Chapter 6: c
The meeting with Besim Halimi was held not in the barn, but in a root cellar beneath the woodshed, the air thick with the smell of damp soil and last season’s potatoes. A single kerosene lamp cast jumping shadows on the low, earthen walls. Adem was already there when Vanja descended the rough-hewn steps, his posture rigid beside the wooden table where the lamp sat. Across from him sat Besim.
He was younger than she had pictured from family stories—perhaps in his late thirties, with the same bright, intelligent blue eyes her father had, the same fair hair, though his was cut short and neat. He wore a simple work shirt, but his hands, resting on the table, were clean, the nails trimmed. Not a farmer’s hands. A coordinator’s hands.
He glanced up as she appeared, his expression one of polite, detached curiosity. Another of Adem’s people. Another variable.
“This is Vanja,” Adem said, his voice neutral, a commander introducing an asset. “She has insight.”
Besim nodded once, a diplomat’s nod. “A pleasure.”
Vanja took the final step into the cellar. The ceiling was so low Adem had to stoop slightly. She felt the weight of the earth above them, the silence of the house beyond. She looked at Adem. “Can I talk to him alone?”
Adem’s eyes narrowed. A flicker of that deep, possessive suspicion crossed his face. This was her test. He studied her for a long, tense second, then gave a single, sharp nod. He turned and climbed back up the stairs without a word, pulling the heavy trapdoor shut behind him. The thud was final, leaving them in the close, lantern-lit gloom.
Besim’s polite mask shifted to one of mild confusion. “Miss… Vanja, was it? What is this–”
“I am Adem’s wife,” she said, the Albanian words clear and deliberate.
He blinked. The confusion deepened. “I… was not aware he had married. Congratulations are perhaps… misplaced, given the circumstances.” He was trying to place her, his head tilting slightly. “You look familiar to me. Have we met?”
“No,” Vanja said. She took a step closer. The lamplight caught the gold in her hair. “And yes.”
Without breaking eye contact, she reached for the hem of her sweater. She lifted it, just enough to expose the strip of skin above the waistband of her skirt, just below her ribs. There, against the pale skin, was a small, birthmark- in her belly button shaped vaguely like a crescent moon.
Besim’s gaze dropped to it. His brow furrowed. He saw nothing but a mark. “I don’t…”
“Your father,” Vanja said softly, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she thought he might hear it. “My great-uncle. What did he always say about birthmarks? In our family?”
The words landed in the quiet. Besim’s eyes snapped back to hers. The blue was startling now, full of a dawning, impossible reckoning. “He said… he said they were maps. That the one on the neck was for finding your way in the dark. The one on the stomach…” His voice trailed off. He was staring at her.
Vanja slowly lowered her sweater. Then, with deliberate calm, she reached up and swept the heavy fall of her dark blond hair over her left shoulder, exposing the nape of her neck. There, nestled in the hollow just below her hairline, was a second, smaller birthmark, a pinpoint of darker pigment.
Besim’s chair scraped harshly against the dirt floor as he shot to his feet. He was pale. “Who are you?”
“you heard my name,” Vanja whispered, now in Serbian. The sound of her mother tongue in that earthy hole felt like a sacrilege and a homecoming all at once.
“Vanja,” he breathed, the name a question and an answer.
“Yes, Uncle Besim,” she said, the familial term achingly natural on her lips. “Vanja. Zoran’s daughter.”
The world in the root cellar tilted. Besim’s legs buckled. He didn’t faint, but he stumbled, his hand shooting out to brace himself against the damp wall. A strangled sound, part gasp, part sob, escaped him. “Adem!” Vanja called out, her voice tight. “Come down! Hold him!”
The trapdoor flew open. Adem descended in two swift movements, his eyes scanning the scene: Besim, sagging against the wall, ashen; Vanja, standing tall but trembling. He moved to Besim’s side, taking his arm, supporting his weight. “What did you tell him?” Adem demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
Vanja shook her head, tears she hadn’t felt forming now spilling over. “It’s not what I told him.”
