Prologue
White always looked beautiful.
Especially when stained with red.
Snow drifted slowly from the sky, delicate and quiet, settling on my coat, my hair, my lashes.
It disappeared the moment it touched the warmth beneath me.
My warmth.
A strange thought crossed my mind.
I had always imagined the end would be louder.
More dramatic.
Something worthy of a final moment.
But instead, the world was silent.
The city slept beneath a blanket of snow, unaware of anything beyond its peaceful streets. And I sat there, watching the color spread across the white outside my window.
Like a painter had brushed a single stroke across an empty canvas.
Beautiful.
The thought should have frightened me.
It didn’t.
Maybe because I already knew where my mind would go when everything else faded.
To her.
My Romashka moya.
A quiet, bitter laugh escaped me.
Out of all the ways my story could have unfolded, I never expected it to circle back to her.
But somehow…
Every road had always led back to her.
A sharp pain exploded behind my eyes.
The world tilted.
For a second, I forgot where I was.
Then my fingers brushed the side of my head.
Blood.
So much blood.
The gunshot echoed through my memory.
One shot only.
I closed my eyes.
And there she was.
The girl who believed in justice.
The girl who spent years hunting monsters.
Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance.
Too far away.
I smiled.
Because if fate had any sense of humor at all, She would hate this.
She would hate that I was leaving first.
She would hate that I never gave her all the answers.
She would hate that after everything, I was still slipping through her fingers.
The car door burst open.
Cold air rushed inside.
My eyes fluttered open.
And there she was.
“No,” she whispered.
The words cracked something inside me.
No, my Romashka moya wasn’t supposed to cry.
Yet tears streamed down her beautiful face, mixing with melting snow.
For me?
I wanted to tell her not to look so heartbroken.
I wanted to tell her a thousand things.
Instead, I smiled.
“Tell me, Romashka Moya...”
Blood filled my mouth.
Darkness crept into the edges of my vision.
“What would you do for love?”
And then the world went black.
