Page 77 of Eternal

DAMIR

“I Can’t Go on Without You” by KALEO

Present

P ain.

It comes first, a burning wound at the side of my head. Warmth trickles down my temple, sticky against my skin. My blood. I don’t have my mask on anymore. Then, I feel my body sitting on a chair, pulled down. Restrained . And I open my eyes.

The penthouse ceiling.

My arms are tied behind me.

I fucked up.

And the moment I realize it, I almost, almost , feel relieved. She knows I was the one following her. Is she confused? I think she is.

My mask is gone, she can see my face, the face of a liar, no more hiding, and when my eyes try to find her, all I see is anger. She’s across the room, her back to me, and fuck, I can't stop staring.

Black lace lingerie, barely covering the expanse of her skin, but it’s not just that, it’s the tattoos.

A symphony of art inked across her back, faded scars, fresh lines, symbols I don’t understand.

She reaches for a knife, and then she turns. Her eyes, betrayal in them. Anger.

“So…” Her voice is quieter than I expected. “You know my name.”

That's all she’s gonna ask? A drop of blood slides down my cheek, I can taste metal on my lips.

“I found it.”

She inhales deeply looking up at the ceiling, then she moves. In a second, she’s on me, straddling my lap, knife in hand, her fingers gripping my face.

“Who are you, Damir?” she whispers, voice trembling, not with fear but rage. “Why did you enter my life? Why do you follow me?”

She’s too close, so fucking close I can feel her bare skin against me. The scent of her, even through the pain, the bindings, the blood running down my temple, I want her . I always fucking wanted her.

“Because it was my mission.” Something flashes across her face, rage, betrayal, grief, before it vanishes into something colder.

“ Viper.” She spits the name like poison. “A mercenary?”

“Yes.”

Her hands clenched into fists, like she wants to tear me apart with them. “ Partner , right? You were never mine.” Her voice wavers. “You were theirs.”

Pain lances through me, not the physical kind, a deeper kind. “It was my mission.”

“Was?” she snaps. “Tell me. Who the fuck pays you?”

I inhale sharply. “The government.”

She stills. My voice is hoarse when I continue. “You’ve killed too many people, everywhere. They tried to stop you, and they failed. So, they sent me.”

Something inside her fractures, and for the first time since she tied me to this chair, she doesn’t look furious. She looks… destroyed . I swallow the lump in my throat. “I was sent to stop you, Voron.”

Her expression doesn’t change, her blade does. The tip drags across my throat, slow, taunting. Not enough to cut, just enough to make me feel it. “You fucking lied.”

“I pretended.”

The blade digs in, and I suck in a sharp breath.

“For fucking ten months?” Her eyes close for a second and then she talks again. “Try again.”

I exhale. “I had to lie.”

She tilts her head, watching me. “Had to.” She repeats it like she’s tasting the words. “You had to…”

I keep my mouth shut, and it’s a mistake. Because she grabs my jaw, forcing me to look at her, her nails dig into my skin, and her eyes… fuck, those eyes. “Are you even Bratva?” Silence. Her grip tightens. “Is your name even Damir?”

I hesitate, another mistake. Because this time, she moves the blade lower, pressing against my collarbone, dangerously close to my chest. “I never lied about what I told you. My name is Damir. I’m still your partner .”

Her eyes flicker for a second, and then… they harden again. “Then who the fuck helped you get in?” I clench my jaw. She notices and then she laughs, that low, humorless sound. “Someone inside?” No reply. “Oh…It's Lev, isn't it?"

My stomach fucking drops, and she sees it.

Her eyes flash with something cruel. “See?” Her voice is mocking. “I knew it. I should’ve never trusted you.”

She steps back, but it’s not relief. It’s rage, curling around her like smoke. “Did he help you get my name?” she demands. “Did you want to learn who I was because you had to tell them?”

I should answer, I should fight back, but I don’t. Instead, I just… smile. Slow. Faint. Painful . “You’re so pretty when you’re angry at me, Azra.”

She is.

Azra is so beautiful, so alive. Even if she was trying to kill me, even if she was mad at me, even if she hated me. She was beautiful, and she was hurt. Because of me .

