Chapter 95 —Empty-handed

Narrator:

Aylin couldn't stay in the dormitory. The air felt thick, unbreathable. Every corner of that room smelled like him, tasted like him, and everything around her reminded her that, no matter what Roman had promised her, deep down he was still the same devil as always.

She left quietly, barefoot and heartbroken. She wandered aimlessly down the hallway until her footsteps led her to the garden. And there it was. The bench. That damn bench where it all began.

Where, on her birthday, he had kissed her for the first time.

Where, for the first time, he had not been the feared mobster, but a broken man, with a glass of wine in his hand and a pain she could not name.

She sat down slowly, as if the memory still lingered in the air, as if that naive Aylin from back then was still there, believing she could change him.

The same bench that had witnessed the beginning of something that, at the time, she didn't even dare to name.

She was alone, enveloped in a calm tha