Chapter 5: d
The click of the penthouse door locking behind Erblin was the loudest sound Vanja had ever heard. It echoed in the vast, empty space, a period at the end of a brutal, run-on sentence. She didn’t move from the window. Her cheek was still pressed to the cool glass, the ghost of his impact humming in her bones. The city lights below swam, blurred by the condensation from her breath and the unshed tears burning her eyes.
She slid down the glass, her body folding onto the floor. The slickness between her thighs was cooling, a viscous reminder. The soreness was back, a deep, bruised ache. She drew her knees up, rested her forehead on them, and wrapped her arms around herself. She didn’t make a sound.
Hours later, the numbness wore off, replaced by a shivering cold. She pushed herself up, every muscle protesting. She walked to the bathroom, her steps silent on the polished concrete. She avoided looking in the mirror.
The shower was scalding. She stood under the punishing spray, skin turning red, as if she could bleach the memory from her pores. She scrubbed with a loofah until her skin was raw, but the feeling of his hands, the bite of his words, the visceral fullness of his possession, remained beneath the surface, etched into her nervous system. She washed her hair twice, the scent of his cologne and sweat and her own shame swirling down the drain in a cloud of steam.
She cried then, finally. Soundless, heaving sobs that bent her double under the water, her hands braced against the tile. It wasn’t grief for Erblin. It was grief for the woman she had been six months ago, arriving in Germany with a divorce decree and a doctorate to finish, a woman who believed she was starting over, not walking into a gilded cage of her own making.
Besim returned on Sunday evening, tanned and relaxed, carrying the scent of sea salt and Albanian tobacco. He swept her into a hug, his hands already traveling to familiar places. “I missed you, zemljo. The villa was beautiful, but the bed was empty.”
Vanja smiled, a perfect curve of her lips that didn’t reach her eyes. “How was the family?”
“Loud. Wonderful. Argumentative.” He released her, holding her at arm’s length, his gaze searching. “And here? Any visitors?”
The question was casual, but his eyes were not. She held his look, her expression smooth as glass. “No visitors.”
He watched her for a beat longer, then a flicker of something—disappointment? irritation?—crossed his face. He dropped his hands. “I see.” He walked to the bar, pouring himself a whiskey. “So you didn’t talk to him. You didn’t resolve anything.”
Vanja leaned against the back of the sofa, crossing her arms. A defense, not a provocation. “There’s nothing to resolve, Besim. He’s your son. He’s angry about the divorce. I’m a symptom. Let it go.”
He knocked back the whiskey, the ice cubes clinking. “I wanted you to handle it. To make peace.”
“I cannot make peace inside his head.” Her voice was calm, final. “It’s done.”
He stared into his empty glass. The silence stretched, taut with his unmet expectation. Then he shrugged, the tension leaving his shoulders in a theatrical release. He set the glass down and came to her, cupping her face. “You’re right. It’s a boy’s problem. I have a woman.” He kissed her, his tongue claiming her mouth. She tasted the whiskey and his certainty. She kissed him back, matching his performance with her own.
A week later, the invitation came. Dinner. A celebration of Erblin’s new contract extension. ‘Please bring Vanja,’ the text to Besim read.
The restaurant was a modern Bavarian place, all dark wood and soft lighting, filled with the murmur of money and the clink of fine crystal. Vanja wore emerald green silk, a color that made her eyes look like fractured jewels. Besim’s hand rested on the small of her back, a public brand.
Erblin was already at the table with a girl.
Vanja’s step didn’t falter. She took in the scene in one sweeping glance. The girl was short, with hair the color of cheap corn silk, overly styled and brittle-looking. She was thin in a wiry, athletic way, dressed in a tight, sparkly top that tried too hard. Her face was plain, saved only by youth and a layer of makeup that couldn’t hide the sharpness in her eyes. The opposite of Vanja in every deliberate way.
“Father! Vanja,” Erblin said, standing. He looked well—clear-eyed, relaxed, the picture of a young man on top of the world. He gestured to the girl. “This is Elsa.”
Elsa offered a tight smile, her eyes darting from Besim to Vanja and sticking there, widening slightly. There was a naked assessment in her gaze, followed by a flash of something ugly—insecurity, recognition, envy.
“A pleasure,” Vanja said, her voice a cool, polite melody as she extended her hand. Elsa’s grip was damp and quick.