Something in her snaps, the blade slashes across my chest. I hiss through my teeth, the sting sharp and hot, but I don’t flinch. Because she’s still my partner, even when she’s destroying me.

Her breathing is ragged, her hands are trembling. “You think I’m joking, Damir?” she hisses.

“No,” I murmur, my voice sounding like something between admiration and regret. “I think you are magnificent.”

She stops moving, not even listening to me, “I let you in. I cooked for you, let my life slip through your fingers, and you were lying ?”

The words hit like a slap, raw and unforgiving, and I take a shaky breath, guilt weighing heavy on me.

“I told you,” I say quietly, almost regretfully, “you’d hate me if I was honest. All I want from you is to tell me everything.”

Her fingers tighten around the knife. For a second, I think she’s going to plunge it straight into my heart, but she doesn’t. She exhales, gets up and grabs another chair, then sits in front of me and smiles.

Not a happy smile, not even a cruel one. Just… empty .

“I wanted you to look at me,” I rasp, my voice hoarse, strained, and fragile as I try to push the words through the pain. “Behind this mask, I let you find me, Azra, because I hated lying to you.”

She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink. Her eyes are sharper than the knife she still has in her hand. She laughs, and it's still not real. It’s not a laugh, it’s just a sound, mocking . “You’re pathetic.” Her lips curl, but there's no humor in it, only disgust.

I don’t know what I expected, maybe something softer, maybe something that meant I still had a chance.

“You want to know who I am, Damir?” she says, her voice steady, but her hands shake as they grip the knife. “Fine. Listen carefully.”

She leans forward, elbows on her knees, the blade glinting between her fingers. She looks like she’s about to tell me a story, but I can already tell… this isn’t a story, it’s a confession.

“My mother went insane trying to find answers about some rich influential people. She got to the point where she hated me, her daughter. She was always drinking, started taking pills and coke, and stopped going out, stopped hugging me, and she started being violent. You already know that right?” Her voice is calm. Detached .

She needs to stop. My heart hurts imagining her that way.

The words almost claw their way out of my chest.

Stop this. Stop.

“My little brother was so small when all of this happened. One night people came into my house and killed everyone. Even me . They left me for dead between the bodies of my whole family. You see that scar? It was them trying to kill me. They shot me and tried to slice my throat, but he missed. So I was left for dead while still being alive.”

She tilts her head, watching me, like she’s waiting for me to react, but I can’t.

“Do you know what a bullet does to a skull at close range? You probably know, right … But witnessing it as a kid?” she asks softly.

“It makes the whole body convulse as the blood sprays back on anything behind it. I was nine. Nine fucking years old when I felt her blood on my face.” She laughs, but it’s hollow.

“And the police officers promised me I’d survive when they found us.

They lied. They pretended I was dead and sent me into the foster system. ”

Her fingers tap lightly against the blade, her eyes distant as if she’s somewhere far, far away.

“The man there. Christian. He abused me, raped me for as long as I can remember. Do you see these scars everywhere?” She waves a hand over her skin. “It was me trying to take off his touch since I was a kid. Him and his wife only took me as a child, it was hell in a home.”

I don’t speak, there’s nothing to say, nothing at all.

“I should’ve died that night, I would’ve, because it would’ve been better than what went on after.

Drugs. Alcohol. Depression. Oh, what else?

Yeah... grief .” Her grip tightens on the knife, her knuckles turning white.

And I want to kiss them, to tell her I’m sorry, to tell her something. Anything .

“When I turned eighteen, they gave me back my family’s belongings, and there was a journal. My mom’s one. Inside, names, stories, people who made her feel like she was nothing. People who probably killed her. And that’s when it all started, my training, my killings, my vengeance.” Her smile fades.

“Do you know what it’s like to be turned into a weapon before you even understand what you are?

” she whispers. “To be beaten until your bones crack just so you learn how to withstand pain. To hold a gun bigger than your hands and be told to shoot before you even know what death means? Or what it means to face your own demons instead of trying to numb them? I wanted to die so many times. I tried to die so many times too, but it felt like life wanted me to stay and suffer for a little longer.”

