༒ 𝒁𝒂𝒚𝒏 ༒
And then... Her eyes open.
Her tired eyes. Blurred with drugs and dreams.
I freeze. My tongue stop thrusting. But it's still inside her. But the position is the same. I'm still holding her in the air, her most private place pressed against my face. She must feel exposed. Uncomfortable. Confused.
Her clouded eyes find mine. From her angle she can't see my full face. Her own thighs block my nose and mouth. All she can see is my forehead and eyes.
Selena blinks. Once. Twice. Heavy blinks.
And then she smiles. A dreamy smile. She thinks this is a dream. A hot, wild dream. She lets out a tiny sigh. Her eyes close again. Her head rolls back on the pillow. She is gone. Back into sleep.
Relief...
She can't guess that her enemy is right here. That I come to her home just to eat her like she's my last meal.
For today, it's enough. If I do more, her sleep might truly break. That would be a sin. To disturb her perfect peace. Slowly, I lower her body back onto the bed. I place her legs down at one time. She curls on her side. A small naked curl. One hand tucked under her cheek.
I pick up the blanket from the floor and cover her with it.
But I need a piece of tonight to take with me.
I take out my phone. The screen lights up my face in the dark. I open the camera. I don't use the flash. The soft lamp light is enough.
I hold my breath. I take the picture.
A quiet click.
In the picture, only her face is visible on the pillow. No one would ever know what I did just moments before. I click her picture every night. Before I leave her.
For three years, I have saved a picture of her every single night. My phone is a holy book of her sleep. One thousand, ninety-five pictures. Each one is a little different. Some nights, when the world is too loud and the Yilmaz name feels like a chain, I look at them. I scroll through the years of her peace. I watch her grow more beautiful, night by night. It is my most precious collection.
I slip the phone back into my pocket. The new picture is saved. Safe with all the others.
I walk to the door. I turn and look at her one last time.
"Sleep well. Gather your strength. You will need it for the day you wake up... This is the last night you will sleep not knowing my name. Tomorrow, you will walk into my home, into my world, and you will finally know the name of the man who has owned your nights. You will know it is Zayn."
I turn off the lamp. The room returns to pitch dark.
And I am gone.
A minute later, I am on my bike. The engine comes to life with a low growl. The wind is cold and sharp. It feels good. It washes her smell off me. But it can never wash her from my mind.
From the Demir mansion to my own home is a forty-minute ride. Our security knows I come home late. They see my headlight and open the heavy iron gates without a word. My father is a strict man, but he believes I am out with friends, drinking, being a young man. He has no idea what my nights are truly for. He has no idea the only woman I see is the daughter of the man he hates most in the world.
The house is silent. Everyone is sleeping. My father. My uncles. Their wives and children. All asleep.
It is our ancestor's home. Built by my great-grandfather. It is not a modern glass building. It looks like an old Turkish palace. Stone walls. High arches over every door. Courtyards with fountains that are silent at night.
I walk inside. My boots are silent on the huge, red-and-blue rug that runs down the main hallway. The walls are covered with dark wood panels and old paintings of a serious man in old-fashioned suit- my great-grandfather. Their eyes seem to follow me in the dim light.
I stop and look at the big clock on the wall. 3 AM.
70 years ago. The war started with him. My great-grandfather. He was a wild, cruel man. He saw a married woman from the Demir family-Selena's great-grandmother. She was famous for her beauty. Though she already had a happy family with kids, my great-grandfather wanted her. He and his friends... They gang-raped her. They broke her. And then, to hide their shame, they killed her. Left her broken body like trash.
The Demirs found her. Their pain was a fire that burned the whole city. They wanted to burn every Yilmaz to the ground. They hunted my great-grandfather down and killed him in the street, in broad daylight. An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
Two families were drowning in fresh blood. Two graves were dug. A Demir woman. A Yilmaz man.
The other old families in the city saw it. They gathered the heads of our families. They said, "Where does it end? You kill one of theirs, they kill one of yours. Back and forth. You will drown your entire line in it. You will wipe each other from the earth until only the stories of your hate are left."