Besim was staring at her as if she were a ghost. He gripped Adem’s forearm. “You should be safe,” he choked out, the Serbian fragmented by shock. “You are… you’re a child. You’re with your parents, in Basel, not here… How is this possible?”
She gave a weak, helpless shrug, the motion somehow encompassing the absurd, horrific truth of her existence. “I don’t really know. But I’m here.”
Besim nodded, a series of quick, jerky motions. Then he began to cry, quiet, shuddering tears that shook his frame. He reached for Vanja’s hand, pulling it to his lips and pressing a desperate, reverent kiss to her knuckles. “Oh my god,” he wept. “My aunt… and my mother Jovanka will kill me if anything happens to you here.”
Adem looked from Besim’s broken form to Vanja’s tear-streaked face. His own expression was carved from stone, a monument to utter incomprehension. The pieces were there, but the picture they formed was impossible.
“Vanja is my cousin,” Besim finally managed, wiping his face with his sleeve, his voice raw. “My mother's sister’s granddaughter. My blood.”
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the faint hiss of the kerosene lamp. Adem’s gaze locked onto Vanja. He was parsing it, the linguistic shift, the birthmarks, the names, the sheer, devastating familiarity between them. His jaw worked. Then he said, the words falling into the quiet like stones into a deep well, “She is my wife.”
The climb back to the bedroom was made in a thick, surreal silence. Adem walked ahead, his shoulders a tense line. Vanja followed, feeling Besim’s stunned, protective gaze on her back until the trapdoor closed again, leaving him alone in the earth to process a miracle.
In the bedroom, Adem closed the door. He didn’t turn to face her immediately. He stood by the table, picking up the pistol, not as a threat, but as a familiar object, its weight a tangible truth in a world that had just splintered. He placed it back down with a soft click.
“Your uncle,” he said, finally looking at her. The lamp flickered across his face. “Your blood uncle. From a time that has not happened yet.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew. You knew when you told me to trust him.”
“Yes.”
He moved then, not with anger, but with a slow, predatory intensity that filled the small room. He stopped in front of her. “What else is in that beautiful head of yours, Vanja? What other ghosts are you related to?”
She had no answer. He saw that. The mystery of her was now infinitely deeper, more tangled, more real. It was no longer just strategic foreknowledge. It was flesh and blood and weeping relatives.
His hand came up, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, his thumb finding the birthmark there, tracing its shape. “This,” he murmured. “This is a map. To you.”
He kissed her. It was different. Not possession, not rage, not even lust as she knew it. It was a claiming of the mystery itself. His tongue plunged into her mouth, a deep, searching invasion. She kissed him back with a desperate fervor, her hands fisting in his shirt. This was the only anchor she had left.
He walked her backward until her legs hit the edge of the cot. He broke the kiss, his breathing harsh. “Take off your clothes,” he said, his voice a dark ripple. “I want to see all of the map.”
Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of her sweater. She shed it, then her skirt, letting them pool on the floor. She stood before him in just her bra and underwear, the lamplight painting her skin in gold and shadow. He watched, his eyes burning, as she unhooked her bra, her breasts falling free. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her underwear and pushed them down, stepping out of them.
He drank her in: the curve of her hips, the thatch of dark blonde hair at the juncture of her thighs, the birthmark on her stomach. He reached out and pressed his palm flat against it, as if feeling for a pulse, for a secret. His touch was scorching.
“On your knees,” he said, the command soft.
She sank to the rough wool blanket on the cot. He undid his belt, the leather sliding through the loops with a whisper. He pushed his trousers and underwear down just enough to free his cock. It was already fully hard, thick and flushed, jutting from his body. He gripped the base, guiding the swollen head to her lips.
“Taste,” he ordered.
She opened her mouth, taking him in. The salt and musk of him filled her senses. She swirled her tongue around the crown, then took him deeper, her cheeks hollowing as she began to suck. He groaned, his hand tightening in her hair, setting a rhythm. He fucked her mouth, not gently, his hips pumping, the head of his cock hitting the back of her throat. She gagged, tears springing to her eyes, but she relaxed her jaw, taking him, letting him use this part of her too.
