The flight home is a quiet kind of madness — heavy, suffocating — where no one says exactly what they're thinking, yet we all feel everything like needles buried just beneath the skin. The air on the plane is too cold. Or maybe it only feels that way to me, because around me float weighted glances, loaded with irony and a jealousy so sharp it's almost physical.
Apparently, Duca's business in Russia ended successfully, because on the way back we're accompanied by Nikolai and Yelena as well, and their presence turns the flight into a small theater where everyone is playing their part.
Duca sits in front of me, laptop open on the tray table, focused on the screen as if he were analyzing the fate of the world, not just a few reports. His face is closed off, serious, jaw tight, fingers typing calmly and methodically as though nothing around him could possibly reach him. He rarely lifts his gaze — and even then, I can't tell whether he actually sees me or is simply checking that everything remains under control.
Yelena, on the other hand, seems determined to fill every second of silence with her shrill laughter. She laughs too loudly, too often, at every joke Nikolai makes — or invents herself — and her hand always finds an excuse to land on Duca's arm, his shoulder, his knee. She clings to him like a trophy she intends to display, and while she tries to keep him engaged in conversations about God knows what parties, businesses, or influential people, she occasionally shoots me poisoned glances — sharp, slicing — as if my mere presence were an insult.
Nikolai sits a little farther back, a glass in his hand, drinking calmly, almost relaxed, watching the entire spectacle with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He lets out short laughs from time to time, but he doesn't seem to be laughing at the jokes. He's laughing at us. At the tension between me and Yelena. At the fact that Duca pretends not to see anything. At the fact that we're all caught in a game he understands far too well.
I remain silent.
For most of the flight, I stare at my hands in my lap — my fingers laced too tightly, my nails pressing into my skin. I try to breathe normally, to look unaffected, to deny them the satisfaction of seeing that it hurts.
I only lift my gaze a few times, when Yelena fires off a verbal arrow sharp enough to force a response.
"I hope you enjoyed your vacation at the castle," she says at one point, wearing a saccharine smile. "Not many girls get that kind of special treatment."
Her smile is fake. Her eyes gleam with cold pleasure.
"It was educational," I reply simply, without raising my voice.
Nikolai snorts with laughter, and Yelena tilts her head slightly.
"I'm glad you learned something," she continues. "In our world, it's important to know where you belong."
I feel the blood rise to my cheeks, but I force myself to stay calm.
"I know exactly where I belong," I tell her, looking at her directly for the first time.
For a moment, her smile cracks.
Duca doesn't intervene. He doesn't say a word. He keeps his eyes on the laptop, as if our exchange were nothing more than background noise.
Last night he held me as if I were the only real thing in his life, and now he lets me sit alone in front of her attacks, as if he had nothing to do with me.
Yelena leans her body close to his again and whispers something in his ear, loud enough for me to see how her lips nearly brush his earlobe. Her hand slides over his chest, across the shirt open at the collar.
I lower my gaze back to my lap.
I won't give them the satisfaction.
And then, without any warning, Duca snaps. He lifts his eyes from the screen, catches Yelena's hand on his chest, and removes it firmly — not brutally, but clearly enough to leave no room for interpretation.
"Yelena, please don't touch me again," he says pointedly, his voice low, controlled, yet edged with an irritation he no longer bothers to hide.
A brief, cutting silence settles over the plane. Yelena's hand lingers suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, surprised, then she slowly withdraws her fingers, a stiff smile stretching across her lips that never reaches her eyes. She stays quiet for a few blessed minutes, sulking, lips pressed together, staring somewhere into nothing, like a child whose favorite toy has just been taken away. I almost begin to believe the moment has put her back in her place. But the silence doesn't last.
Gradually she returns, with the same foolish, overly loud laughter, the same remarks tossed in my direction in a tone that pretends innocence but carries a sting of irony. She resumes her role as the dazzling, self-assured Russian princess, and I feel myself shrinking further into my seat, dressed in my simple clothes — clean, decent, but nothing spectacular. There is nothing wrong with them, I repeat to myself, yet they cannot compare to her calculated luxury, the fine fabrics draping her body, the discreet jewelry catching the light with every movement. Beside her, I feel like a stray tolerated at the rich man's table, and that feeling gnaws at me harder than her words ever could.
The flight feels endless. The minutes stretch like gum, and every burst of Yelena's laughter is like a scratch across a wound that had just begun to close.
When the plane finally begins its descent, I realize this journey was never just about miles. It was about the distance between him and me.
And about the fact that, even though he is right beside me, I have never felt more alone.
The private jet lands smoothly on a secluded runway, far from the eyes of the world, and when the wheels touch the asphalt, a knot tightens in my stomach, as if not only the metal has met the ground, but the reality between us as well. Outside, several black cars are already waiting, perfectly aligned, and beside them a few men who immediately begin handling Yelena's countless pieces of luggage — suitcases that seem endless, boxes, bags, garment covers — everything labeled and handled with care.
I have only the clothes on my back. And even those aren't mine, Clarisse gave them to me.
