Some people walked into your life not to stay, but to carve out a part of you that would never belong to anyone else. He was that person-chaos I couldn’t tame, and I was a quiet he couldn’t understand. Together, we were both too much and still not enough.
I didn’t know why I was even thinking about this.
But I truly wanted to know what were we? Lovers, enemies, acquaintances?
There was no word for the space we occupied in each other’s lives. No definition for the push and pull that tied us together like sea held by sand.
I wondered if he ever thought about it too, about what we were. Or if I was just another name he’d forgotten before it even left his lips.
I named it complicated.
But complicated didn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Rara’s hands were gentle as she took the empty cup from my trembling grip. So softly as if she knew I needed the stillness. Her eyes were warm yet piercing, held mine for a moment too long, and I felt exposed in a way I hadn’t prepared for.
“You’re carrying a heavy heart, dear,” she muttered quietly and somehow I saw a broken woman who could feel what I felt. “Sometimes, the burden isn’t yours to bear.”
I blinked as my throat tightened. She must have sensed my hesitation, the way my shoulders stiffened.
“Life,” she placed the cup aside and looked at the distance as if she was recalling something, “has a way of confusing us. We want to make sense of it, of people, of relationships. But some things aren’t meant to be defined, Seraphina. Some bonds exist not to give us answers, but to teach us.”
I wanted to argue, to ask her how to let go of the questions gnawing at me. How to understand someone like Judas without losing myself in the process. But all I could do was nod.
“You can’t force clarity where the heart still hesitates,” she smiled but it each her eyes. “But you can choose how much of yourself you give to the… unknown.”
Before I could respond, the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed from the stairs.
Judas.
And Alexei.
The air in the room shifted. Rara turned her head toward the sound, her expressions were neutral yet unreadable, as if she had been expecting this exact moment.
Father and son walked down the stairs with their sharp movements and eerily synchronized, as though they were two sides of the same blade. And they were. Though they barely shared same features except for the fact that both were tall and muscular, Judas had pale eyes in contrast to Alexei’s dark ones.
I watched as both of them descended the stairs. Intimidating presence and dangerous aura. Though I quickly noticed and maybe Rara did too, because she quickly walked to Alexei’s side.
Judas’s eyes landed on me almost immediately and my breath hitched when I noticed a faint redness on his left cheek. It was barely there but I couldn’t miss it. Not when his eyes were bloodshot red and jaw clenched as if it could snap in two.
My breath hitched and my pulse quickened as he studied me with that familiar insanity. He looked like he had an argument with his father because neither of them looked particularly pleased.
Alexei’s expression was icy, but his tense posture betrayed a simmering ire. Judas, on the other hand, appeared completely unhinged.
His bloodshot eyes flicked over me before darting to Alexei and Rara. The air between the two men crackled with tension.
“Seraphina,” Alexei’s deep voice startled me and I jumped. His dark eyes swept over me briefly, but they held none of the madness I saw in Judas’s pale gaze. “I hope you’re adjusting well.”
I nodded quickly, unsure what to say. My attention kept slipping back to Judas, who had yet to take his eyes off me. His existence was suffocating.
Rara cleared her throat awkwardly, stepping closer to Alexei’s large frame as his arm possessively found her small waist. She glanced at me, her usual confidence dampened by whatever altercation had taken place before they appeared. “Shall we sit?” she suggested rubbing his arm. Maybe to calm him down. There was something going on in this family and I was just at cross-fire.
But before anyone could move, Judas took a stepped forward and stalked towards where I was standing. His low and gravelly voice wrapped around me. “In the bedroom,” he growled grabbing my arm. “Now.”
The command was subtle, and I wasn’t a fool to recognise the madness behind it. My pulse quickened and my body frozen under his intense gaze. My eyes moved to his parents. Alexei’s jaw was tensed but Rara’s eyes widened in concern.
Shit. I didn’t want her to see me in this vulnerable position. It was embarrassing.
“Judas,” Alexei’s warned sharply. It wasn’t loud, but the authority in it made me shiver. His dark gaze pinned his son in place, daring him to push further.
Judas stopped but didn’t let go of my arm. His grip was firm, almost bruising. “What is it now, Father?” he grunted. “Surely you’re not interfering again?”
Rara’s hand flew to Alexei’s chest before he could do something, her delicate fingers clutched the fabric of his blazer as if holding him in place. Her expression betrayed her unease and Judas’s hold on me tighetened. “Let her go,”
For a moment, I held my breath. Alexei’s gaze flicked to me, then to Judas’s hand on my arm. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and I could see the calculation in his eyes.
Judas leaned in closer to me and cupped my jaw before pushing my head back roughly, “Don’t make a scene, ptichka.”
I swallowed hard.
I was not making any scene.
