Trivial, idle chatter at best. I had never tried to learn much about him. I didn’t even know whether he had family.

“Jurgen, do you have family back home?”

“My father is still alive. And I have two younger brothers.”

“What about your mother?”

“She was killed in a bombing during the war.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

His answer caught me off guard, startling in its starkness.

“I also had an older brother. He died in the war, same as my mother.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why should you be?”

I didn’t have anything to say. They were just perfunctory words of courtesy. Having lost my own parents and siblings, I knew how much it must have hurt him. And yet, I could not easily offer him any comfort.

“Are your brothers doing well?”

“They should be.”

“You don’t keep in touch with them?”

“We don’t exchange letters.”

“So you’re not close with your family?”

He furrowed his brows, lost in thought.

“I was close to my older brother.”

“Sounds like you were very fond of him.”

It was difficult to imagine Jürgen getting on well with anyone. The man I knew was always cold, curt and distant.

“Svyeta, to me, my brother was…”

The car stopped at a traffic light. He turned to look at me and his gaze was so steady, so intense and so sad, that I instinctively held my breath.

“He was the only one I had.”

His voice sank, hollow and grim.

“My parents didn’t get along. Their quarrels were so fierce there wasn’t a single day without shouting. I thought it would only end when one of them died—and I was right. After my mother’s death, my father suddenly became gentle.”

This was the first time Jürgen had ever spoken to me about himself. I didn’t know how to respond, and while I hesitated, he pressed the accelerator down again.

“In that family, my brother was the only person I could lean on.”

“Once again, I’m sorry for your loss, Jurgen.”

“Is that so?”

He gave a low, mirthless chuckle.

“Had he lived, he would have become a soldier. He would have attended the military academy, as his father wanted, and taken on the family’s duty.”

Losing a family member leaves a wound that never heals. You live with a void in your heart for the rest of your life. Having lost both my parents and now my brother, I couldn’t listen to Jürgen’s story without feeling its weight.

As his car crossed the bridge, I tossed the bouquet of roses I had been holding into the river below, as if in remembrance. The flowers tumbled and scattered along the riverbank — a pitiful and inadequate sight, much like my clumsy attempt at consolation.

✹✹ ✹✹ ✹✹ ✹✹ ✹✹

They arrived at Jurgen’s estate.

He pulled the car into place with a screech, the tires grinding against the frozen ground until the vehicle lurched to a stop.

Climbing out, he yanked open the passenger door and dragged me out roughly.

“Ugh…!”

His brutal grip on my arm made me gasp as I looked up at him in shock.

“Svyeta, you’re a patriot, aren’t you?”

His hand shot up to seize my collar, hauling me close as a chilling smile twisted across his face.

“Doesn’t the thought of being r*ped by a Hildenbech dog disgust you?”

His grip tightened around my throat. Air cut off, I writhed helplessly in his hold. He began dragging me somewhere, still clutching me by the neck.

“Let—let go, I can’t—breathe…!”

“Beg me to spare you.”

My lungs burned. White, then yellow, then black spots flickered across my vision. Why? Why was he doing this? Why now?

“Beg for your life!!”

Through the blur of my failing vision, his face transformed into a monstrous form as he bellowed.

“J-Jurgen…”

Terror consumed me. His strength was inhuman, impossible to fight against. My desperate struggling meant nothing. Please, stop… please…

“I’ve always wanted to kill you.”

Tears welled at his chin, dripping onto me as he choked me harder. He was crying—crying as he confessed.

“I’ve always wanted to snap your neck!!”

“Why…? Why do you hate me…?”

The world was dimming. My body went slack as the last of my breath was stolen. Only at the brink of unconsciousness did he release me.

I collapsed onto the ground, retching, gasping, my throat raw and burning.

“You were the one who taught me what hatred is.”

His earlier words echoed in my skull.

“Congratulations, Svyeta. You’re on borrowed time now.”

‘Could it be… he meant those words? Truly?’