A breath. “I killed my foster father first, then his wife before disappearing for my training.” She closes her eyes for a second, but it’s not a regret.

It's a memory. “I slit his throat while he was asleep and pushed that cross he loved wearing, while pounding inside me, so deep inside his throat that I could almost see it from his mouth. And when I watched him choke on his own blood, I thought… This is what surviving means, this is what life is.”

Her eyes flicker back to me. “You think I was born a monster, Damir?” she murmurs. “Or was I just destined to be one?”

Silence, then she stands.

She steps forward, her gaze cold, and for a moment, everything about her seems unreal, like a phantom from a nightmare. Her fingers lock around my wrist with a brutal force, pulling one of my hands from behind my back. The ropes dig into my skin, but the pressure on my wrist from her grip is worse.

Before I can react, before I can even gather a coherent thought, she forces my hand forward. The motion is quick, and then she presses it to her body, pressing it against the rawness of her skin, the scars, the damage.

“Do you see this?” Her voice is cold, low, almost fragile in the way it cracks.

“Do you feel the cracks?” She leans forward.

“This body… It was never mine, it was always theirs.” She forces my hand to move across her, her breath shallow and quick as she guides me.

“You think I’m a monster for killing them?

For what they did to me? You think it’s bad for me to want revenge? Tell me, Damir.”

I try to pull my hand back, my pulse racing, my throat tight with the urge to shout, to scream, to escape. To redo her past. Anything.

“ Don’t —” I rasp, my voice breaking as I try to twist my body away, but she keeps going. She forces my hand deeper on these scars, showing me the places no one should ever have to see. The jagged edges of brokenness, the cruel reminder of what she’s been through.

“Don’t do that,” I manage, my voice barely a whisper.

She smiles then, but it’s not real, it’s twisted. “You think this is new?” she asks, her voice so soft, yet so sad. “You think you’re the first man to touch me like this? I didn’t have a choice, Damir, none of us do.”

The words sting, and the weight of them sinks into my chest like a stone. And her voice… It's the sound of a person who has died a thousand times, who’s lived through hell, and yet, somehow, refuses to be consumed.

Silence .

And then, she tilts her head, lips curling slightly. “Now you know it all…” She leans in, close enough that I feel her breath against my skin. “Do you feel better?” A pause. “Do you feel happy?”

And for the first time since she tied me to this chair, I realized. She doesn’t care about my answers. She just wants me to understand, and fuck I do.

And she leans in again, so close our breaths mix. My lips part, I want her to kiss me, a hunger beyond logic, beyond survival.

“I never lied when I was with you, I wish I could, but it wasn’t an option” I rasp. “You didn’t have to talk about it.”

She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even reply, she barely stares.

“Azra…” The words leave me, raw, desperate.

“You’re a fucking liar .” Her lips brush against mine.

And then… pain . A knife, buried deep into my stomach.

I gasp, choke on it.

She doesn’t move, she simply watches me.

“Ten months and nothing was real.” Her voice is deadly calm. “Don’t fucking dare pronounce my name again. You need to suffer for it.”

The blade twists, and agony tears through me.

“You can fucking die for all I care, Damir. Bleed to death for me.”

And then, she leaves.

The sound of her footsteps fades, leaving me here. Bleeding. Dying .

And for a moment, I almost laughed. Not because of the pain, because she has never looked more alive than when she was killing me.

I close my eyes, my body sags. Seconds pass, then minutes, my hands twitch, and then… I move.

Slowly, painfully. I work the bindings, pulling, and twisting. The second they loosen, I rip my arms free.

Blood. Everywhere . My breath is uneven and shallow, I stagger to my feet, pressing a hand to the wound.

I found a first aid kit in the bathroom.

My fingers find bandages, I wrap them around my stomach, hissing through my teeth. It’s not enough, and it won’t hold for long.

But she didn’t aim for my heart, nor my throat. My partner, she didn’t want me dead. She wanted me to remember, to hate myself for lying to her, for using her to find answers.

But she didn’t want me dead, it doesn’t matter though, because she thinks I’m gone.

And I can’t let her think that.

Not now, not ever. It’s too late, I won’t leave her.