Chapter One: The Break
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September 2020.
Rain fell like broken glass against the airport windows, slicing the night into trembling shards. Nairobi’s terminal buzzed with muted chaos...faces hidden by masks, voices muffled, departures swallowed by the pandemic’s shadow. Yet for Adrian, the world had narrowed to the woman standing before him.
Elena.
Her dark hair clung damply to her cheeks, her eyes shimmering with the kind of storm no weather could match. She wasn’t crying. She never cried. But Adrian could see the fracture lines, invisible but fatal, running through her.
“You’ll write me,” she said, her voice breaking slightly at the edges.
“I’ll do more than write,” Adrian answered, his hands gripping hers like lifelines. “I’ll call. Every day. Morning, night. Whenever I can.”
“Vietnam isn’t next door.”
“And Samoa isn’t the moon.” He tried to laugh, but it came out hollow. “We’ll make it work.”
For a moment, the lie hung between them like mist. They had made promises before...late-night vows whispered over candlelight, hands laced tight as if flesh could ward off fate. But this time was different. She was leaving for family duty. He for a government contract he couldn’t refuse. The oceans between them would be merciless.
The loudspeaker announced final boarding. Adrian felt something collapse in his chest.
“Elena-”
She silenced him with a kiss. Not gentle. Fierce. The kind of kiss that felt like a brand, a seal, a warning. “Don’t forget me,” she whispered against his lips.
“Never.”
Her hand slipped from his. The last thing he saw was the swing of her black coat as she disappeared into the stream of passengers.
Two years later, September 2022.
Adrian sat in a dingy Hanoi apartment, the air reeking of damp concrete and fried oil. His laptop glowed faintly on the desk. The connection lagged, pixelating Elena’s face into fractured mosaics.
“You look tired,” she said softly, brushing imaginary dust from her camera lens.
“You look beautiful,” he countered.
Her smile flickered, shadowed. She never said much about Samoa. Only vague mentions of her aunt, of islands and storms, of work she couldn’t explain. Sometimes, he caught the edge of fear in her voice, quickly buried. He never pressed...he was too afraid of losing her to secrets.
That night, as the call ended, Adrian stared at the black screen long after she signed off. Something in her eyes had unsettled him. Like she wanted to confess something, but couldn’t.
*August 24, 2023. Nairobi.*
The city glowed in molten gold. Adrian arranged candles across the small apartment, their flames bowing in the breeze from the open balcony. On the table: two glasses of red wine, her favorite saffron rice, the anniversary dinner he’d been planning for weeks. He checked his watch.
Elena was late.
He told himself not to worry. She was buying something...he’d guessed a gift, though she’d been secretive about it. He poured himself a drink, waiting.
Then the phone rang.
A stranger’s voice. Police. Words he couldn’t piece together at first. Jewelry store. Armed men. Shots fired.
By the time he reached the hospital, everything smelled of bleach and blood. He ran down sterile corridors, his heart hammering against his ribs like a fist trying to break free.
Through the glass of the trauma ward, he saw her. Elena. Pale, motionless, her chest rising shallow under a tangle of wires and tubes.
Adrian’s body went cold. He pressed his palm against the glass, whispering her name.
Outside, Nairobi’s night hummed with indifferent neon. Somewhere, beyond the hospital walls, a truth was hiding...a truth that would tear open everything Adrian thought he knew about the woman he loved.
End of Chapter One.
