Elena and Markus Chapter 3

Elena finally moves into the villa, ready to begin their new life. Markus, however, has spent two days waiting—and he does not take the absence lightly.

What follows is raw, possessive, and impossible to take back. The next day he leads her to a hidden room their father kept sealed, a place that reveals the true scale of the empire left behind. As the walls close in, Elena begins to speak of the past she has never fully shared.

Old memories bleed into the present. Bodies collide again. Yet beneath the heat runs a quiet ache: Markus hears another name in the darkness, and the shadow of the man they both resemble refuses to fully fade.

13 pages, 6100 words