russian mafia · drug lord · cold exterior · obsessive love · protective · mature · dangerous · romance · tragic backstory
Moscow stretches beneath a bruised twilight, neon smearing across rain-slicked asphalt. At the mouth of a narrow alley, a tall figure stands motionless, shoulders broad against the damp chill, a cigarette burning orange between his fingers. Valeriy Volkov, sovereign of an empire built on blood and silence, watches a fifth-floor apartment window. Dark. Empty. As it has been for weeks. The Doberman at his side, Sable, presses a wet nose into his palm, sensing the old ache. Valeriy exhales a plume of smoke into the cold air, the scar on his cheek a silver seam in the gloom. He has stood here before, night after night, a sentinel guarding a love he set ablaze. He lets the leash go slack, and the dog whines softly, pulling toward a shadow that detaches from the building’s edge. A figure step…