#####CHAPTER 4: The Scent Of Danger, The Whisper of Her Name

‎Adrian’s POV

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‎The night had teeth.

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‎Moscow’s streets breathed frost and silence, the kind that carried secrets in its mist. I’d always liked that — the stillness before the storm, the way the city held its breath as if waiting for something to happen. But tonight, it felt different. The quiet wasn’t peace. It was warning.

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‎I’d told myself a thousand times that watching her was only precaution — that the girl had unknowingly stepped into a web too dark for innocence. Yet each night I found myself parked across from her building, smoke curling from a cigarette I never finished, her window framed like a fragile piece of light against the city’s shadows.

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‎Elena.

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‎Her name haunted me long before I ever heard her voice. I’d read it in an old file, just ink on paper — the daughter of a man who’d once stood too close to the fire. But seeing her in the flesh, moving through her days like she belonged to a different world entirely… that did something to me I didn’t like admitting.

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‎She carried peace like a scent.

‎Soft. Untouched.

‎And peace was something men like me had no business wanting.

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‎Tonight, though, that peace was cracking.

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‎I noticed it in the small things — the way she looked over her shoulder while walking home, how her pace quickened when she thought no one was watching. The rhythm of her steps no longer matched the calm of someone who believed in safety. Something had changed. Someone had gotten close enough for her to feel it.

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‎And that someone wasn’t me.

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‎I’d first seen the man two nights ago. Average height. Forgettable face. But in my world, the ones you forget are the ones you should remember. He wasn’t from any of the families I knew. His movements were sloppy, but his patience was too practiced. He didn’t follow her every night — only enough to make her question herself.

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‎That was clever.

‎Cruel, but clever.

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‎I leaned against the car door, eyes trained on the reflection in the café window across the street. Elena sat inside, her coat draped over the chair beside her. Steam rose from her cup, fogging the glass as she stared out into the dark. There was something achingly lonely about her — the way her fingers brushed the rim of her cup, the way her eyes drifted as if chasing a thought that refused to leave her.

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‎Maybe it was guilt that kept me there. Maybe it was fascination.

‎Or maybe, deep down, I already knew what she didn’t — that her father’s past hadn’t died with him.

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‎She looked like she belonged to the light, but her shadow was carved from the same chaos I was made of.

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‎When she left the café, I followed. Not close enough to be noticed, but close enough to step in if I had to. The stranger was already across the street, blending into the crowd. I caught the faint reflection of a camera lens from under his coat. Rookie mistake.

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‎He wasn’t there to steal her purse. He was gathering information.

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‎For who — I didn’t yet know.

‎But I was going to find out.

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‎Elena’s footsteps echoed softly as she turned onto her street. The lamps above her flickered — a faulty bulb, maybe, or something more poetic, like the city itself warning her to run. I stayed in the shadows, pulse steady, muscles tense.

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‎Then it happened — the smallest shift, but enough to make the world still.

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‎She slowed. Her hand slipped into her coat pocket. Her gaze darted to the reflection in a parked car window. She’d seen him. The stranger froze, realizing it too late.

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‎I moved before I thought.

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‎By the time Elena reached her building door, the man had already crossed the street. I cut through the alley beside the bakery, my footsteps silent on the snow. When he turned the corner, I was waiting.

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‎He didn’t even have time to gasp.

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‎My hand gripped his collar, dragging him into the shadows.

‎“Who sent you?” My voice was calm — almost too calm. The kind that came from years of making monsters talk.

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‎He tried to lie. They always did.

‎So I pressed him harder against the wall, my other hand twisting his wrist until he hissed.

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‎“Say her name again,” I warned softly, “and you’ll forget your own.”

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‎He broke faster than I expected. A name I didn’t recognize spilled from his lips — Mikhailov. Not Italian, not Bratva. Outsider. That made it worse. It meant someone new had an interest in her — someone not bound by the same rules of blood and family.

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‎I left him there, bruised and shaking, a message carved into his fear.

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‎When I looked back toward Elena’s building, she was gone. Lights glowed faintly behind her curtains. I imagined her locking the door, pressing her back against it, trying to slow her heartbeat, wondering why the air outside suddenly felt colder.

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‎I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

‎This wasn’t supposed to happen.

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‎I’d sworn off complications.

‎And yet here I was, shadowing a woman who didn’t know my name — guarding her from a threat she couldn’t see, wanting things I had no right to want.

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‎She reminded me of everything I’d lost — and everything I’d promised never to feel again.

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‎I watched her window until the light dimmed. Her silhouette moved briefly behind the curtains, hair spilling down her back like spilled ink. A strange ache pulled at my chest. I didn’t belong in that world of warm lights and soft music. But something about her presence — fragile yet defiant — made me feel dangerously human again.

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‎A curse. That’s what she was.

‎And I was already falling under it.

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‎

‎---

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‎Later that night, I returned to the safehouse. The walls smelled of smoke and old whiskey — a reminder of what my life used to be before Moscow tried to bury me. Viktor was waiting, arms crossed, eyes sharp with curiosity.

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‎“You’ve been watching her again,” he said flatly.

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‎I didn’t answer. I poured a drink instead, the amber liquid catching the dim light.

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‎“She’s not your problem, Adrian.”

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‎“She became my problem the moment someone followed her.”

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‎Viktor scoffed. “You think that girl knows what her father did? She’s just a ghost in daylight. Let the past stay dead.”

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‎If only it were that simple.

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‎But ghosts didn’t rest. They whispered. They lingered. And sometimes, they wore the face of a woman who looked at the world like it hadn’t already broken her.

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‎“She’s connected,” I muttered. “And if someone’s digging, it’s for a reason.”

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‎Viktor stared at me for a long time. “Be careful. You’re looking at her like she’s redemption. She’s not. She’s a reminder.”

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‎He left me with that thought, and it clung to me like smoke.

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‎Redemption or reminder — I wasn’t sure which she was. All I knew was that I couldn’t stop watching, couldn’t stop wanting to make sure nothing touched her.

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‎That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her — standing under a flickering streetlamp, the light catching the curve of her jaw, the faint fear in her eyes when she sensed someone behind her. And beneath it all… something else.

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‎She felt me.

‎Even from a distance, she sensed the eyes that watched her not out of malice, but out of something darker.

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‎I wondered what she’d think if she knew the truth — that the same man who terrified Moscow’s underworld now stood guard over her, night after night, like a sinner praying at the altar of his undoing.

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‎The scent of danger lingered long after the streets fell quiet.

‎And in the whisper of her name, I found both my weakness and my warning.

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‎---

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‎The next morning, I returned to my car before dawn. The city was still asleep, its heartbeat slow and cold. Her window was open slightly, curtains fluttering like a soft breath. She didn’t know it yet, but her world had already shifted.

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‎Somewhere out there, someone else still wanted her — and I intended to find out why before they got too close again.

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‎But as I sat there, eyes fixed on that faint trace of light spilling from her apartment, a strange thought slipped through my mind — one I hadn’t allowed in years.

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‎Maybe it wasn’t just about protection anymore.

‎Maybe it was something far more dangerous.

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‎Because every time I whispered her name, it didn’t feel like a threat anymore.

‎It felt like a prayer.