“He projects his pain onto people,” I murmur. “That’s all he’s ever known. Cruelty raised him. It shaped him, molded him into something cold, something ruthless. He was born with a gun in his hand and a war in his blood.” I shake my head, exhaling sharply. “He never stood a chance.”
My fingers tighten around the blanket as my voice drops even lower. “His family was taken from him. And whatever was left of him after that… it wasn’t human anymore.” I let out a bitter laugh. “He became exactly what the world made him. A monster.”
Ada’s brows pull together, and she shifts closer, like she can feel the weight of my words pressing down on me. “And yet,” she says softly, “you still saw something in him.”
I look down at my hands, my mind drowning in memories I’ve tried so hard to bury. His hands on me, gentle and sometimes cruel. His voice, demanding in the dark, confessing things I know he never thought he would ever say to me. The way his eyes lingered on me like I was something he couldn’t quite understand, something he wanted to hate but couldn’t bring himself to destroy.
I nod slowly, my throat burning. “I did.”
Because how could I not?
“He was the first person to ever understand me,” I whisper, my voice barely holding together. “Not just in words, but in something deeper. In the way he looked at me, like he recognized the same hunger inside me, the same hollow, aching void.”
I close my eyes for a second, letting the weight of it settle over me. “He understood what it was like to live with that kind of emptiness. To be starving for something you’ve never had. He knew what it felt like to crave love, but never receive it.” My pulse rises. “To have a father who wasn’t there, or worse, one who was and only left bruises in his wake.” I let out a slow, bitterexhale. “An absent father. An abusive one. He understood it all.”
I shake my head, feeling the ghost of old wounds pressing against my ribs. “I think… I think he resonated with me, too. Maybe he saw himself in me, in the broken parts he has buried deep within him. Or maybe he just recognized the kind of damage that never really fades.” My lips curve into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Maybe that’s why he let me live, and eventually cared for me.”
My voice drops lower, almost as if I’m confessing something I shouldn’t. “And I felt my own rage in him. My monster. The one I never let out. The one I swallowed down until it became nothing but a dull, burning ache inside me. Until I became nothing more than a submissive shy girl, craving praise and acknowledgment.”
I exhale sharply, shaking my head. “We experienced so much of the same trauma, but we dealt with it in opposite ways, ways that weren’t really choices at all. He let his darkness consume him, let it shape him into something unrecognizable, something feared. And I…” My fingers clench against the blanket. “I buried mine. Smothered it. Pretended it wasn’t there. But I think—” I swallow. “I think we recognized that in each other.”
My throat tightens as I force the next words out. “Like looking into a mirror, only seeing what could have been, what might’ve been, if our roles had been reversed.”
Ada doesn’t speak. She just watches me, her expression unreadable, but I can feel her trying to understand.
I swallow hard, my voice dipping into something raw. “I hated him. I did. I hated him for what he was, for the blood on his hands, for all the pain he caused. But at the same time…” My breath hitches. “At the same time, I wanted him.”
My heart pounds at the admission, but I don’t stop.
“I wanted to unravel him,” I whisper. “I wanted to pull him apart and find whatever was left underneath all that cruelty,all that violence. I wanted to know if there was anything still human inside of him.” A bitter chuckle escapes me. “And maybe I wanted him to do the same to me. To tear me open and see if I was just as empty inside.”
Ada inhales sharply, but I don’t look at her. I can’t.
“Being near him was like standing at the edge of a cliff,” I murmur. “That terrifying feeling of knowing one wrong step could send you plummeting, and yet… you can’t stop looking down. Can’t stop wondering what it would feel like to fall.” My throat tightens. “Because at least falling would make you feel something.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
And then, finally, Ada speaks. Her voice is quiet, careful.
“And did he?” she asks. “Did he make you feel something?”
I lift my gaze to hers, my chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths.
“Yes,” I whisper. “More than I ever wanted to.”
Chapter 14
The Rise of a Monster
Aslanov
I wasn’t always the man everyone feared.
I wasn’t born with the blood of a leader running through my veins. I was just a boy. A boy who learned too early that life wasn’t kind, and who had to learn to survive through cruelty and violence. But before all of that, before the empire, before the blood and fire, I was just a boy.
I remember the way the sun felt on my face when I was little, how it would warm my skin and make me feel safe, like nothing could touch me. I used to love sitting in the courtyard of our old house in the warmer months, surrounded by the scent of blooming flowers and the buzz of distant harsh Russian voices. I would sit there, playing with my toy soldiers, those tiny, insignificant figures that I could command and move as I pleased. They were my escape. My kingdom, where I was in control, where nothing could hurt me.
But the world outside that small corner of peace wasn’t kind. My father, didn’t have patience for softness. He didn’t care that I was shy, that I wasn’t quick to speak or brave enough to stand up to him when he shouted. He didn’t care that I was pale, a little chubby, and withdrawn. The other kids at school would call me names, but I didn’t care. I was used to it. They didn’t matter. Not as much as my father did.
