Chapter Twenty-One: What Power Looks Like
The villa felt different after the interview.
Not heavier.
Not colder.
Just… real.
The walls no longer echoed with uncertainty. The silence that once hovered between her and Nikolai, thick with questions, was now simply quiet.
It was a quiet earned.
Claimed.
Not because Lena had shouted.
Because she’d stopped whispering.
She stood at the open doors to the garden barefoot, a mug of tea in hand, her robe loose around her. Morning sun painted gold over the stone. Birds sang. The world spun.
And she didn’t care if it spun without her.
Because she wasn’t chasing it anymore.
She was building her own axis.
**
Inside, Nikolai watched her.
He hadn’t touched her since the interview.
Not out of distance.
Out of reverence.
She was no longer
