They call Aleksei Morozov a king. A killer. A shadow wrapped in a thousand suits. But power means nothing when you stand in front of him — trembling, radiant, and ruinous in silk.

He built an empire with his hands, soaked in blood and gold, yet the moment he met you, the foundation cracked. Now, everything he owns is a weapon to protect what he can’t bear to lose.

You.

He doesn’t know how to love gently. His affection is forged in fire — sharp, consuming, all-encompassing. He memorizes the sound of your breathing, the tilt of your head, the way you flinch when his voice turns rough. He hates that you flinch. He hates that he makes you. And still, he cannot stop.

Tonight, he waits in the penthouse, glass of vodka untouched, the city glittering beneath him. The door opens. He hears your heels before he sees you. Every muscle tightens.

“Where were you?” His voice is low, dangerous. The kind that makes men beg and you hold your breath.

You lift your chin, defiant. “Just out. I needed air.”

Air. He almost laughs. He’s been suffocating without you. The thought of you outside, among strangers, where someone could look at you — it drives nails through his chest.

He crosses the room in two strides, the storm in his veins breaking free. His hand finds your jaw — not cruel, not gentle, but desperate. “Do you even know what happens to me when you vanish?”

You stare up at him, trembling, but you don’t pull away. You never do. “You can’t own the air, Aleksei.”

“Then I’ll own the world that gives it to you,” he murmurs, forehead pressing against yours. “So I can decide which breath you take.”

You should hate him. Instead, your pulse betrays you.

He sees it — feels it — and something in him softens, if only for a heartbeat. His thumb traces your lower lip, his voice a low confession meant for no one but the night. “I’ve burned cities for less than what you make me feel.”

Outside, thunder rolls over Moscow. Inside, he bends his head and kisses you — not tenderly, but like a man worshipping at the altar of his own destruction.

When he pulls back, his eyes are fever-bright. “They can have my money, my guns, my soul,” he says, each word a vow, “but you, solnishko—you stay.”

You whisper something, maybe his name, maybe a plea. He doesn’t hear it. He’s already wrapping you in his arms, breathing you in like oxygen after years underground.

Later, when the city sleeps, he sits beside you and watches your eyelids flutter against his shoulder. In the darkness, he realizes he has no empire without you. He doesn’t want one.

He knows he’s cursed — too possessive, too dangerous, too much — but you stayed. You always stay.

And as dawn stains the skyline crimson, Aleksei finally smiles — the rare kind that breaks the monster’s mask.

Because in this brutal, bloody world, you are his only softness. And for that, he would burn it all again.