Chapter 3 2 year later

Sereia Elordis

2 Years Later

There is a dark beauty in death.

It is inevitable, impartial. No matter the path a man chooses, sooner or later, it will find him.

One day, it will find me too… but that doesn’t frighten me.

What haunts me is knowing that it is the only certainty I have about my future.

It does not belong to me.

A knock at the door interrupts my thoughts, and I turn to see Elena entering my bedroom with a serious expression on her face.

“So?” I ask curiously, placing the lifeless red rose on top of the dresser.

I receive flowers almost every day. Because of my beauty, many of Vladimir’s soldiers try to please me. I’ve lost count of how many marriage proposals I’ve received over the years, but the Pakhan of the Bratva has rejected every single one without even thinking twice.

I will not go anywhere while his daughter is still single and living under his roof.

Not that I mind. Marrying a mobster is the last thing I want in this world. I want to be free, to have a normal life far from the violence that has surrounded me for years.

The mob killed my father, and I will not let it swallow me too.

“My God, Sereia, that’s morbid,” Elena grumbles, pointing at the dead flower beside me. She lies on her stomach on my bed, resting her chin in her hands. “Why do you always admire dead flowers more than living ones?”

“Because death is real. Beauty is fleeting,” I reply honestly, and my friend looks at me as if I were an alien. I decide to focus on what matters. “Now tell me—did you talk to her?”

Elena presses her lips together before sighing.

“I couldn’t.”

“Elena…”

Her eyes fill with tears, and she covers her face with her hands.

“I need her, Sereia. I love her. I feel like I could die of sadness at any moment,” she whispers, and I stroke her hair, not knowing what to say.

If someone had told me two years ago that the same Elena who jumped with joy and made plans for her wedding to an American mobster would now be bitterly regretting it, I wouldn’t have believed them.

And if that same person had told me that the Pakhan’s only daughter would realize she was bisexual and fall in love with the cook’s daughter, I would have called them insane.

Yet, as absurd as it sounds, it is the pure truth.

Months after the arranged marriage agreement between the families was made, the Pakhan’s former cook suffered a heart attack and had to be replaced.

The new cook brought her daughter, Polina, to help in the kitchen—and that was the day my friend’s life turned upside down.

Polina is our age, but she is strong, outspoken, and brave. She has expressive brown eyes that reveal everything she’s thinking with a single glance.

Elena had always been spoiled and given the world at her feet. Despite her kind heart, she had never heard the word “no” or been challenged—until she met Polina.

Polina was humble, but she made it clear she didn’t like Elena or her social position. My friend was bothered by that and decided she wanted to make the cook’s daughter like her.

She wanted another friend.

But things evolved, and soon the looks meant something more. The smiles did too.

I will never forget the shock I felt when Elena asked me to sleep in my own room so she and Polina could have more privacy.

The next day, she confessed that they had kissed. And weeks later, with flushed cheeks, she told me they were doing more than that.

The cook slept in the servants’ wing of the Pakhan’s mansion, but somehow Elena convinced her father to let Polina stay in her room in case she needed anything.

He tried to refuse, arguing that I already fulfilled that role, but my friend claimed I was too thin and weak compared to Polina—who could help her stand up or carry her if she felt ill.

As always, her father gave in.

And although I felt relieved to finally sleep peacefully in my own bed, deep down I was worried about the possibility of them being caught.

Because this went far beyond what the Pakhan could tolerate.

Homosexuality in the mob is strictly forbidden. We’ve heard stories of people caught with someone of the same sex and severely punished. Soldiers were killed without dignity, as if loving another man were the worst crime they could commit.

It is treated the same as betrayal.

And Elena knew that.

Worse still, she knew it and continued seeing Polina—even though she was promised to another man. Even though she knew she would soon move to another continent and never see the girl she claimed to love again. Even though she was risking her life.

“Friend, if you don’t leave her, she’s the one who will die,” I try to be the voice of reason, because the only thing that has disguised their relationship over the past few months has been my presence.

Since the three of us were always together, no one suspected that the two of them were a couple. They were only alone at night, in Elena’s bedroom.

Despite the social difference, the Pakhan did not oppose their friendship. He could see that Elena was happy. Unlike his wife, Daria, who curled her lip every time she looked at the cook’s daughter.

Or at me.

Elena sits up on the bed and shakes her head in disbelief.

“Why did I have to be so stupid and ask my father to marry that Ramzi? I don’t want to leave! I can’t do this anymore!”

“You had different plans. You didn’t know her—”

“I didn’t even know myself!”

My friend cries bitterly, and I wonder what it must feel like to love someone to that extent. To the point where it hurts, where you would rather die than be apart.

“Maybe you could find a way to take her to Chicago?” I suggest.

She lets out a bitter laugh.

“And make her suffer while she watches me build a family with a man?” Elena shakes her head. “I can’t do that to her… she doesn’t deserve it. Polina is suffering, and it’s all my fault. I’m the one who dragged her into this mess.”