Chapter 24

It vacillates in my head between vice and virtue, especially since what I have left isn't worth what I've lost.

I spun around like a caged lion in this room.

I hated being deprived of freedom and having to stay stuck between the same four walls.

This little "fugue" had earned me a total ban on leaving my room until further notice.

I was so angry with myself for having thus cracked. Me who advocated my great mastery how had I been able to switch to madness in a second?

I looked out of my bedroom window at the wind blowing on the green leaves. The sky was a perfectly uniform light blue, it was almost therapeutic to watch the birds fly away in this blue immensity devoid of clouds.

I was so absorbed in this idyllic picture that I jumped when the door opened.

I turned around and faced Vladimir, the man of my nightmares.

He approached me like a predator ready to pounce on his prey.

Yet he stopped a few millimeters away. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. I looked into his eyes and saw the shadow of a tragic past there.

Without my expecting it, he passed his hand over my cheek. He caressed me gently, as if he was afraid of breaking me.

- Like that the bird tries to get out of its cage, he whispers in a hoarse voice.

I continued to stare at him, not knowing what to say.

Not a word wanted to come out of my throat. As if they refused to break this soothing silence.

My heart had started pounding the moment he laid eyes on me, but at his touch the burn in my reinstall resurfaced.

How was it that he could make my heart react like this with a simple caress?

Was I really crazy?

Only our breaths were heard in the large room where I slept.

He approached me slowly he placed a kiss just below my ear.

He surprised me with the gentleness of his gestures towards me.

Maybe Aldo was right? Maybe there was a soul deep inside this man? Had he simply been broken by the fate that had been imposed on him?

- You look so much like him, he whispered.

His sentence made no sense to me. I wanted to ask him what he was talking about but he froze.

He sat up like an automaton empty of emotion. The look he placed on me, at that very moment, froze my blood.

He had changed.

Something in his eyes scared me but I didn't show it.

In his gaze was lit a burning fire of revenge.

- From now on either you will comply with the rules or you will suffer the consequences, he said coldly.

He turned away from me and walked out without a look.

The warm silence that had existed a few minutes earlier had given way to an unhealthy silence.

I put my hand on the place he had touched his lips while staring at the place from which he had come out, while wondering about what had just happened.