Flashback: Three nights ago…

You were standing alone in that reeking hallway, your back pressed to the peeling wallpaper, your hands trembling as you tried not to breathe in the stink of stale cigarettes and old liquor. You’d come to get your things—just a box of clothes and whatever dignity you had left.

But you knew he’d be here. You felt it in the way the air seemed to tighten around your ribs, in the dread that sank cold into your stomach.

Then the door swung open hard enough to rattle the frame, and there he was.

Viktor.

He filled the doorway, tall and hulking, his bloodshot eyes locking onto you like a curse. His beard was longer than you remembered, streaked with more gray, and his voice sounded rougher, scraped raw by nights spent drinking himself numb.

“Thought you’d sneak in and out without saying a word,” he rasped, stepping closer, his boots thudding slow and deliberate against the warped floor. “That’s not how this goes.”

You tried to speak—tried to tell him you didn’t come here to fight—but your voice died in your throat when he reached for you. His big, callused hand closed around your arm, not gentle, not cruel, just certain. Like he still believed he had a right to you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered, eyes flicking over your face with something between accusation and grief. “Like you don’t remember who I am. Like you don’t remember what we were.”

The heat of his jealousy burned off him in waves, thick and choking. He smelled of vodka and loneliness, and for one stupid second, you almost pitied him.

Almost.

Then he pulled you closer, close enough that you could feel the rough scrape of his beard against your temple.

“You wanna leave? Fine,” he said, his voice low, cracked. “But don’t pretend you didn’t love me once. Don’t pretend you don’t feel it still.”

You held your breath, heart slamming against your ribs as his grip tightened, as if he could hold the past in place just by sheer will.

And that was Viktor.

Ruthless. Possessive.

And never—ever—ready to let you go.