The Night of the Storm

The rain came down thick and merciless, as if the sky had decided to wash away an entire past once and for all. Heavy drops drummed against the hood of Stefano Petrov’s car and streamed down the windshield like dark veins.

The engine purred low, a steady, solid sound that contrasted with the chaos outside — the flooded road, the grass crushed by the torrent, and, in the distance, the ruins of houses like the exposed bones of a village swallowed by water. It was late — too late for anyone who didn’t know the shortcuts — and the world seemed to shrink to the yellow glow of the headlights and the wet shimmer of asphalt.

Stefano drove calmly, his face carved with an expression few could read. Since moving into the mansion, his life had become a clockwork of rigid routines, calculated decisions, and a solitude that hid itself behind luxury.

He had grown into almost an exact copy of his father, Stefan Petrov.

At twenty-eight, standing 1.84 meters tall, with green eyes inherited from his beautiful mother Yonara, Stefano had straight, light brown hair — a perfect blend of both parents’ genes.

He had reached the top, but had paid the price with a frozen heart. Yet that night, something shattered the symmetry of his perfectly still existence: a shadow by the roadside.

The silhouette moved clumsily, bent over itself, a red flicker of despair against the gray rain. Stefano slowed down, signaled for his men to step out, and when the back door opened, the sight before them looked like a scene torn from a drenched nightmare.

It was a young woman — perhaps in her twenties — kneeling in the mud, her pale face streaked with tears that mingled with blood. Her body trembled; one hand pressed desperately against her side, where the fabric of her dress was soaked in dark red.

The silence that followed was heavy. The wind howled, and the car’s lights carved out the misery of the scene: a shard of debris had pierced her flesh, leaving a deep wound near her ribs, almost at the waistline. It was a cruel gash, caused by something sharp carried away by the flood — yet, by a strange mix of luck and malice, it had missed her vital organs by mere millimeters.

She lifted her face, and through the curtain of wet hair, locked eyes with him. Beautiful eyes, light brown but clouded with sorrow and confusion; eyes that, in that brief instant, searched for something Stefano no longer cultivated — mercy.

The girl fell to her knees, and when her words came, they were almost a whisper, broken by the rain.

_ “My house... collapsed.

_ My family... died. I don’t know where to go.”

Her voice dragged, filled with disbelief, making her seem even smaller. Her worn, tattered clothes — once a simple dark green dress with thin straps — clung to her body, soaked with blood and rain.

For a moment — shorter than a blink — something faintly human flickered in Stefano’s chest, a spark he had long denied himself.

It was only a glimpse, enough to make his ever-firm shoulders sag just a little. Seeing her there, fragile and slowly losing life, touched a place in him that had long since turned to stone.

He looked sideways at one of his men — a man with an expressionless face and eyes trained to obey. In a low, steady voice, he said:

_ “Put her in the car. Take her to the hospital. Then... get rid of her.”

Stefano spoke without the slightest hint of concern for what might happen to the girl afterward.

The command hung in the air like a sentence. No one questioned it. In that world, favors had prices; kindness was a rare commodity — one that always came with conditions. The men lifted her with military care, wrapped her in a damp blanket, and laid her on the back seat. The car sped off into the night, slicing through the rain that hammered a rhythm matching everyone’s quickened breath.

At the hospital, fluorescent lights burned away the remnants of the storm and replaced them with sterile cold. Doctors moved with precision — stitching, stopping the bleeding, checking her vitals. The hemorrhage subsided.

When consciousness returned, she opened her eyes to a world of salt-colored light and the sharp scent of antiseptic. She was somewhere unfamiliar, covered with clean sheets that felt as out of place as her own presence there — no documents, no money, no memory of the city beyond. Panic rose in her throat — the kind born of the unknown and the loneliness that bites when the body begins to heal.

She was discharged a week later — on another rainy day that hadn’t given up falling. As she stepped through the hospital’s automatic doors, the world burst into sound: cars, footsteps, voices. That was when she saw, not far away, one of Stefano’s men walking toward her. His expression carried no surprise — only the calm of someone following orders.

A faint thread of hope lit up in Seline’s chest — an indecipherable mix of relief and fear. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm, her voice trembling with gratitude and confusion:

_ “I’m so glad to see you... it feels like fate is trying to help me.”

The man allowed her warmth for a moment, then looked her up and down as one would inspect goods. His gaze wasn’t made for compassion.

_ “Mr. Stefano Petrov doesn’t do favors out of kindness,”

he said, his voice dripping with warning.

_ “No matter how noble it may seem, there’s always a price to pay.”

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