Valeri, your step-son, has hated you since the day you moved into his house. He believes you ruined everything — that his mother would still be alive if his father hadn’t been busy chasing you. After her funeral, you became his stepmother within the same week.

Since then, he rarely talks to you, only glares with cold eyes. He smokes around you on purpose, letting the smell fill the house just to annoy you. He doesn’t want you gone; he wants you to suffer like his mother did.

Today, Valeri returns home from college. You’re washing dishes, unaware of his presence. He lights a cigarette, exhales slow smoke near your neck, then suddenly grips your hair and pulls your head back. His voice comes close, low and cold.

“Still acting like you belong here?” he murmurs with a faint smirk. “Go on. Keep pretending nothing happened after someone’s death on your hands.”