So, a treaty was made. It was signed right here in this house, seventy years ago. The blood stops here. No more killing. If one family breaks the treaty and spills blood first, then, and only then, can the other family take revenge. But if both are quiet, the war stays cold.
It was a necessary rule. Because if it had continued... if the Demirs had come for more revenge... they would have come for my great-grandmother. She was pregnant then. Carrying my grandfather inside her.
If they had killed her, there would have been no grandfather. No father. No me.
The hate did not die, though. We curse each other's names. But we have never raised a hand. The treaty has held.
Until now.
The treaty says no blood. It says nothing about love. It says nothing about obsession. It says nothing about a man who is willing to break every other rule to have what he wants.
I look at the painting of the man who started it all. The monster whose blood is my blood.
"You started this with violence and death. I will end it with her."
She will stand in this hallway. She will breathe this air. She will be under this roof. And the cold war, will finally be over.
The dark hallway seems to pull me towards its end. I stop at the last door. My grandfather's room.
No breath. No pause. My hand finds the cold metal handle. I turn it. I go inside.
The room smells like medicine. My grandfather is lying there. He is paralyzed. Cannot move. Cannot speak. The blankets are flat over his body. His eyes are closed. His mouth is open. A clear plastic tube runs from his nose to the oxygen concentrator beside the bed.
This is the machine that keeps him alive. A green light blinks on it.
I stand over him. He looks small. Not like the powerful man I remember from my childhood. Now he is just skin and bones, waiting to die.
"Grandfather," I whisper.
His eyelids flutter open. He recognizes me. A little light comes into his eyes. He tries to smile, but he is too weak.
I pull a chair close to the bed to sit down. I take his hand. It is cold and light, like a bundle of sticks.
"I need to talk to you."
He just looks at me. The machine hisses.
"I am sorry," I say. And I mean it. But the sorry is not for what I am about to do. The sorry is because he has to be the one. "I am so sorry, Grandpa. Your time was almost done anyway. This way, your death means something. It brings her to me."
He makes a small sound in his throat. His fingers try to squeeze my hand, but there is no strength.
"This will be quick. It will not hurt. It is better than the pain. It is a mercy."
There's a old rule. When someone in a rival family dies, you must go to their funeral. You must stand there and show respect. It is about honor. If a family refuses to follow this rule... they are seen as garbage. They are called honorless dogs. No one will do business with them. Their name becomes dirt. So everyone obeys.
A Demir will only walk into my house for a funeral.
So, I must make one.
I look at the machine. I am not a doctor. But I understand how things work. I see the power cord snaking from the machine to the wall. I see the controls. The buttons that say things like "Rate" and "Volume."
This is the electrical line that holds his life. I'm sorry. Sorry that my need for her is greater than my love for him.
But I am not sorry enough to stop.
"I need her to come here," I tell him, as if he can understand. "I need to see her in our home. This is the only way."
His eyes hold mine. There is no fear. Just a deep, old tiredness. Maybe he even understands. We are Yilmaz men. We take what we need.
My fingers find the plug where the machine connects to the wall. And I pull it. The hum stops. The little green and blue lights go dark. The machine's screen flickers and turns black.
The steady beep... beep... beep... becomes one long, flat sound.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeep-
The sound fills the quiet room.
I stand there, listening to it. I watch his chest. It rises once, twice... then it stops moving. The quiet after the long beep is the loudest thing I have ever heard.
Then I lean over and gently close his eyes.
"Thank you."
I walk out of the room. I leave the door open. The long, flat beep will eventually be heard by the night nurse down the hall. But not for a little while. I have time.
I go to my own room. I don't feel anything. No sadness. No guilt. Just a clean emptiness. I did what needed to be done.
I flop onto my bed, still in my black clothes. I am tired. My body feels heavy.
Now, I wait for the morning.
The morning when the screaming will start. When the crying will begin. When my father's face will crumple with grief.