“Such a good fucking mouth ,” he rasped, his thighs trembling. “Swallowing my cock like you belong here.”
He pulled out abruptly, a string of saliva connecting her lips to his glistening tip. “Turn around. On your hands and knees.”
She obeyed, the coarse blanket scratching her palms. He positioned himself behind her. His hands gripped her hips, his fingers digging in. He rubbed the head of his cock through her slick folds, gathering wetness, before notching himself at her entrance.
“This cunt,” he said, pushing forward, an inexorable, stretching invasion. “This is where you keep your secrets.” He seated himself fully with a brutal thrust that made her cry out. “You’ll scream them out for me.”
He set a relentless, deep pace, each withdrawal and penetration a rough, perfect friction. The cot slammed against the wall with every drive of his hips. The sound was obscene, animal. One hand stayed on her hip, the other snaked around her body, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing tight, frantic circles.
“You came from the future to get fucked by me,” he grunted, his breath coming in hot bursts against her shoulder. “Your uncle’s cousin. Is that it? You wanted this cock in your family?”
The vulgarity, the truth of it twisted into something filthy, sent a jolt of pure lightning through her. “Yes,” she gasped, pushing back against him, meeting his thrusts. “God, yes, Adem.”
“Whose cunt is this?”
“Yours! It’s yours!”
His fingers worked her harder, his thrusts losing rhythm, becoming frantic, jagged. She felt the coil within her, wound impossibly tight by the emotional cataclysm, by the raw physicality of his taking. It snapped. Her orgasm crashed over her, a blinding, silent scream of release that clenched around him in vicious pulses.
It tore his own control away. With a shattered groan, he drove into her one last, deep time, burying himself as he came. She felt the hot, liquid pulse of his release flooding her, marking the deepest part of her as his. He collapsed over her back, his weight pressing her down into the mattress, his face buried in her hair. They stayed like that, welded together by sweat and spent passion, the only sound their ragged, shared breathing.
When he finally rolled off her, the cold air hit her skin. He lay beside her, staring at the crooked flag on the wall. After a long time, his hand found hers on the blanket, his calloused fingers threading through hers. A simple, quiet tether.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice hoarse but calm, “you and Besim will tell me everything. Not as a journalist. Not as a ghost. As my wife. And as his cousin.” He turned his head to look at her, his eyes reflecting the dying lamplight. “And then we will decide what to do with the end of the world.”
He pulled the rough blanket over them. She curled into the heat of his body, the smell of their sex a new layer in the room’s scent of earth and gunpowder. Outside, the mountains of Drenica slept under a sky full of stars that had seen countless pasts, and one impossible future, now asleep in the arms of their most dedicated son.
Outside, the mountains of Drenica slept under a sky full of stars that had seen countless pasts, and one impossible future, now asleep in the arms of their most dedicated son. Dawn came not with a gentle light, but with a slow, grey seepage that bled the shadows from the corners of the room and found them still tangled together on the narrow cot.
They dressed in silence, the events of the root cellar a living thing between them. Vanja could feel Besim’s shock clinging to her skin like a second scent, mingling with Adem’s. Downstairs, the house was stirring with a different kind of tension. The festive debris had been cleared, leaving only the lingering ghost of roasted meat and a grave, watchful quiet.
Adem led her not to the kitchen, but to the small, shuttered parlor at the front of the house. Hamez was already there, leaning against the wall with a cup of coffee, his eyes puffy with lack of sleep. Besim stood by the cold fireplace, looking like a man who had wrestled with God and lost. He flinched when Vanja entered, his blue eyes—her father’s eyes—scanning her as if for damage.
“Sit,” Adem said, not unkindly, guiding Vanja to a worn upholstered chair. He remained standing, a pillar at her shoulder. The air was thick with unsaid things.
Hamez broke the silence. “So,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “Through your Serbian father. Not your mother. That’s how you’re tied to him.” He jerked his chin at Besim.
