Page 50 of Scarlet Thorns

I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears that seems endless. “I don’t understand how this happened. Dad seemed fine when I saw him last week. Tired, maybe, but not… not like someone who was planning to leave forever. How could I have missed it? How could I not know my own father was drowning?”

When I look up, TMG has shifted forward slightly, his entire body radiating tension that suggests internal warfare. His hands are clenched so tightly on his thighs that I can see the strain in his forearms, the way his muscles fight against whatever he’s holding back.

“All I have is my mother now,” I whisper, the admission scraping my throat raw. “My job feels meaningless, my future uncertain. I don’t know how to exist in a world without my father in it. I don’t know how to be a daughter without a father. I… I’m sorry to dump all this on you.”

The grief crashes over me again, fresh and devastating as the moment I first heard the news. I double over in the chair, sobs wracking my body with violent intensity. This is ugly crying, the kind that strips away every pretense and leaves you raw and exposed.

When I finally lift my head, gasping for air between waves of devastation, TMG is standing. His posture is different now— not the controlled grace I’ve come to expect, but something heavier, more burdened. Like invisible weight has settled on his shoulders since I started speaking.

“Talk to me, please,” I beg, recognizing the signs of retreat in his body language. “I need… Just say something. Are you okay?”

But he just shakes his head, a sharp negative that cuts through my plea like a blade. He’s pulling away, emotionally and physically, the connection between us severing.

Before he can reach the door, desperation makes me bold. “Please don’t leave me alone here. I know it’s not fair to ask, but… I don’t have anyone else who—”

He stops mid-stride, his entire body going rigid. For a moment, hope flickers in my chest— maybe he’ll stay, maybe he’ll offer the comfort I’m desperate for.

Instead, he turns back to me with movements that seem to cost him everything. His hand settles on my shoulder, fingers pressing through the thin fabric of my blouse with careful pressure. The touch burns through me like electricity, carrying weight that has nothing to do with sexual desire and everything to do with shared understanding of pain.

In that single contact, I feel his grief mixing with mine. Whatever burden he carries, whatever darkness he lives with, it resonates with my own devastation in ways that make perfect sense and no sense at all.

The touch lasts only seconds, but it imprints itself on my skin like a brand. When he pulls away, the absence feels like tearing.

Then he’s gone, the door clicking shut behind him with finality that echoes through the empty room. I stare at the closed door, understanding with crystal clarity that I’ve just witnessedgoodbye. Not the casual departure of our previous encounters, but true farewell.

Something in his touch, something in the way he carried himself, tells me I’ll never see him again. Whatever rules we broke by meeting here today, whatever boundaries we crossed by acknowledging each other’s existence outside these walls, have consequences that extend beyond my understanding.

I sit alone in Room Five, surrounded by burgundy velvet and flickering candles, and feel more isolated than I’ve ever felt in my life. Even the stranger who saw me at my most vulnerable, who offered connection without conditions, has been stripped away by forces I can’t name or fight.

The mask feels heavier on my face now, less like transformation and more like burden. I pull it off with trembling fingers, letting it fall to the floor beside my chair. Without it, I’m just Ilona again— grieving daughter, broken woman, someone who’s lost almost everything in the span of a single week.

The silence stretches, filled with echoes of everything I should have said and questions I’ll never get to ask. Both from my father and from the mysterious man who just walked out of my life forever.

I close my eyes and let the weight of loss settle over me like a shroud.

Dad is gone.

TMG is gone.

The two men who made me feel seen, valued, worth protecting— both beyond my reach now.

And I still don’t understand why.

Chapter Twenty

Osip

Blyad.

I feel like I’ve had my skull crushed with a sledgehammer.

Igor Shiradze’s daughter. The masked woman who shared her pain with me, who trusted me with her grief, who came apart beneath my hands— she’s my old business partner’s daughter.

I stare at the empty vodka bottle on my coffee table, the pieces clicking together in a way that makes my chest feel like it’s caving in. Her father, the respected gynecologist. The timing of his death. ‘Suicide.’ The way she described him— her hero, her anchor, the man who taught her that problems have solutions and hope exists in darkness.

The man I murdered in a parking lot two days ago.

Chert voz’mi!