They will announce a funeral. A huge, important funeral for the head of the Yilmaz family.
And because of the old rule, the Demir family will have to come. Kadir Demir will have to walk into our house. He will have to bring his family.
He will have to bring Selena.
I close my eyes, a small smile touching my lips in the dark.
─────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────
༒ 𝑺𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒂 ༒
A voice pulls me from the deep.
"Selena, my little star? Are you awake? It's important, my dear. Your father needs you downstairs."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It is Nanny Azra. I bury my face deeper into my pillow. Why does morning have to come so fast? This is why I lock my door every single night. It is my signal to the world: Do Not Disturb. Let me sleep.
But the knocking doesn't stop.
I force my eyes open. The world is blurry. I sit up slowly. My body... oh.
My body feels strange. Again. A familiar, embarrassing ache all over my body. Like my muscles have been used. My skin feels extra sensitive, as if someone has been staring at it for hours. My mind struggles to remember.
The dream. It's always the dream.
Blue eyes.
Not friendly blue. Ice blue.
In my dream, they were looking up at me. From between my own thighs. Staring right into the most private part of me.
My whole body flamed with embarrassment.
That was all my mind would give me. Those eyes. And a feeling of touch right there that I could not picture, but my body seemed to remember.
I was naked in the dream too. I look down at myself. My right breast has a small, dull ache. I touch it gently. Yesterday, it was the left one that felt this way. What is happening to me?
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force a face to appear behind those eyes. Nothing. Why always blue? Why not brown, like most people here? Why not the hazel green of the actor I like? Why is it always that specific chilling shade of blue? Do I dream about the same imaginary man every night?
Maybe he is a cricketer I've seen on TV. Or a foreign actor. I don't know. I can't place him. The dreams start three years ago, vague at first, but become clearer, more intense, as constant as my own heartbeat.
I slip out of the massive bed, my feet sinking into the thick cream-colored carpet. The morning light filters softly through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I don't bother drawing the curtains at night. My room is on the second floor, surrounded by tall, ancient cypress trees on this side of the mansion.
I walk to the huge mirror that takes up one wall. I stand before it, completely naked, as I do most mornings. I turn slightly, looking for... a mark? There is nothing. My skin is flawless, as always.
My sexual desire is just growing with me. That's all. I am twenty-two. An adult. Dreaming about someone touching me ..... it is not wrong. Everyone has desires.
"Selena! Are you awake? Please, open the door, Dear!"
I shake my head, trying to clear the fog of the dream and the confusing feelings. "Enough," I whisper to my reflection.
I walk to my walk-in closet and pull on a simple, oversized white linen shirt. It falls to my mid-thigh. I don't bother with anything else. I unlock my bedroom door and pull it open.
"Alright, Nanny, I'm up. What is so important that it couldn't wait another hour?"
Nanny Azra has been taking care of me since I was born. She has seen me grow up, seen my first steps, my first tears. She knows more about me than my own mother. And I have watched her get older. Even in her late forties, she refuses to stop working. She insists on making my bed, choosing my clothes, bringing me my morning tea, and even organizing my bookshelf. I keep telling her there are other servants for this, but she just waves a hand and says, "What will I do with my hands if I don't keep them busy?"
She bustles into my room now, her face more serious than usual. In her hands isn't my usual morning tea tray, but a garment bag of black silk. "My darling, you're awake."
She lays the dress across the bed like she's laying out a tactical map. "Your father is in the dining room. The car leaves in forty minutes. You must get ready, my heart."
I arch an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my oversized shirt. "Since when does breakfast come with a deadline and a uniform?"
She takes both of my hands in her rough and warm ones. "There is news, my Selena. The old man from the Yilmaz family... Mehmet Yilmaz... he passed away last night. The funeral is today. Your father is paying his respects. And you will be standing beside him."
The air leaves my lungs. "The Yilmaz compound? He wants me to walk into their house?"
