Prologue: Anvika
ANVIKA
Past| Age: Seventeen
"I don't follow m-men's orders..." I stammer, my voice trembling but laced with defiance, "...especially not from men with f-fragile egos."
Tears streak down my cheeks-not because I'm afraid, not because I'm pleading. My pride won't allow that. It's just my body reacting, trembling at the peak of a cliff gone far too cold. The air smells like iron and rain. It stings my lungs.
He stands inches from me, unmoved. His expression is unreadable-calm, like a man observing a painting rather than a girl barely standing in front of him. Outside, thunder crackles like a warning, but he doesn't flinch.
"I warned you, Anvika," he says, his voice soft, almost regretful. That makes it worse. "I gave you choices. But you... you always pick the path paved in pain. The one that ends in blood."
I open my mouth to speak-maybe to argue, maybe to curse him-but before I can, I feel it. The sharp metal stabbed me, tearing through the flesh of my abdomen.
A gasp claws out of my throat. My knees buckle and the pain is unreal, blinding. My vision blurs as I instinctively clutch his chest, not for comfort-but to keep myself from collapsing. I don't want to fall. Not yet and definitely not in front of him.
His hand reaches up, and for a second I hope he'll catch me but instead, he grabs the bun I tied hours ago-fingers tangling roughly into my hair, yanking my head back so I'm forced to look up into his face. My tears mix with the rain now seeping through the open window.
"Remember," he whispers, voice so intimate it sends a chill down my spine, "you once told me you wanted a red ruby for your birthday?"
I blink rapidly. My mind's too fogged by pain to respond. My breath comes in short gasps as I lower my gaze-and see it.
The gaping wound in my stomach.
Warm, thick blood spills down my abdomen in slow, heavy streams. It soaks my dress, trickling like molten velvet. The color is beautiful-deep, dark, vivid-just like the ruby I had once admired in a shop window. Just like the one I had foolishly joked about.
A gift.
His gift.
I let out a strangled, broken sound. I don't know if it's a cry, or a laugh, or just the last of my strength slipping away.
The world is spinning now. Or maybe it's just me but one thing is clear-This is the price I pay for choosing the wrong man to defy.
"This is the only red thing I can gift you."His voice was calm. Cold. He tilted his head slightly, watching the blood spill like it meant nothing.
"Don't you think it would've been better if you'd just agreed to my terms?" A bitter chuckle escaped me-dry, cracked. I shoved him with what little strength I had, his chest barely moving under my hands.
I stumbled one step back, blood now pooling around my feet. "Terms?" I spat, the taste of iron on my tongue. "Y-you mean... I should lick your shoes like a dog? Be your pet?" Each word scraped my throat like broken glass.
My breath hitched, uneven and painful. Then I heard it, the footsteps-it belongs to her.
Behind me.
My spine stiffened. I turned slightly, heart hammering inside my chest-but before I could move any further, a hand shot out and seized my arm, fingers digging into my flesh like claws. I flinched, frozen.
From the front, he stepped closer. Slow. Deliberate.
The knife glinted in his hand, catching the lightning that split the sky overhead. "Fine then," he said, his voice now stripped of pretense. "Die." I didn't even have time to plead-not that I would've.
The blade sank into me again. My knees buckled instantly, hitting the wet stone with a crack. Pain ripped through my body, raw and all-consuming, like fire coursing through my veins.
The rain poured harder now, mixing with my tears as they fell freely. The world blurred-water, blood, sky and then the black spots came.
Growing.
Eating everything.
And just when I thought I'd be swallowed whole, someone grabbed my wrist. A jolt of movement. They were dragging me. Away? Deeper? I couldn't tell.
The jagged pebbles scraped my back, sharp and cold, biting into my skin, but I couldn't scream. I couldn't cry.
Even that felt like a task too far for a dying girl. My eyes flutter open-barely. The world is a blur of rain, blood, and pain.
Before I can fully breathe, he yanks my hair, jerking my head up. My neck screams in protest, but I don't cry out. I meet his eyes instead-dark, emotionless, monstrous.
"Women should beg to us," he snarls. "And if you don't-this is how you die." He stands above me, towering like a god of cruelty. But he's no god.
Just a man.
A bloody fool.
A smirk curls on my lips, weak but defiant. Even now. Especially now, he notices. His face twists, insulted by the audacity of a dying girl who still dares to mock him.
Asshole deserved it.
He takes a step forward, eyes fixed on the gaping wound in my stomach. My arms are wrapped around myself, trembling, pressing against the bleeding hole like I could hold myself together. Like I could stop everything from spilling out.
He spits on me. The rain washes it away almost instantly, but the humiliation stays. I grit my teeth, lifting a shaky hand, reaching for his leg. Not to beg. To break.
But before I can touch him-
His boot slams into my ribs with brutal force. The breath knocks out of me as my body lifts and then-Nothing.
The ground is no longer there. The world tilts. The rain becomes a roar in my ears. I'm falling.
Off the edge.
Time slows but it wasn't like what we've seen in movies-but rather different. I see him standing above, watching me drop like discarded trash. I see the black sky split by lightning. I see my blood trailing behind me like ribbons and then just like that Anvika dies!
How was the chapter guys? I hope you enjoyed it.
Should I drop Dominic's prologue tomorrow? (If I get good response i.e..good comments and not spam- I'll update it tomorrow itself)
Before you start reading further here are a few things I would clarify:-
1. Both of my characters are equally fucked up in their ways.
2. The book is TRIGGERING (yes in bold) if you can't take triggering things, I request you step back.
3. The MMC Dominic Zaharov, is NOT a misunderstood Hero. He's a villain who doesn't care who dies or lives when it comes to whatever he wishes to have and even the path he chooses is not KIND.
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