“Wow, you’re even more stunning in person,” Elsa blurted, then flushed. “Erblin has told me so much about you.”
“Has he?” Vanja asked, sliding into her seat, her movements fluid. “I can’t imagine what there is to tell. We’ve hardly spoken.”
Erblin laughed, a easy, charming sound. He pulled Elsa’s chair out for her, his hand lingering on her shoulder. “Don’t be modest. I told Elsa you’re the brains of the operation. A doctor, polyglot, the whole deal.” His tone was warm, genuinely admiring. It was a performance of such normalcy it was chilling. He was sweet to Elsa, attentive, pouring her water, asking about her studies in sports medicine. He touched her arm when she spoke, laughed at her jokes.
Every gentle touch, every soft word he aimed at that girl, felt like a scalpel sliding between Vanja’s ribs. She sipped her wine, the taste ash in her mouth. She engaged in the conversation, discussing the Bundesliga, the history of Munich’s architecture, her dissertation progress. She was impeccable, intelligent, captivating. Besim watched her with proud possession.
And Elsa watched Vanja. Throughout the meal, Vanja could feel the girl’s eyes on her—on the way her hair fell, on her mouth as she spoke, on the silk clinging to her curves. It wasn’t just looking. It was staring, an intense, hungry fixation that bordered on rude. Vanja met that gaze once, held it for a second with a bland, polite curiosity, and watched Elsa flinch and look away, a faint tremor in her hand as she reached for her glass.
Later, in the penthouse bedroom, Besim chuckled as he unknotted his tie. “Did you see him? With that little sparrow? It was so transparent.”
Vanja stood at her dresser, slowly removing her earrings. “What was?”
“He’s trying to make you jealous, my love. It’s pathetic. Bringing that… child. She stared at you all night like you were a painting she couldn’t afford.” He came up behind her, meeting her eyes in the mirror. His hands settled on her hips. “Don’t worry. She could never compare. None of them could.”
Vanja said nothing. She watched his reflection, his smug, handsome face. He mistook her silence for satisfaction, nuzzling her neck.
“He’s a boy playing a man’s game,” Besim murmured, his lips against her skin. “He thinks he can hurt me by parading a cheap substitute. He doesn’t understand what I have.”
His hands moved to the zip of her dress. He drew it down slowly. The emerald silk sighed open. He pushed it off her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. He stood back, admiring her in the mirror, clad only in a matching lace bra and thong.
“Look at you,” he breathed, his voice thick. “Perfect. A queen. And he brings a street cat to the palace.” His disdain was a potent aphrodisiac for him. His fingers hooked into the sides of her thong, pulling it down. He turned her around, his mouth descending on hers in a kiss that was about ownership, about victory.
He walked her backward to the bed, laid her down, and stripped his own clothes off with urgent efficiency. He didn’t undress her further, just pushed the lace of her bra up, freeing her breasts, and settled between her legs. He was already hard. He guided himself into her with a single, sure thrust.
He fucked her with a concentrated, powerful rhythm, his eyes locked on hers. This was reclamation. This was a demonstration. Each deep stroke was a word in his argument: Mine. Superior. Unassailable.
“You see the difference, don’t you?” he grunted, his hips pistoning. “Between a man and a boy? Between a treasure and trash?”
Vanja arched beneath him, her body responding to the skilled, familiar mechanics of it. She wrapped her legs around his waist, met his thrusts. She moaned, the sounds scripted and perfect. In her mind, she saw Elsa’s hungry, staring eyes. She saw Erblin’s gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. The combination ignited a feral, desperate heat in her gut.
“Yes,” she gasped, clawing at his back. “God, yes, Besim.”
He swore, driving into her harder, faster. “Say it. Say who you belong to.”
“You,” she cried out, the truth and the lie inseparable. “I belong to you.”
His climax was a roar, a physical declaration of triumph. He collapsed onto her, spent, his weight a familiar anchor.
Across the city, in Erblin’s modern, minimalist apartment, the television was on, some sports highlight show muttering in the background. Elsa was curled on the huge sectional, scrolling through her phone. “The duck was amazing,” she said. “Your dad is so generous.”
“He likes to show off,” Erblin said from the kitchen, opening a bottle of water. He was shirtless, his physique a map of disciplined power.
“And Vanja…” Elsa said, her voice trailing off. She looked up. “She’s… intense. Like, intimidatingly beautiful. And she speaks, like, seven languages? It’s insane.”
