Chapter 8

I kept it in me, that's how my soul got eaten.

Rezan's POV

The hallway's too quiet. That eerie, early-morning silence where everything feels heavier than it should. The marble floors gleam under the dim lighting, my own reflection staring back at me.

This house has been ours for five years now. Five years since the old man kicked the bucket. Cancer got him, slow and merciless, though it's not like any of us lost sleep over it. We never really knew him. He was there, sure, looming, silent, impossible to please but not in any way that counted. His death should've felt bigger, heavier. It didn't. The Demir brothers had always been on their own, with or without him.

Our mother ran away when I was seven. Packed up and vanished like a ghost. I get it, in a way. This life isn't for everyone. But still, she didn't even try. No goodbyes, no explanations, just gone. She had been pregnant at the time, though a week later, we got the news that she'd died in an accident. Baba told us he handled her remains, buried her. That fucker didn't even let us witness our own mother's last rites. ( Baba=father)

Zyran never talks about her. Cihan barely acknowledges it. Dehrin had been too young to remember her. And me? I tell myself I don't care.

But I remember.

I shake the thought off. No use digging up graves that don't matter anymore.

Instead, my mind drifts back to the girl.

Yerenica

I don't know why my thoughts keep drifting to her. She's nothing special. Adorable, yes. Timid?understatement of the year. But what's the deal? There's something about her that draws me in, and it pisses me off.

But every time I see her, it's like a pull. I can't explain it. Her eyes, those damn hazel eyes, they're so innocent, so full of something that I've long forgotten. Hope, maybe. The hope she doesn't know how to protect, the innocence she hasn't yet had torn from her. It pisses me off, that look in her eyes, because I don't know how to handle it.

It makes my stomach twist.

And I don't like it.

I don't like that she got dragged into this. I don't like that she ended up trafficked. I don't like that Rurik had his hands on her fate like she was some fucking commodity.

That's not my world. She's not my world. But I feel this damn urge to check in on her, to make sure she's okay, even though I know she's nothing more than a pawn in this mess. So why do I even care?

More than anything, I don't like that I feel anything about it at all.

I rub my temple as I step into Zyran's office.

He's behind his desk, crisp, composed, looking like he's been awake for hours. That's the thing about Zyran, he doesn't sleep; he calculates. Cihan's beside him, sipping his coffee, already scrolling through documents like it's another mundane Monday.

I drop into the chair across from them, stretching out like I own the place. "So...why that girl still in our house?"

Zyran barely looks up. "She's staying here for now."

"Thought we were sending her to the orphanage. You know, the whole 'not our problem' plan?" I rest my chin on my fist. "Or did we decide to start collecting lost strays?"

Zyran exhales, closing the file in front of him. "I couldn't refuse Rurik's 'gift' without offending him."

I scoff. "A mafia boss with feelings. Adorable."

"She could be a spy." Zyran's tone is unreadable, but I see it, the flicker of something in his gaze. "We need to keep an eye on her."

I bark out a laugh. "Spy? You really think that girl, who looks like she'd pass out if someone so much as raises their voice is an undercover agent?" I wave a hand. "She's harmless. Adorable, actually."

Zyran rolls his eyes. "You're a fucking idiot."

"Yeah, yeah, we've established that. But here's something interesting, you wanna know her name?"

Zyran doesn't react. "I don't particularly care."

"Liar." I smirk, dragging it out. "It's Yerenica."

That gets him.

It's subtle the way he freezes for just a second, the way his grip on the pen tightens. But I know my brother. And for one split second, that name means something to him.

Then he recovers, flipping the file back open. "Doesn't matter."

Liar again.

My gaze drifts to Cihan, who has frozen as well. He looks unsettled, lost in the past, like a memory just reached out and grabbed him by the throat.

I don't press it, though. Not now.

We go over a few documents, business as usual. By the time I stand to leave, that name still lingers between us.

Yerenica.

A name we once chose for the sister we never had.

What a stupid coincidence.

Thoughts?