is here at this hour? My adrenaline spiked to heights as I stayed on call with Kai.
Kai fell silent. I reached into my drawer for the spare gun, moving toward the door.
I would blow anyone's head off.
The doors slid open—and standing there was Ms. Briar. One of my colleagues. A parasite in heels, a relentless leech—stood in the doorway, her blouse straining over her chest and a pencil skirt clinging desperately to her hips.
I slipped the gun out of sight, though her wide eyes had already caught the scene. Then her gaze dragged lower, realizing I was shirtless.
Lord, have mercy.
"I—I can come later." She pointed nervously to the door.
I lifted a hand, signaling her in. Her heels clacked against the floor as she followed me into the living room.
On the line, Kai groaned. "That bitch again?"
"I'll deal with it," I muttered, cutting the call.
Kai despised Briar more than I did, and I didn't blame him. She was shameless, clawing her way where she didn't belong, and I still regretted the day I let her know my address for a damned school project.
This was the third time she had shown up unannounced. Enough.
I shrugged my discarded shirt back on and returned to the living room. She was seated already, legs crossed, her posture as deliberately slutty as it was graceless.
I sat across from her, fixing her with a cold stare, ready to end this once and for all—
Then she tilted her head and smiled.
"You have known Ms. Gloria since she was a child, right?"