Chapter 21
Nikolai’s heart fucking soared as he rushed upstairs, practically vibrating with hope.
This was the first time he’d entered Veloura’s villa. The house was small but warmly decorated, giving him a feeling of coming home–like an actual home instead of a museum.
God, we could be happy here. Just the two of us. Simple. Normal.
His assistant had said he couldn’t handle an ordinary, peaceful life. He’d prove him wrong with facts–he could do it. As long as he was with Veloura, he’d accept any kind of life.
His expression softened, the gloom in his eyes gradually clearing as he followed Veloura into a room, already planning their future.
“Nikolai, I want my brother to come back.” Veloura’s voice was eerily calm as she pointed to an urn on the table.
The hope in his chest turned to ice.
Veloura pointed to a small white box nearby. “I want my child to be born safely.”
His face grew paler still.
Veloura removed her jacket, revealing a back covered in scars–a roadmap of damage from the cane, from falling down stairs, from things he couldn’t even remember doing to her. “I want my back to be smooth and unmarked again.”
Nikolai’s face had lost all color. His knees almost gave out. “Veloura, please…”
‘I want my knees to stop hurting when it rains. I want to forget the sound of my brother suffocating. I want to not flinch when men raise their voices…”
‘STOP! Don’t say anymore.” The word ripped out of his throat like a scream, tears streaming down his face. “Please, baby, just fucking stop!”
‘Nikolai, we’re finished. Damage can’t be undone, the past is the past. I don’t love you anymore–I stopped loving you long ago.” She looked at him like he was a stranger. No pity. No anger. Nothing.
‘The girl who loved you? She died in that basement while she was losing your baby. She’s not coming back.”
‘No matter what you do, I’ll never love you again. My only wish is for you to leave my world and never appear again.”
No, you still love me! The violin I made you–you kept it with you!”
Veloura raised the violin in her hands and smashed it violently against the floor. The crash was deafening. Strings snapped, wood splintered
verywhere…
I kept it because I was used to it. But I realized something today–the sound isn’t the same anymore. Time for an upgrade.” Veloura’s cold, merciless ¡aze pierced Nikolai’s heart. She looked at him like he was the broken pieces on the floor.
le’d never been so humiliated. He practically fled from Veloura’s house.
Vikolai ran wildly through the streets, cold wind howling in his ears like it was stabbing through his heart. Everything was blurry–tears, rage, the omplete destruction of every hope he had left.
A car appeared behind him, heading straight for him.
A tremendous crash. Nikolai’s body was thrown through the air, landing hard, blood spurting from his mouth.
The car stopped, then suddenly reversed, running over Nikolai again and crushing both his legs. The sound of bones snapping was almost casual
Mr. Virellic! Stop!” His assistant appeared just in time to prevent the car from hitting Nikolai a third time. He rushed Nikolai to the hospital while ending people after the hit–and–run driver.
Vikolai’s condition was critical, his life hanging by a thread, but he kept calling Veloura’s name.
17:16
Go Play Your Duet with Your Mistress: My Life’s Melody is Going Solo on My Own
Chapter 21
The assistant begged Veloura to visit, hoping she might see Nikolai for the sake of their ten years together, to help him wake up.
Veloura refused. She couldn’t keep giving Nikolai hope. Whether he lived or died was his own fate.
“She said whether you live or die isn’t her problem anymore.”
The words hit harder than the car had.
Call her heartless, call her cruel–she wanted nothing more to do with Nikolai.
Nikolai ultimately survived and was sent back to the States by his assistant.
The person who hit him was sent by Grandfather Virellic. He’d always been invincible, with only one weakness–Veloura.
Grandfather had watched him grow increasingly powerful and independent, beyond control, causing growing panic. The whole thing–Anneliese, the manipulation, the systematic destruction of his marriage–had been orchestrated by his own family.
Wanting to reclaim control of the Virellic family, Grandfather had deliberately arranged for Anneliese to approach Nikolai. Every smile, every gesture had been personally coached by him, perfectly mimicking the young Veloura.
While Nikolai was completely focused on Veloura, Grandfather struck ruthlessly.
When Nikolai finally returned alive, he learned the entire truth.
He went after everyone involved like a man possessed, brutally torturing all participants.
Nikolai sent Grandfather to a labor camp in Myanmar, making him the lowest, most degraded slave, stripping away the power and status he valued most.
Grandfather lasted only three days before taking his own life.
But none of it mattered.
Because Veloura was right. You can’t resurrect the dead.
And the man who’d loved her completely, who’d have died for her smile, who’d built his entire world around making her happy?
That man was gone. She’d killed him in that little German house, with a few carefully chosen words and a broken violin.
Because he’d lost the only thing that had ever made him human.
17:16
