Chapter 38: The Wound That Never Heals

Chapter 38: The Wound That Never Heals
Elijah swallowed. "Sir... she..."
"I said get out." There was no room for argument in that voice. 
Elijah looked at Damian for a few seconds, then turned his face and slowly opened the door, leaving the room without comment. But before closing the door, he managed to glance at Vanya. A look that suggested this wasn't over. 
The door closed. Now it was just the two of them. Damian and Vanya. In the room full of the ghosts of the past. Silence descended like a thick fog, filling the room of dead memories. The dim yellow lamp on the ceiling shone mournfully, casting long shadows that danced on Damian's face. He stood in the middle of the room, his shoulders tense, his jaw tightly locked as if restraining something much heavier than anger. 
Vanya held her breath. She knew Damian was angry. Not angry because she entered, but angry because the past was being forced open again. 
"Damian..." Vanya's voice was soft, trying to break the tension hanging in the air. 
Damian didn't turn. He stared at the photos displayed on the wall as if looking at an old wound finally freed from its bandage. 
"Why did you come in and see all of this...?" he said softly, yet deeply. There was a fragile crack in his voice. 
Vanya approached one step, hesitant. 
"Because I need to know what really happened. What makes you this way?" 
Damian laughed without sound. Bitter, acrid, as if mocking himself. He rubbed his face hard, as if trying to push away the memories that kept forcing their way in. 
"I need to know," Vanya whispered. "About Isabelle, Adele, Kataria... about what really happened." 
Damian closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze was like shattered glass. Cold, but full of wounds that were close to breaking. 
"You don't understand the danger you've unlocked," he said, his voice lower. "This room is a wound I kept locked up. And you just opened it." 
"Then tell me," Vanya held back her tears. "What are you hiding?" 
But Vanya didn't move. She just waited. Not forcing, criticising, or judging. And that was precisely what finally made Damian speak. 
"My father," he said softly, "believed that pain could reshape a person. Like clay." 
He stared at the folders with dark, empty eyes. "Dr. Lucien Volkov. People called him a medical genius. A saviour. But no one knew anything about the experiments he conducted behind closed doors." 
Damian turned his face away, restraining a subtle tremor in his fingers. 
"The project you saw in those files, Reconstruction Therapy, wasn't just research," Damian said, exhaling. "It was an experiment. A shattered experiment. And my father started it." 
Vanya swallowed. "And Pablo?" 
Damian let out a short, bitter laugh. 
"Pablo believed in the project more than anyone. He continued everything after my father died." Then Damian stopped. His voice changed. Heavier. Lower. "And there was someone else who made it all possible." 
Vanya waited, her heart pounding erratically. Damian put out his cigarette with strong pressure, as if trying to destroy something invisible. 
"Viktor," he said slowly. "Your father." 
Vanya's world seemed to stop ticking. "My father?" Her voice trembled uncontrollably. 
Damian nodded once, slowly, almost like surrender. "Viktor was the technical brain behind the initial stages of the project. Without him, my father couldn't have started anything." 
"That's impossible..." Vanya held the wall, her knees weak. "My father... he wasn't that kind of person." 
"Everyone has a dark side, Vanya." Damian stared intensely. "Your father wasn't a monster. But he allowed that project to live. And what he started... killed many people." 
Vanya shook her head rapidly, crying unconsciously. "My father dedicated himself to the victims. He dedicated his life to saving people, not hurting them." 
Damian stepped closer, his voice strained. "Your father signed the documents that made me an experiment, Vanya. I, who was just a child who didn't understand anything back then." 
Vanya covered her mouth, holding back a sob. 
"Your father might not have known what really happened afterward," Damian continued. "But he never came back to fix it. After everything fell apart... he left. He ran." 
Vanya felt her stomach turn over. "That's not true..." 
Damian lifted his face, moving closer, his voice suddenly breaking into a harsh whisper. "That's why I kidnapped you." 
Vanya froze. Damian held his breath, as if the sentence itself was heavy to utter. 
"I wanted you to feel just a fraction of the fear I've swallowed all this time." 
"But I didn't know anything." Vanya's tears fell. "So... I was just a substitute for your revenge?" 
"Initially, yes," Damian looked at her, his throat moving as he swallowed guilt. "But then... everything changed." 
Silence. Heavy. Thick. 
"I started to see you," he said softly. "Not as the heir to Viktor's sins. But as the woman who... made me start living again." 
Vanya stepped back. Damian followed her with a chaotic expression. 
"I wasn't kidnapped because of your hatred for me. But for my father." 
"True." Damian held Vanya's shoulder. "But now I'm... trapped." 
"Trapped by what?" 
"Feelings," Damian replied faintly. "Feelings I shouldn't have. Feelings that make me no longer able to hurt you. Even when I know you bring all my past back." 
Vanya's tears fell without her realising it. 
"Damian..." her voice broke. "If you hate me... why that night..." 
"I don't hate you," Damian's voice fractured. "I hate the fact that I love someone who should be my enemy." 
The silence between them felt like a fresh, open wound. 
"You need to know one more thing," Damian said, his voice trembling. "Pablo wants you. You saw him, right? How he looked at you. And I'm certain he will look for you again." 
"Why?" 
"Not just because he's interested in every woman who is with me, but because he knows you are Viktor's daughter," he said. "Because you are the last key to reviving the same project that destroyed us all."
Vanya froze from head to toe. And in that moment, she realised that their relationship was not just complicated. Not just wrong. But dangerous. Deadly. And it had just begun.