Erblin took a long drink, his eyes guarded. “Yeah.”
“You never told me she was that hot.” Elsa’s tone was light, testing. “I mean, for an older woman. She doesn’t look her age at all.”
“She’s not that old,” Erblin said, a bit too sharply. He softened it with a smile. “But yeah. She’s something.”
Elsa put her phone down, tucking her legs under her. She watched him. “Was it weird? When your dad started dating her?”
Erblin walked over, sitting on the far end of the sofa. He shrugged. “At first. It’s fine now.”
“She couldn’t stop looking at you,” Elsa said, her voice dropping, taking on a conspiratorial edge.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not. She was. The whole night. When you were talking, when you smiled.
"She is over thirty and dating my father," Erblin said, the words sharp as a snapped bone. He took another swig of water, avoiding Elsa’s probing stare. "Who cares about her?"
The dismissal felt hollow even as he said it, a cheap bullet meant to end the conversation. His mind, traitorous, replayed the dinner: Vanja’s flawless composure, the slight tightening around her eyes when he’d introduced Elsa, the way her gaze had flickered to his hand on Elsa’s shoulder. He saw her face again, that micro-second when her mask slipped—first surprise, a quick intake of breath, then a wound, raw and deep, before the glacial politeness slammed back down. He had watched it happen. He had engineered it.
He felt no triumph. He felt nothing but a cold, widening emptiness.
"Whatever," Elsa murmured, unconvinced. She uncurled herself and padded over to him on the sofa, swinging a leg over his lap. Her small hands traced the defined ridges of his abdomen. "She’s not here now."
Her mouth was on his neck, her fingers tugging at the waistband of his sweatpants. He let her. He kissed her back, his hands moving to her hips, his body operating on a familiar, muscle-memory autopilot. He pulled her sparkly top over her head, unhooked her plain bra. Her breasts were small, her body a collection of lean angles. He pushed her onto her back on the wide couch, his weight settling over her.
"You're so fucking perfect," Elsa whispered, arching beneath him as he kissed down her sternum. Her words felt like ash in the air.
He entered her without preamble, a single brutal thrust that made her gasp. He set a hard, punishing rhythm, his eyes open, staring at the blank, dark television screen. Elsa wrapped her legs around him, her breath coming in sharp, excited pants. She chanted his name, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
Erblin fucked her with a focused, mechanical intensity. He was trying to drill the image from his skull—the hurt in Vanja’s gold-green eyes, the memory of his own voice in the penthouse doorway calling her a cheap Serbian slut. The visceral, sweat-soaked recall of how her body had clenched around him, how she’d screamed his name against that glass. Elsa’s eager moans were a tinny substitute, a poor soundtrack to a better film playing on a loop behind his eyes.
"Harder," Elsa begged, her head thrashing on the cushion. "God, yes, right there!"
He complied, driving into her, each thrust a nail in a coffin he couldn't name. His climax built, a pressure with no heat, a mechanical end to a physical process. He came with a stifled groan, his body shuddering, his mind a perfect, silent void. He collapsed on her for a moment before rolling off, staring at the ceiling.
"Wow," Elsa breathed beside him, touching his damp chest. "You were… intense."
He didn't answer. The emptiness was a physical thing now, a hollowed-out cavity behind his ribs. He stood, pulling his sweatpants up, and walked to the window. Munich glittered, cold and indifferent. Somewhere out there, in his father's sleek tower, she was lying in Besim’s bed. Was she thinking of him? Was she aching from a different kind of emptiness?
His phone, face-down on the coffee table, buzzed. Elsa picked it up. "It's your agent," she said, her voice still breathy.
"Leave it."
He heard the rustle as she dressed. The silence stretched, becoming awkward. "You're in a mood," she finally said, a hint of petulance edging her voice.
"Tired," he said, the lie flat and effortless. "Long week."
He drove her home an hour later, the Porsche cutting through the night. The car, a mirror of his father’s, felt like a borrowed skin. He dropped her at her student dorm with a perfunctory kiss. "Talk tomorrow," she said, her smile uncertain.
He just nodded.
Back in his silent apartment, the ghost of the evening solidified. He poured a whiskey, not the good stuff his father drank, but something cheaper and sharper. He scrolled through his phone, past pictures of goals scored, team celebrations, blandly perfect images of a life people envied. His thumb hovered, then moved of its own volition to his photos, to the hidden folder.