“Yes,” said Vanja, the word simple and heavy.
Besim nodded, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “I’m related to Bahri, you know that. And to you, of course. My grandma is Shaban’s sister.” He gestured vaguely toward the kitchen, where Adem’s father was.
Hamez nodded slowly, connecting the threads of lineage that webbed this war-torn land. “And Vanja, well,” he muttered, scratching his beard. “Through her mother, it’s a mix. But she is related to some people, too.”
Vanja froze. The blood seemed to halt in her veins. She gave a sharp, minute shake of her head, a plea and a denial fused into one tense motion.
“We won’t talk about that now,” Adem said, his voice leaving no room for argument. He placed a hand on her shoulder, his thumb pressing into the knot of muscle there. “It does not matter.”
She reached up and squeezed his hand, the gratitude a physical current flowing from her fingers into his.
“This is crazy,” Hamez exhaled, a laugh without humor. “And yet…”
Besim stepped forward, his focus solely on Vanja. “It is her. On my blood, it is her.” He looked at Adem, his expression hardening into a familial command far older than any military hierarchy. “And nothing can happen to her.”
Adem’s jaw tightened. “What would you have me do?” he asked, the question frayed at the edges. “Send her to Basel?”
“Yes,” Besim said without hesitation. “Anywhere but here. Switzerland, Germany, a fucking island. Anywhere she is not sitting in a house that will be a target.”
“She would never agree,” Adem said, but his eyes were on Vanja, testing.
“She,” Vanja said, standing up abruptly, the chair legs scraping the wooden floor, “is in this room and still has the ability to speak for herself.” She looked at each of them—Hamez’s raised brows, Besim’s anxious protectiveness, Adem’s simmering, possessive worry. “I will not go to Basel. I’m staying here.” She turned her golden-green eyes fully on Adem, pinning him with a look that was pure challenge. “If you don’t want me dead, make sure your great commander,” she said, the title both a joke and a prayer, “stays alive.”
With that, she turned and left the parlor, the sound of her footsteps on the stone floor echoing in the stunned quiet.
A long moment passed. Hamez let out a low whistle, a grin spreading across his weathered face. “What a woman,” he said, shaking his head in admiration. “You got it, brother.”
Adem shook his head but a faint, reluctant smile touched his lips, a crack in the granite of his composure.
Besim nodded, but his gaze was still fixed on the empty doorway. His concern had morphed into something more specific, more procedural. “She was here before you married,” he stated, finally looking at Adem. “Did you? Or was that just for my benefit in the cellar?”
Adem was silent. The silence stretched, filling the room with its admission.
Besim’s face went flat. “I should kill you for that alone,” he said, the words chillingly matter-of-fact. He took a step forward. Hamez shifted his weight, ready to intervene. “But that would be against my niece’s wishes.” He stopped, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “It would be too bad, seeing she did so much to keep your stubborn ass alive.”
The truth of it hung there, a weapon they all now held. Adem met his cousin and cousin-by-marriage’s gaze, neither man backing down. The protection of Vanja Jashari as no longer just a personal vow; it was a blood debt, a geopolitical complication, and the only thread that might weave a different pattern from the coming chaos. The morning sun, now clear of the mountains, cut a sharp line across the floor between them, illuminating the dust of centuries and the new, impossible alliance standing in its light.
The morning sun, now clear of the mountains, cut a sharp line across the floor between them, illuminating the dust of centuries and the new, impossible alliance standing in its light. The silence in the parlor was fractured by the sound of an engine grinding up the dirt track. Tires crunched on gravel. Voices, unfamiliar ones, called out a greeting.
Adem’s hand dropped from Vanja’s shoulder. The moment of personal reckoning was over, swallowed by the immediate demands of the movement. He shot a final, warning glance at Besim. “Not a word of this. To anyone.”
Besim gave a tight, reluctant nod, the familial protector shelved for the political operative. Hamez was already moving toward the front door.