My whole life, I've heard stories. 'Yilmaz' has been a cursed word in our home. A name spoken with a cold tone by my father, a story used to scare us as children about the 'other' family. I've never seen one in person.
"Who else? Your father's order is clear. You finished your graduation last month. You are not a little girl anymore. You are Selena Demir. It is time for you to learn about the world you live in. And a big part of that world... is knowing your enemies. You must see their faces. You must learn their house. You must understand the weight of the silence in a room when a Demir walks in. This is your education now."
She brushes my messy hair back from my face, "I do not like it either. But your father is right. You cannot be protected in a bubble forever. Knowledge is your armor now, not just these high walls."
I sigh, a deep, frustrated sound. I don't want to go. The very idea makes my skin feel tight. But I understand it. All these traditions, these rules... they are the fabric of our lives.
"Well, Dad could have talked to me about it," I mumble, pulling my hands away and walking to the window. "If he wants me to join his world this soon, he could just say it. I thought... I thought I would get a long break after graduation. A few months to just breathe. To travel. To be normal. "I give a bitter little laugh. "But my father's plans are different, aren't they?"
Nanny Azra comes up behind me and places her hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently. "His plans are for you to be strong. To be ready. It comes from love, even if it feels heavy. Now."
She doesn't let me waste any more time. She helps me get ready. I wear a black mini coat over the dress because it's sleeveless. I've heard the Yilmaz family is a bit traditional. And at a funeral, there will be a lot of old men. I have to keep things modest.
I rush to our car. Dad is already waiting inside, looking at his watch. I didn't have a proper breakfast. Just swallowed a sandwich because my mom forced it into my hand. She never lets me or my sisters leave on an empty stomach.
The whole car ride is my dad telling me how to behave in front of the Yilmaz. "Keep your chin high. Look them in the eye, but don't stare. Speak only if spoken to, and choose your words carefully. Be polite, but don't smile. Show respect, but don't bow your head. Remember who you are. Remember what they are."
I nod. I know all of this. But my dad repeats the same lecture every time before I meet important or dangerous people. I look out the window, watching the city pass by.
The car stops right in front of the Yilmaz House. I look out the window and... wow. I know I shouldn't say this. I really shouldn't. They're our enemies. But come on, their house is like something from a movie. A big stone palace. It looks like a museum, the kind you pay to visit. It's actually... really beautiful.
I immediately feel guilty. If my dad could read my mind right now, he would probably give me a two-hour lecture on family loyalty. "Selena! We do NOT compliment the architecture of our sworn enemies!"
I bite my lip to stop from smiling at the thought and step out of the car, trying to look serious. My father comes to my side, buttoning his black coat. "Stay close to me. Do not speak unless I introduce you. And remember what we discussed. You are a Demir. Act like one."
"I will, Dad," I say, straightening my coat. I sound more confident than I feel.
He gives my shoulder a quick squeeze. It's his version of a hug in public. Then he nods to the two serious-looking security men who have stepped up behind me. Their job is to keep me safe, even here.
I fall into step behind my father as we walk through the big iron gates. People are gathered quietly in the courtyard. In Turkish funerals, there is a deep respect. People don't make loud noises. They speak in whispers. They offer condolences to the family. There is often coffee served afterwards, and prayers are said for the soul of the departed.
I'm trying to take it all in when I feel a cold, sudden splash on the back of my hand. A raindrop.
My eyes snap up to the cloudy sky. As I look back down, my gaze travels up the front of the huge stone building.
And I stop walking.
There, on a third-floor balcony, stands a man. He is leaning forward, both hands resting on the railing. He is dressed completely in black as everyone else. But his eyes... Even from this distance, I can see them clearly.
Blue.
He is looking directly... at me.
My breath catches. My hand trembles at my side.
Those eyes.
They are exactly the same. The same shape, the same impossible color, the same intense stare that haunts my sleep every single night.
How? My heart hammers against my ribs. Why... why do they look exactly like the eyes from my dreams? It feels like my nightmare has just stepped out of my sleep and into the real world.