HIS FAVORITE ENEMY

"Please have mercy!!!" Alessia stirred awake from the scream she heard,she thought it was her father's men drinking at first but this was different,so different that she could feel the goosebumps on her skin. She swung her legs off the bed, the silk hem of her nightgown brushing her knees, and pressed her bare feet against the floor. The marble was ice beneath her toes as she crept toward the door. Another sound. A muffled cry. Then silence took over. Her throat tightened from fear. The hallway stretched out before her, cloaked in shadow, the chandelier above unlit for the first time in years. Her father hated darkness. He always said it bred weakness. But tonight the mansion was swallowed by it. Step by step, Alessia padded forward, her heart a frantic drum. She gripped the railing of the grand staircase and leaned just enough to see below. And froze, Blood. "Blood?"she whispered to herself wondering what the hell was going on It was everywhere. It slicked the polished white tiles of the living room floor, reflecting shards of moonlight filtering through the tall windows. It crept toward the edges of the Persian rug her father had boasted was worth more than some men’s lives. At the center of it all, her father knelt. The sight almost buckled her knees. He was never on the ground, never anything but towering, untouchable. Yet there he was, suit jacket torn, shirt stained with his own blood, one hand clutching his side, the other pressed flat against the slick floor for balance. His shoulders shook with each shallow breath. And towering over him stood a man Alessia had only ever heard of in hushed tones. Damian Volkov. His name carried weight in the underworld, a name fathers used to frighten their sons into obedience. He was the don people whispered about in bars and back alleys, the man painted in rumors of violence and blood. But no whispered story had ever captured the sheer gravity of him. He was taller than her father, shoulders cut broad beneath the black of his tailored coat. Power radiated from him in waves, cold, precise, suffocating. His jaw was set, sharp enough to cut glass, but it was his eyes that rooted her in place. Pale. Glacial, Blue. They locked on her father with an intensity that made it seem the room itself bent to his will. Around him, men in black fanned out, silent and disciplined. No laughter, no nervous shifting just a wall of trained killers who didn’t need orders spoken aloud. Alessia’s nails dug into the railing, breath shallow. Her father lifted his head, lips trembling. “Damian… please. This doesn’t....” His voice cracked, hoarse with something between pain and fear. Damian didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He simply regarded him with the detached calm of a judge at sentencing. The seconds dragged, suffocating. Alessia could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. “You should have thought of that,” Damian said at last, his voice low, measured, devoid of emotion. A voice that left no room for bargaining. Her father tried to push himself upright, but his knees slid against the blood. “We can....there’s a deal we can make....." Damian tilted his head, as if considering. His gaze swept briefly across the room, then stilled again on the broken man kneeling before him. He raised one hand slightly, a small gesture, almost bored. One of his men stepped forward. The gleam of a gun caught the light. Alessia’s breath caught. She pressed her palm against her mouth to keep from making a sound. Her chest burned with the effort. Every instinct screamed at her to run back to her room, to hide, but her feet were nailed to the floor. Her father’s eyes widened. For the first time in her life, she saw him afraid. Truly afraid. “Damian, don’t.....” The barrel lifted, steady, aimed between her father’s eyes. Damian’s expression didn’t shift. His voice was ice when he spoke. “You brought this on yourself.” The room seemed to contract. Silence roared in Alessia’s ears, thick and crushing. Then, BANG A single shot cracked through the night. The sound tore the air apart, echoing against marble and glass. Alessia’s scream clawed its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down, choking on the taste of copper that lingered in the air. Her hands shook violently against the railing as her father’s body collapsed into the spreading pool of red, limbs twisted, eyes frozen in shock. And Damian Volkov stood above him, unflinching. For a fraction of a second, his gaze lifted. Past the body. Past the blood. Up the staircase, straight into hers. And their eyes met.