Three men entered, bringing the cold outside air with them. Hashim Tachi was first, young, with a sharp, intelligent face and restless eyes that scanned the room like a bird of prey. Beside him was a man with a kinder, more scholarly demeanor—Kurti, whose presence was a quiet reassurance. The third man hung back slightly. Bahri. Or, as he was known to intimates, Bahir. He was young cautious face, but his eyes, the moment they adjusted to the dim light of the parlor, locked onto Vanja.
He stared. It wasn’t a glance. It was a protracted, unconscious fixation, his gaze traveling over her face, her hair, the line of her throat, with a kind of shocked recognition. Vanja felt it like a physical touch. She kept her expression neutral, a polite smile on her lips, but she registered everything: the way his breath hitched, the slight part of his lips.
Adem saw it too. His whole body went still, a predator noting a challenge in his territory. The easy authority he’d worn moments before hardened into something more visceral.
“Welcome,” Adem said, his voice echoing in the small room. He didn’t move to embrace them. His attention was fixed on Bahir. “You find my home interesting?”
Hashim and Kurti murmured greetings, their eyes darting between Adem and Bahir, sensing the sudden frost. Bahir finally blinked, wrenching his gaze from Vanja. He flushed, a deep red creeping up his neck. “My apologies, Commander. It is just… your wife.” He stumbled over the word. “She is… she is to your liking?”
The question was clumsily invasive. A brutal silence fell.
Adem took a single step forward. The temperature in the room seemed to drop further. “Is my wife to your liking, Bahir?” he asked, his voice soft, deadly.
Bahir paled. “Yes, I mean–” he stammered, blushing furiously. “Sir, I… she just reminds me of someone, that’s all. The likeness is… striking.”
Besim, who had been observing silently from the fireplace, gave a casual, single nod. “A distant family relation,” he said simply, his tone dismissive, as if commenting on the weather. “The Balkans. We are all cousins if you dig deep enough.” He took a sip of the coffee Hamez had handed him, his blue eyes cool over the rim of the cup.
The explanation hung there, thin but serviceable. Adem’s tension didn’t ease. He watched Bahir for another long second before gesturing to the table. “Sit. We have much to discuss. The shipments from the north. The response from Belgrade.”
The men settled around the heavy wood, maps and papers rustling. Vanja moved to the periphery, a silent ghost in her own home. She watched Hashim Tachi lean forward, his words eager, ambitious. He was smart, she could see it in his quick analyses, but there was a reckless energy to him, a need to prove himself that vibrated in the air. Kurti was more measured, questioning, thinking three steps ahead where Tachi thought one.
They debated timelines, supply routes, potential Serbian police movements. They spoke of protests, of asymmetrical responses, of the moral high ground. They argued with the passion of men who believed they were forging destiny.
They had no idea. No idea of the helicopters that would darken this sky. No idea of the precise, mechanized horror that would be unleashed upon these stone walls and everyone within them. The heat of their debate felt like children planning a schoolyard fight against a coming avalanche.
Vanja’s chest tightened. She felt the weight of the names in the room—names that would become legend, or martyr, or footnote. She caught Adem’s eye across the table. He was listening to Tachi, but his focus was split, a part of him always tuned to her frequency.
She gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Her eyes said everything: They have no idea what is going to happen.
Adem excused himself from the conversation for a moment, crossing the room to where she stood by the window. He leaned close, his beard brushing her temple. “Will you not say anything?” he murmured, his breath warm against her skin. “You know their futures. You could correct Tachi’s recklessness. You could guide them.”
Vanja looked up at him. She smiled, a sweet, placid smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “I’m going to go and sit with the women. What could I possibly say to a group of such important men?”
A short, surprised laugh burst from Adem’s throat. He shook his head, the grim tension around his mouth softening for a genuine moment. He squeezed her waist, hidden from the view of the others. “You are a terrible liar.”
She winked at him, a quick, sly flash of conspiracy, and slipped out of the parlor.
