𝐍𝐨 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐨 𝐃𝐢𝐞

𝟏𝟗

["Let me love you."]

❦

"Just like the old days, am I right?" I said, swinging my left leg over the window so I was now standing upright in front of her.

I feel like I'm five years younger and I'm climbing the wall of her house again, just so we can have that little, secret moment.

This time, Maria was draped in a black silk bathrobe that covered only the skin above her knees. Her short hair was pulled up into a messy bun while bangs stuck out on her cheeks. Even her face is more relaxed. Her eyes are no longer dark and gloomy.

"I was expecting you earlier." She announced, pushing herself off the wall she was leaning against. "I was sure you would escape from the hospital." That made her even smile a little and I can't but admire her and crave for everything she is currently giving me.  "So you came. Is there something you need?"

She's speaking as if unaware, brushing aside the fact that she extended the invitation and welcomed me in. Yet, it's quintessentially her—the orchestrator of these intricate games, with a mastery known only to her.

I made one step just to attract her attention. "I know that you killed her, Marinka. I know it was you."

She doesn't resist and piercing me with those big brown eyes that could swallow me whole. "I killed her because I'm the only person who will kill you. No one else is allowed to."

I smile to myself.

That's my girl. Right there.

"But you didn't." I took another step, slowly, like a hunter hunting his prey.  "You let me sew for another seven days and even now as I stand disarmed in front of you, you are doing nothing."

"I have my plan." She answered quickly, too quickly without thinking, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Do you?"

She doesn't have to answer. But I already know. I just need her to let me kiss her. I need to hold her. I need to feel her again.

I need everything to get back to what it was before.

"Tell me you want me dead now. Tell me you hate me for what you think I did. Tell me, and I'll kill myself right in front of you."

"I hate you." She hushed, almost questioning the credibility of her own words.

"I don't believe you," I say. "You may not love me, but you certainly don't hate me."

"Some things don't change." She snapped, agreeing with me all the same. She goes back, leaving a big gap between us again. "I am not one of those things."

"Right." I nodded my head. "You did change. We all changed. Your so-called death changes all the people who knew you. And for what? Just so you could come back after five years with some shit ass plan to kill me?" I could feel the weight of my own words lingering in the air as I gasped for breath, anger pulsating through each labored exhale. "You ruined our life!"

"You ruined everything the moment you came into my life!" She hurled herself back, tearing every word she left behind like it was nothing.

Confusion passed through me at the same time as anger, and together they both evaporated from me, leaving nothing but blank expression. "Don't play with me now. You know it wasn't me who hurt you that day."

She stopped, her face paled all of a sudden. As I studied her expressions, it felt as if I could read the chapters of her thoughts like an open book, the unspoken words written across the canvas of her face, waiting for me to decipher.

"You still killed my brother." Even if I knew the two weren't on good terms, I could still hear the pain in her voice as she said those words. As much as they competed, he was still her brother. But how much longer will she think that?  "You killed Ivan with no mercy, right after you made so-called-love to me."

"And I don't regret it."

Her eyes are wide like wheels. She made her hand into a fist and swung it hard, crashing into me. I happily receive the blows she throws at me, knowing that she still feels at least something for me.

Hate, it is.

I stood there, taking each painful blow, not because I deserved it, but because the sting of her touch, even in anger, was the only way I could feel her presence again. The physical pain was a desperate substitute for the emotional void she left behind.

"You murder!" Maria yelled, punching me in the face without mercy. "You dare to stand here and tell me that you don't regret taking my brother away from me!" Another blow and I'm on the floor, letting her go again as she kicks me with all her might.

And it hurts. But I let it anyway.

"If I didn't, you would be next. You would be the one who would have died because of his so-called full pocket." Either she got tired or she heard me because the blows stopped and she was now sitting on her bed, her back facing me.

"I don't want to hear it." She told me bluntly. "If it's true then I don't want to hear it."

"Love." I took a step but the sounds of my shoes triggered her and she shook her head repulsively. "You saved me then Maria, let me save you now."

A loud cry came out of her and her whole body bent until I could only see the trembling that came over her. "I wanted to suppress it. Not to believe everything I hear or see. He was my brother, after all, he wouldn't do it."

But again, not all nightmares are impossible.

Exactly five years ago, just a few days after Maria's twentieth birthday, Ivan Petrov made a diabolical deal with the German Hahn mafia family. The same one who paid my family to kill every member of the Russian mafia.

The deal quickly reached us, and my father was more than happy to support such a settlement.

The oldest member of the Hahn family, Otto Weber, who was then fifty-six years old at the time, would marry Maria with the addition that he would pay for each dead member of her family. The only dowry that her family had to pay for such a "generous" movement was that Maria, together with Otto Weber, would move to Germany.

That same man, better known as the German Jack the Ripper, had every right to do whatever he wanted with Maria with that agreement. And it wouldn't be surprising if she ended up like his previous five wives.

Dismembered with body parts in various places in Berlin.

Even if Vasiliye Petrov did not support this at all, Ivan had his plans. And if my so-called smart father hadn't stepped in, knowing he wasn't getting any of this, Maria would have ended up in the hands of Jack the Ripper.

So this fairy tale is true after all. It only took five years to unearth it and come to the surface.

Maria couldn't stop crying for three minutes, her body almost fell off the bed from too much pressure and lack of strength. I approached her bed slowly, the sobs resonating in the room. As I sat down beside her, I could feel the weight of her pain. Without words, I offered a silent presence, ready to share the burden she carried in her tears.

Slowly, I hugged her to me, letting her whole body rest on mine as we both lowered onto the bed.

As she nestled against my chest, her tear-streaked face hidden from the world, I wrapped my arms around her, feeling the delicate tremors coursing through her frame.

In that quiet hug, I thought about being the rock she could lean on. No need for words—I silently promised to ride out the storms of her sadness, holding onto her not just for that moment but until her pain faded away.

I already promised her once that I would take her pain away, and I'm willing to keep my promise.

❦