“I-”
“Enough.” The single word was a command, someone who was used to being obeyed. Alexei took a step forward.
“Alexei!” Rara clung to him but she couldn’t stop him.
“Release her. Now.”
Judas scoffed, tilting his head as if amused by his father’s meddling. “Why? Are you afraid I’ll break her too?” His grip loosened slightly, though he didn’t let go entirely.
My heart pounded in my chest as I looked between the two men. I had no doubt that a single wrong move could ignite an explosion.
“Judas,” Rara spoke up again. “This isn’t the way. You’re scaring her.” Her eyes darted to me, filled with an apology she couldn’t voice.
For a moment, Judas seemed to consider her words. His grip on my arm slackened further, though his fingers still lingered, as if reluctant to let go. His pale eyes bore into mine, searching for something I couldn’t name. Finally, he stepped back, releasing me with a low growl that sent a shiver down my spine.
“Do I scare you too, mother?”
Rara flinched at Judas’s words. Her lips parted, but no words came out immediately.
Alexei’s dark eyes hardened as he subtly placed himself between Rara and Judas. “Watch your tone,” he said coldly.
Judas’s lips curled into a bitter smile, the faint redness on his cheek now more visible under the light. “Tell him,” he quipped. “You’re scared of me, don’t you? Mamochka,”
Rara’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears, but she refused to look away from him. “Judas, please,” she said softly. “This isn’t you. You’re still my son.”
Judas barked out a harsh laugh. “Tell me, what part of me isn’t me? I’m the same monster I was twenty years ago!”
“Enough!”
Judas’s grin faltered and he glared at his father. For a moment, it seemed as though he might defy him, but then he turned his gaze back to me. His pale eyes softened-just barely-and the edge of his anger seemed to waver.
I didn’t understand what was happening, but the Judas standing before me wasn’t the man I’d come to fear-or the one I thought I knew.
He looked like a storm barely held together.
It somehow made me want to reach out, to touch him and know what was going on inside him. This was the most expressive I had ever seen him. So bare, and raw.
His eyes held mine. And startlingly, they screamed of pain, fury, and a loneliness so deep it made my chest ache.
I held my heart in my throat not knowing what to do. He looked like a lost child who didn’t want to go back home.
His jaw tightened and he swallowed hard. Eyes lowered to my mouth and an intense electrifying current simmered between us. He looked like he wanted to touch me and knowing him, I knew he would not hold back or shy away even if his parents were here, but something was holding him back.
“Don’t…. don’t look at me like that.”
He muttered and he sounded… broken.
My hear ached for some unknown reasons. What happened in that room? What did Alexei say to him?
“Judas…”
He didn’t wait. He didn’t listen or even spare me a glance as he turned around and left. I watched. With thudding heart and heavy chest at his back disappearing behind the pillar.
He looked like he wanted to touch me…
I stood there in the emptiness he left behind. My chest ached with something I couldn’t name.
Monsters had hearts.
I never believed it-until now. Judas wasn’t just cruel; he was raw, bleeding beneath layers of fury and shield. His pale eyes haunted me, not with fear but with a sorrow so vast it could swallow the world.
He didn’t look back. Not once. Yet somehow, he left a part of himself behind.
My heart thudded painfully as I thought of his hands-capable of destruction, but what if they could learn gentleness? What if they wanted to?
Perhaps that was the tragedy of monsters: they felt too much, loved too fiercely, and buried their broken hearts in the rubble of their own making.
I glanced at the pillar where he’d disappeared.
Maybe he didn’t believe in home anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to go back home because he didn’t know where home was. Maybe he didn’t believe it existed anymore.
I felt my legs trembling shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. Why was I even sympathising with him at all? He ruined me, didn’t he? So, wasn’t it… fair for me to laugh at his misery? I should just stand at side and watch him drown in whatever sea he was afraid of. After all, he was just a human.
But why? Why the thought of seeing him… not himself burned me? Why it clawed at my chest, ripped my heart out and squeezed it so tightly I felt the taste of my own blood in my mouth?
No. No, no, no. I wasn’t thinking rationally.
My body staggered and I stumbled back before falling on the couch feeling my vision blurring. Tears? Why? Why now? I shouldn’t cry. Not for him at least.
I had forgotten about his parents and when a feminine sob erupted through the tensed atmosphere, I realised Rara was sobbing in Alexei’s arm.
“He’s hurting,” she murmured into Alexei’s chest.
Alexei just gathered his wife into his arms and let her sob as if she was mourning a child she lost. “Judas… he is not himself, Alexei. I hurt him, I hurt him!”
I swallowed the lump of unease in my throat.
She was wrong.
And the truth was inevitable. Judas was himself-wild, volatile, and deeply wounded. And somehow, this was the part of him that world hadn’t seen.