Just One Glimpse… and My Empire Cracked~

Victoriano:

There were things he thought he’d buried.

Your voice.

Your kiss.

Your laugh that sounded like rebellion dressed in silk.

But grief has a way of planting roots in strange places.

And no matter how deep he buried your memory,

it bloomed in the dark.

Five years.

He hadn’t touched another.

Not before you not after you.

Not even let Donna to be in his side in reality—

he never believed her.

But he hadn’t fought either.

He let her speak her lie.

Because if you were gone…

what did it matter who else tried to claim his ashes?

Now, in a cold, whitewashed Russian city far from blood and empire,

he saw you.

Just a flash.

A market.

A scarf.

The shape of your face—etched in his bones like scripture.

He stopped breathing.

It can’t be.

But then you turned.

Half a glance.

The slope of your cheek.

Those eyes.

It was you.

He felt his ribs crack.

Something inside him—long dead—screamed.

“Isabella!”

He called out once—

not as Don.

Not as King.

But as the boy you once kissed in the rain.

You disappeared into the crowd.

Just like last time.

And Victoriano—

this time,

he ran.

Isabella :

You hadn’t heard your name said like that in five years.

Not in that voice.

Not with that hunger.

That grief.

When you heard it,

the air caught in your chest.

Your fingers clenched the grocery bag until it tore.

You didn’t turn.

You couldn’t.

Because if you had—

you’d crumble.

And you had rebuilt yourself from too much ruin already.

You got into your car with shaking hands.

Your face was cold, and your eyes were hot.

You drove past frozen roads and the villa where only your butler and the birds kept you company.

You told yourself it wasn’t him.

Just your memory.

A cruel one.

An echo of a love you had buried under years and snowfall.

But that night—

you didn’t sleep early.... didn't even prepared dinner..

You stood by the window.

And when the knock came—

your heart stopped.

At the Door

The knock was soft.

Deliberate.

You opened it.

And time fell apart.

He was standing there.

Coat dusted in snow.

Hair longer. Face sharper.

But those eyes—god, those eyes.

Still him.

Still Victoriano.

Still the man you never stopped loving.

You gasped.

The keys dropped.

He stared at you like a starving man.

Like you were the only thing he ever wanted and never thought he’d see again.

His voice was low.

Shaking.

A war barely held behind a whisper.

"Tell me I’m not hallucinating."

You didn’t answer.

Because how do you tell the man you left that you never wanted to go?

That you weren’t running from him—

you were running from fate?

Victoriano stepped forward.

Not forcefully.

But like a man undone.

"Why didn’t you come back?"

You shook your head, eyes burning.

"Why didn’t you tell me where you went?"

You looked down.

Your voice was barely there—

like the wind outside might carry it away before it could wound either of you.

"Because some things are easier to forget when they’re not in front of you."

His chest rose.

"Did I mean so little to you?"

That hurt.

You looked at him—finally.

And he saw it.

The storm in your gaze.

"No," you whispered.

"You meant everything. That’s why I had to disappear."

He stepped inside.

You didn’t stop him.

He walked past you like a man stepping into a memory he wasn’t ready to relive.

And in the quiet of the villa, where no sound dared breathe—

Victoriano turned and whispered:

"I waited, Isa."

"God help me, I waited."

You looked at him, eyes glassy.

"I know.

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