In the kitchen, Zana was rolling out pastry dough on a floured board, her movements sharp and efficient. She didn’t look up as Vanja entered. “The wolves are plotting,” Zana stated.
“They are,” Vanja agreed, leaning against the counter. The familiar scent of flour and dried herbs was a solace.
Zana’s eyes flicked up, sharp and knowing. “And one of the wolves looked at you like he saw a ghost.”
Vanja said nothing. She picked at a stray piece of dough.
“Bahir’s first wife,” Zana said quietly, returning to her rolling. “She was Serbian. From Priština. Very beautiful, they said. She died in childbirth, with the baby, during the riots in ‘81. He never looked at another woman after. Not really.” She slammed the rolling pin down. “Until today.”
The information settled like a stone. It wasn’t her future knowledge this time, just the tangled, tragic past of the land. Her resemblance was cruel twist of genetics. Another thread pulling tight.
Later, when the men had left for a walk to survey the land, the house exhaled. Adem found Vanja in their room. He closed the door and stood with his back against it, watching her.
“Bahir,” he said.
“I know.”
“He looked at you like you were water in a desert.”
Vanja turned from the window. “He saw a ghost. Not me.”
Adem pushed off the door. The space between them crackled with a possessive heat that had been simmering all morning. The outsiders’ eyes on her, the threat of history, Besim’s protective claim—it all compressed into a need to erase every other mark, every other claim.
“Come here,” he said, his voice rough.
She went to him. He didn’t kiss her. His hands went to the buttons of her dress, working them open with a focused urgency. The fabric parted. He pushed it off her shoulders, let it fall to the floor. Her bra followed, then her underwear. She stood naked before him, in the slanted afternoon light.
“On the bed,” he ordered. “On your back.”
She lay back on the rough blanket. He stripped, his eyes never leaving her body. His cock was already erect, thick and heavy. He climbed over her, kneeling between her thighs. He didn’t enter her. He gripped his shaft, stroking himself slowly, the head brushing against her curls, smearing pre-cum over her clit.
“You let him look,” Adem said, his voice a low growl. He pressed the swollen head against her entrance, applying pressure but not pushing in. “You stood there and let that sad bastard drink his fill of you.”
“I didn’t–”
He shoved forward, a single, deep, unforgiving thrust that punched the air from her lungs. She cried out, her back arching off the bed. He was huge inside her, a stretching, burning fullness.
“You’re mine,” he snarled, pulling back and slamming in again. The bed frame rattled against the wall. “This cunt is mine. This face is mine. Every fucking birthmark.” He drove into her, a punishing rhythm that was all assertion, no finesse. “You belong to this house. To this war. To me.”
Each word was punctuated by a deep plunge. It hurt in the best way, a brutal reminder of existence. She clawed at his back, her legs wrapping around his hips, pulling him deeper. “Yes,” she gasped, “yes, Adem, I’m yours.”
He shifted, hooking her legs over his shoulders, bending her almost double. The new angle was devastatingly deep. He fucked her like this, his balls slapping against her, the sound wet and obscene. She was mindless with it, the coil of pleasure winding tight through the pain of his possession.
“Tell me,” he grunted, his pace becoming ragged. “Tell me who you came here for.”
“You!” she screamed, the orgasm detonating, a white-hot burst that convulsed through her, clenching around his driving cock. “Only you!”
His control shattered. With a raw, guttural shout, he buried himself to the hilt and came, pumping his release into her in hot, pulsing jets. He collapsed on top of her, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor.
They lay tangled, slick with sweat. His face was buried in her neck. “I will kill him if he looks at you like that again,” he whispered, the words muffled against her skin. It wasn’t a boast. It was a simple statement of fact.
Vanja stroked his hair. Outside, the wind picked up, whispering through the pines, carrying the faint, echoing shouts of Hamez and the men on the ridge. The world continued to turn, hurtling toward its bloody appointment. Here, in this room smelling of sex and gunpowder, there was only this: his breath on her skin, the thrum of his heart against hers, and the fragile, desperate fiction that their two bodies could be a bulwark against the coming storm.