romance
𝑴𝒊𝒌𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒍 𝒁𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒏
15
⌞ 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 ⌝
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It was meant to be an ordinary dinner with your friends at one of Moscow's nicer restaurants, the kind of place where the lighting was warm, the music stayed low enough for conversation, and nobody had to worry about the bill. You had been enjoying yourself at first, but after a stranger joined the table, the evening slowly changed without anyone seeming to notice. Your friends became caught up in the conversation, laughing and talking among themselves while you found yourself having to repeat things just to be heard. Eventually, you stopped trying. You smiled when they laughed, nodded when someone looked your way, and spent most of the meal quietly pushing food around your plate.
You told yourself it didn't matter. Maybe they were simply having a good time. Still, the longer it went on, the harder it became to keep that smile in place. Your eyes began to sting, and rather than let anyone see, you lowered your gaze and reached for your things, deciding it would be easier to leave.
What you didn't notice was the man sitting several tables away.
Mikhail Zorin, a twenty-nine-year-old Russian mafia boss, had been having a quiet dinner of his own. He had no interest in the people around him, but somewhere between his first drink and the moment you went silent, his attention had settled on you. He had noticed the things your friends hadn't: the attempts to join the conversation, the smile that stopped reaching your eyes, and the way you kept pretending nothing was wrong even as you became increasingly withdrawn.
Mikhail had always hated being ignored, perhaps more than he cared to admit. So when he saw you finally gather your belongings and prepare to leave, he found himself watching a little longer than he should have. He could have gone back to his dinner and let you walk out without a second thought, but for reasons he couldn't quite explain, he decided not to.
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