Page 126 of Nocturne

There is something that doesn’t add up about the fucker who was in her home. Why did he continue to hide until I showed up? If he indeed was someone who wanted Ara, why didn’t he make any move yet? Why would he openly challenge me, knowing I would retaliate? My gut tells me that there is more to the story than I’m seeing right now.

Eight days. It’s been eight fucking days since I last saw her. Eight days of dealing with pointless shit pulling me in every damn direction. Eight days of those voices in my head snarling for her, clawing at me to give in. And now? I’m done fighting.

I should be figuring out what the hell these assassins are up to, why they’re working so hard to keep us off balance and distracted. But that can wait. Right now, I need her to see her. Need to hear her voice. Maybe—if fate’s not a complete bastard—catch that smile she had in her lab. Watch her walk up to me on her own. That’s its own kind of high. I need to check if she is alright because something tells me she isn’t.

The phone rings four times before Yuri picks up. “Boss,” he greets me, sounding calm as ever.

“Report,” I snap, keeping it short.

“Everything’s good. Her classes finished. We picked up her kid from school not long ago. She’s planning to work in the lab for a while, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You still guarding her lab?” I ask, the edge in my voice growing sharper.

“No, boss. She had to take delivery of her cell samples, and she wanted me to stay with the kid. Didn’t want him alone at this time of night.”

I grit my teeth, a surge of frustration rising. I didn’t give him an inch of room for this. Yuri was supposed to keep her under constant watch. Something doesn’t sit right. She’s supposed to be guarded, not wandering off on her own, even if she’s in her lab.

“I’m on my way,” I say, before he can say anything more.

Just as I’m about to hang up, Yuri’s voice tightens.

“There’s something else I need to report,” he says, hesitating.

“Speak,” I order, the tension tightening in my chest.

“It’s about her—"

Before he can finish, a scream cuts through the line. A blood-curdling, gut-wrenching sound that’s unmistakably hers. My dead heart kicks in my chest, but there’s no time for hesitation.

“Ara,” I say, the name more of a growl than a word. The urgency hits me like a freight train.

Yuri curses on the other end, but it’s distant—fading as I bark an order at Nico to accelerate, to get me there faster. The world tilts as I feel the panic rising in my chest, but I push it down.

It’s not fear. It’s not worry. It’s something darker. A need to burn everything to the ground if anything happens to her.

I’ll burn it all if I have to.

Thirty-Four

Ara

The air is unusually cold tonight, and my breath escapes in ghostly wisps as I descend the narrow stone staircase leading out of the main research wing. The grand corridors of the university are even more foreboding in the dark. Shadows stretch from the gothic arches overhead, twisting and writhing across the cracked stone walls. The dim flicker of the gaslight-style fixtures lining the halls only deepens the unease, their warm glow barely reaching the vaulted ceilings high above.

My footsteps echo hollowly, the sound unnervingly loud in the pressing silence. I try to focus on the lingering high for an invite to the grand ball that’s only reserved for the university’s elite, but my thoughts keep circling back to what Yuri told me about Zagan.

I don’t know how to make sense of him. Sure, his past is sad, gut-wrenching even. But he isn’t a sad, lost boy anymore. He has turned himself into something else entirely. Men don’t become mafia kings, ruling over powerful, wealthy nations without a ruthless streak and cold calculation. And yet, despite everything, he insists on keeping me.

Keeping me.

The words sit like lead in my stomach. It isn’t just possessive—it’s something darker, more demeaning. He wants to own me, to brand me, to do things I’ll never be able to forget. Things that will leave scars, even if I survive them. He won’t have anytrouble keeping himself detached—he doesn’t have emotions to begin with. It’s me who will have to suffer.

And then there’s this pesky little side of me who feels things for him. Despite not wanting to, I do. And I’m not sure what to do with it.

I shove the thought away as I reach the heavy oak doors at the end of the corridor. They creak loudly when I push them open, and the cold air rushes in, biting against my skin. Outside, the parking lot sprawls in dimly lit desolation. The amber streetlights cast long, thin shadows, their glow fading into the pitch-black woods that border the university.

The woods.

I hate that they’re so close. Stories of disappearances are common, whispered in hushed tones among students and faculty. People who venture too close to the treeline often don’t come back. Maybe it’s superstition. Maybe not. Either way, no one goes in there willingly.

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