He entered the passcode. The first image loaded. It was dark, grainy, taken from a discreet angle in the stadium's VIP lounge weeks ago. Vanja was laughing at something his father said, her head thrown back, the column of her throat exposed. The next was from the same night, a candid where she was looking off to the side, her profile lit by the bar lights, an expression of unguarded, profound solitude on her face. He didn't remember taking them. He had.
The final image was not a photo. It was a video, five seconds long, mute. It showed her from behind, walking ahead of him down a corridor after that first game, the elegant sway of her hips in that tight dress, a glimpse of her calf, her heel. It was nothing. It was everything.
The emptiness curdled into a sharp, acidic need. It wasn't just want. It was a compulsion, an itch in the center of his being that the frantic, empty fuck with Elsa had only aggravated. He had tried to replace the taste of Vanja with something simpler, to overwrite the memory of her with a lesser copy. It had failed spectacularly.
He opened a new message thread. His thumbs moved over the screen, typing and deleting, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat in the dark room.
I saw your face tonight.
He deleted it.
The girl means nothing.
He deleted it.
He finally typed three words, the most honest thing he’d said in weeks. He stared at them, the pale glow of the screen the only light on his face. His finger trembled slightly over the send button. The hollow ache in his chest tightened into a focused, desperate point.
He pressed send.
The message, delivered to the unknown number he’d memorized, read:
I need to see you.
The message, delivered to the unknown number he’d memorized, read: I need to see you.
He stared at the screen until it went black, reflecting his own hollow-eyed expression. He didn’t expect a reply. The silence felt like a verdict. He poured another whiskey, the burn doing nothing to fill the cavity in his chest. An hour slid by, measured in the slow creep of headlights across his ceiling.
Then, a soft, definitive knock.
It wasn’t the buzzer. It was on his apartment door. His heart hammered against his sternum. He crossed the room, the cool floor under his bare feet, and looked through the peephole. Her golden hair was a tangled mane, her face pale under the hallway’s harsh light. She wore a long black coat, belted tight.
He opened the door.
She didn’t move to enter. She stood on the threshold, a statue of contained fury and devastation. The scent of night air and her perfume—something dark and floral—wreathed her. “Your father thinks I’m back at mine,” she said, her voice a low scrape. “What do you want?”
“I needed to talk,” he said, the words stupid and inadequate.
Her eyes, those gold-green fractals, swept over him. They hardened. A cold, knowing smile touched her lips. “You fucked her.” She didn’t phrase it as a question. “You smell like her. You could’ve at least showered.”
The accusation was a physical blow. “Vanja,” he began, a plea.
“No,” she cut him off, stepping forward, forcing him back into the apartment. She shut the door behind her with a quiet, final click. “Don’t. You do you. We are done here. We were done the moment you left that apartment.”
“She does not mean anything,” he said, the protest sounding weak even to him.
“Yeah.” Vanja’s laugh was a short, ugly sound. She untied the belt of her coat, letting it fall open. Beneath, she was naked. The sight was a punch to his gut—the familiar curves, the pale skin he’d bruised, the reality of her a brutal contrast to the ghost he’d been fucking on the couch. “Yet you fucked her tonight. After trying to hurt me.”
He was paralyzed, desire and shame warring in his bloodstream. “Did I manage?” he asked, the question ripped from a raw place.
She looked at him, really looked, her gaze traveling from his pained eyes down to the obvious bulge in his sweatpants. Her sad smile returned, a crack in her marble facade. She didn’t answer. She simply turned, picked her coat up from the floor, and wrapped it around herself again. She walked out, closing the door softer than it had been opened.
He stood in the center of the silent room, the ghost of her scent and the echo of her nakedness the only proof she’d been there at all.
Two weeks passed in a blur of training, press conferences, and Elsa’s relentless, chirping presence. His father’s dinner invitation was a formal email, a command masked as a request. The venue was Besim’s private dining club, all dark wood, low lights, and imposing portraits of dead industrialists. Erblin arrived with Elsa on his arm, her in a ruffled pink dress that looked like a child’s party gown.
Vanja was already there.