The thought strikes me fast and sharp. Maybe it's true — maybe I'm not meant to stand at his side the way Yelena cruelly told me earlier, when Duca went to the restroom and left me exposed to her venom.
Yelena tries to take Duca's hand as we descend the plane stairs — a theatrical, almost possessive gesture — but he rejects her hand again without even looking at her.
"No, Yelena," he says flatly.
Nikolai laughs beside us, glass still in hand, as if the whole scene were a comedy.
"I lived to see the day you want something and don't get it," he tells her, amused. "A historic moment."
Yelena shoots him a glare but says nothing.
Duca gives them a short signal.
"Go ahead to the cars. I want to speak with Alla."
It isn't a tone that invites negotiation.
I remain where I am, rubbing my hands together without realizing it — timid, afraid — as if I were waiting for a sentence to be passed. My chest feels tight, and the air seems heavier than it was just minutes ago.
Duca steps beside me and, without saying a word, pulls me into his arms.
He catches me off guard. He envelops me completely, and I stay rigid for a second before I feel my shoulders give in. He inhales deeply, almost painfully, as if filling his lungs with my scent, as if he wants to keep it.
"You will never understand how much I regret losing you, and how much I'm going to miss you, little love," he says quietly, in that low voice that breaks through my defenses.
I close my eyes for a moment, but I don't cry.
"Mario — my man — will take you to Elena," he continues. "I kept my word. I made sure she was taken out of that place. She's staying in a new apartment. You won't have to worry about payments for anything. It's yours for as long as you need it."
My first instinct is to refuse him.
Out of pride.
Out of stubborn dignity.
Out of the need to owe him nothing ever again.
But I swallow my shame for Elena's sake. She needs safety and stability — not my wounded pride.
"I'll leave you alone," he says more quietly. "But if you ever miss me — whether it's three in the afternoon or three in the morning — look for me and I will find you. Especially if you're in danger or you need help. I will be there for you, no matter what you ask of me. Yes, little love?"
I nod.
I don't trust my voice to hold.
I fight with everything in me to keep the tears under control, because I don't want him to see me crying. I don't want to walk out of his life weak.
He brings his face close to mine and breathes in the scent of my cheeks, my neck, drawing in one more deep breath, then swears softly.
"Damn it, it's going to be so hard without you… You're taking a piece of my heart with you, little love. The only good part."
He kisses the tip of my nose — a gesture so tender it hurts physically — then releases me from his arms.
He doesn't look back.
I remain there for a few seconds, watching him walk away without turning around, his long, assured steps, so beautiful in his black suit, so utterly wrong for me. Then I head toward Mario's car with weak knees and a hollow weight pressing against my chest. The door shuts with a dry sound, and the silence inside hits me harder than the goodbye itself.
And then I break, because there's no one left to see me.
The tears burst out without warning — hot, uncontrollable — running down my cheeks, over my chin, soaking into my blouse, and I collapse against the back seat and cry with all the force I held inside on the runway, on the plane, in his arms. My shoulders shake, my breathing fractures, I try to pull air into my lungs and manage only small, desperate sounds I can no longer stop.
I cry the entire way.
I cry for what we had and for how intense it was — for the nights when he made me feel cherished, and for the mornings when he made me feel beautiful.
I cry for what I've lost and because, despite all his mistakes, a part of me loved him more than was wise.
I cry for what I could have had if things had been different — if he had chosen to believe me from the beginning, if there hadn't been fear, pride, blood.
And I cry because no matter how hard I try to be strong, no matter how often I repeat to myself that I made the right choice, the truth is that a part of me remained on that runway, in his arms — and I don't know if I will ever get it back.
When we arrive in front of the apartment complex, Mario brings the car to a smooth stop, unhurried. I'm still trembling inside, my eyes swollen, my breathing uneven. The building is modern, tall, with large windows and orderly balconies — a clean, safe place, exactly the kind of place where a life can begin again without the shadows of the past trailing behind it.
"Please… wait a little," I tell Mario, my voice hoarse, not looking at him directly.
He turns his head toward me. He's Hispanic, broad-shouldered, solid, with large hands steady on the steering wheel, yet his gaze is gentle, warm — a contrast to everything that defines Duca's world. He looks at me with understanding and simply nods, saying nothing. I haven't even heard his voice yet, and in a strange way, his silence helps more than any words could.
I inhale deeply several times, wipe my cheeks with my palms, and try to gather the scattered pieces inside me. Slowly, the trembling eases, my breathing settles, and my mind begins to clear.
And then I swear to myself, with a determination that almost frightens me, that this is the last time in my life I will ever cry over a man.
The last time I will let my heart make me weak.
The last time I will confuse desire with love and protection with possession.
I straighten my back, wipe away the remaining traces of tears, and look at my tired but still-living face in the rearview mirror.
"That's enough," I whisper to myself. "You're going to be fine."
And in that moment, for the first time since I walked away from him, I feel that maybe I didn't lose everything. Maybe I found myself.
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