Jürgen carried me inside the mansion. My body was as limp as if it had been soaked in water. He laid me on his bed and slowly removed each of my clothes: my scarf, coat, gloves, boots, jumper, skirt and stockings.

I couldn’t even resist. The violence he had shown me moments earlier had shattered me. I had only one thought: to run.

Then I spotted the telephone on the dresser. Yes! If I could just reach it, I could call the police. I could tell them that he had tried to strangle me. They would surely help me then.

“What? Planning to report me?”

Sensing my intent, he sneered as he tugged away even my undergarments. Soon, I was laid out neatly on his bed.

“Do you… do you really mean to kill me? Are you truly going to kill me?”

“Open your mouth.”

“Mmph—!”

He forced apart my lips and shoved something inside. A bitter pill.

“Swallow it.”

An acrid taste spread across my tongue, and I started to feel weak. Was this how he intended to kill me? By drugging me to death? Terrified, I thrashed around, trying to spit it out. But he easily pinned me down and sealed my mouth shut with his palm.

“Do you feel wronged?”

His ashen eyes bore into mine.

“Are you afraid?”

He looked down at me with something that almost resembled pity.

“Not half as much as I am.”

My desperate attempts only resulted in drool trickling through his fingers. The drug’s effects were already starting to take hold, though. My limbs grew heavy and my body went limp.

“I want you to love me too, Svyeta.”

He whispered, voice low and steady, the words cutting even as the darkness closed in.

“So you can despair… the way I do.”

And then, I sank into a deep, merciless sleep.

✹✹ ✹✹ ✹✹ ✹✹ ✹✹

When I woke up, he was already on top of me. When I realised that he had continued to have s*x with me while I was unconscious, I broke out in chills all over my body.

I was terrified.

All I could feel as he thrust into me was fear; it hit me like a punishment. It felt like a cruel sentence, as if it were something I deserved — merciless and without reprieve.

“Svyeta.”

He groaned my name, his hand brushing tenderly across my cheek.

“Svyeta… Svyeta…”

His hips moved with a gentle rhythm.

“Ugh…”

“I… I can’t…!”

“Tears spilled down my face as I cried and tried to push him away. I couldn’t do it. If he kept going, he would kill me. I had to stop him. My brothers could wait — hadn’t it always been that way? Even when Seryozha was alive, I hadn’t visited him in the camp. I was too afraid and horrified to visit him.

Endure it. You promised.”

“I can’t anymore—ugh… I don’t want this. Please… please stop…”

But he paid no heed to my pleas. His tongue tangled with mine as he drove deeper. A sudden rush spilled inside me, hot and viscous. s*men. Terror clawed up my spine at the thought—I might be pregnant.

“Did it hurt?”

I gave a faint nod.

He shifted position. Instead of towering over me, he sat back and pulled me onto his lap. I was too weak to resist and my body slumped forward, my face burying itself in his chest.

He gripped my chin and forced me to look at him. For the first time, he looked dishevelled. His brown hair hung loose across his forehead, and he was completely n*ked.

“Stop… I want to stop…”

“Stop?”

“You don’t have to help my family. I don’t care anymore. Just… just let this end.”

His brows drew tight, his expression twisting.

“What exactly are you saying you want to stop?”

I trembled, stammering through my breath.

“Don’t be foolish.”

He pulled me into his arms, soothing me with a pat. But when his hard p*nis pressed against my lower belly, dread seized me and I twisted away.

“Can’t you even endure this?”

He forced my legs apart. He pushed them further apart and entered me. I was already wet, so it didn’t hurt, but the sensation was overwhelming.

His thrusts were slow and steady. Softer than before, yet no less tormenting. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge to urinate, and my whole body tightened. My core throbbed, my toes curled, and I shivered with an unwanted hunger that left me drowning in shame.

“I—I can’t do this anymore. Please stop.”

“You have to endure it. Otherwise, how will I help your family?”

“You would go this far…?”

“Shut your mouth. Do you mean to take it back now?”

His thrusts grew violent, pounding into me until pain wrenched groans from my lips.

“Jurgen, please… please, stop. Stop…”