She wore white. A sleek, column-like dress that clung to every dip and curve, the fabric somehow both modest and devastating. It made her skin glow, her hair a fall of molten gold. She looked less like a woman and more like a vision, a touchstone of impossible elegance in the club’s oppressive masculinity. Elsa’s hand tightened on his arm. He heard her tiny, involuntary intake of breath, a stifled gasp of pure aesthetic shock. She stared at Vanja with wide, awestruck eyes, her own outfit suddenly exposed as the cheap forgery it was.
Dinner proceeded with excruciating politeness. Layla, his sharp-eyed sister, teased their father about looking nervous. Besim smiled, a rare, unguarded expression of genuine happiness. He stood, tapping his crystal glass with a knife. The clear ping silenced the table.
“You know I love you all a lot,” he began, his voice thick with emotion. He looked at each of his children—Erblin, Layla, their younger brother Dardan. “You are my whole world. And I know, well…” He faltered, uncharacteristically lost for words.
Layla laughed, breaking the tension. “Dad, this isn’t about us. It’s about you and Vanja.” She shot a knowing, mischievous look at Vanja, who gave a small, composed smile. Erblin’s blood ran cold. Layla knew something. He could see it in the arch of her eyebrow, the secret little curve of her mouth as she glanced between their father and the woman in white.
Besim took Vanja’s hand, lifting it to his lips. “Vanja and I are getting married. Next summer. In Albania.”
The words hung in the air, crisp and monumental. “We will move to the new villa,” Besim continued, his gaze sweeping over his stunned children. “She is doing her research in the Balkans. And you are all big already.” He said it as if their independence was a gift he was bestowing upon them, a permission slip for his own happiness.
Erblin froze. The sounds of the room—the clink of cutlery, the murmur from other tables—muffled into a dull roar. He watched Vanja’s face. She was smiling, serene, a blushing bride. It was the most terrifying performance he had ever witnessed.
Elsa squealed, over the moon, clasping her hands together. “Oh my God, congratulations!” Layla screamed, jumping up to hug Vanja, who accepted the embrace with graceful warmth. Dardan rounded the table to clap his father on the back.
Erblin remained seated, his fingers turning cold around his water glass. He couldn’t move. He could only watch the woman he had called a cheap slut, the woman he had fucked raw against a window, smiling beatifically as his family welcomed her as their new stepmother.
Later, on the balcony overlooking the city’s twinkling grid, he found her alone. The cold night air bit through his shirt. She leaned on the railing, her white dress absorbing the ambient light, making her a faint luminescent outline.
“Vanja,” he said.
She didn’t turn. “You made your choice,” she stated, her voice quiet and utterly drained. “Now we both have to live with it.”
He saw the gleam on her cheek in the darkness. She was crying. Silent, perfect tears tracking through her immaculate makeup. The sight shattered something final inside him. Before he could speak, the balcony door slid open.
Besim stepped out, his eyes going immediately to Vanja’s distressed face. He moved to her side, pulling her gently against him. “She is emotional,” he said to Erblin by way of explanation, his hand stroking her hair. He pressed a kiss to her temple and murmured, just loud enough for Erblin to hear, “She is pregnant.”
Pregnant.
The word was a knife, twisted deep. Maybe by him. The math was a cruel, mocking puzzle. He had called her a cheap slut as he paraded another. He had emptied himself inside her without a thought. And now she was carrying a child that could be his, while wearing his father’s ring.
Vanja pulled away from Besim, murmpering something about the bathroom, and slipped back inside, leaving the two men in the cold.
Erblin couldn’t breathe. He stared at his father, who was watching Vanja’s retreating form with a mixture of concern and triumph.
“This is not why we are getting married,” Besim said, as if reading the horror on his son’s face. He lit a cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating his satisfied features. He exhaled a plume of smoke into the night. “But it might be why she accepted to do it now.” He said it casually, a man explaining a subtle business negotiation. “It clarifies things. It makes the future… concrete.”
Erblin turned and walked back into the warmth of the club. He moved past the laughing table, past Elsa’s confused call of his name, and straight out the front door into the waiting night. The city’s lights blurred. The child could be his. The wedding would happen. She would be his stepmother. His father’s wife. The mother of a child that might share his own blood.
He stumbled into an alley, the weight of it buckling his knees. He vomited violently, purging the rich food and the richer betrayal. When he was empty, he slumped against the cold brick, his breath fogging in ragged bursts. He fumbled for his phone, his fingers numb. The text thread with the unknown number was still there. His last message, unanswered.
He typed through tears of rage and despair.
Is it mine?