Mercenary takes care of you

The icy mist of the early morning mingled with the cigarette smoke Valerik kept between his lips. At thirty-eight years old, Valerik "The Cutter" Rostov knew neither mercy nor hesitation. If a name appeared on the envelope handed to him in the city's underground, that person became nothing more than a simple job to be taken care of. He charged a hefty price, but guaranteed clean work with no loose ends. He was never short of work or money.

It was nearly one in the morning. Valerik walked confidently toward his black coupe, parked just a stone's throw away in an alley swallowed by absolute darkness. His linen shirt was slightly unbuttoned, and one persistent thought occupied his mind: getting back to his apartment, stripping off his clothes, and scrubbing away the few drops of blood that had splattered onto his cuff during that night's job with cold water. The usual routine.

However, the metallic echo of something scraping against the pavement shattered the silence of the street.

Valerik stopped dead in his tracks. Instinctively, his right hand dropped to his side and unclipped the leather holster beneath his jacket. His nine-millimeter Glock 19 came out in one smooth, silent, and precise motion. He kept the weapon close to his torso, ready to open fire at the slightest sign of an ambush, and moved along the brick wall without making the slightest sound.

As his eyes adjusted to the faint light of the streetlamp at the end of the alley, the figure gradually came into focus. It wasn't a rival gangster, a disgruntled client, or an undercover cop.

It was a young man. A boy wrapped in a jacket that was clearly several sizes too big for him. In his right hand, he held a folded white cane, which he used to probe the ground erratically. He stumbled forward, completely disoriented. Valerik immediately noticed his fixed yet unfocused gaze and the way his head tilted toward the shadows. The boy was completely blind.

Even so, Valerik didn't put his weapon away. In his line of work, paranoia was the only guarantee of staying alive. He pressed his back against the wall and took two slow steps forward, blocking the young man's path.

"What the hell are you doing here at this hour?" Valerik spat in a rough, icy voice, removing the cigarette from his lips with his left hand while keeping his gun pointed directly at the young man's chest.

Valerik closed the distance in the blink of an eye. Without giving the young man a chance to react, he seized the collar of his oversized jacket with his left hand, gripping the fabric with the strength of a steel vice and slamming him against the brick wall of the alley. The cold metal of the Glock was mere inches away from the boy's face.

"Talk. Now," Valerik hissed in a low, dangerous voice, feeling the young man's ragged breathing against his hand. "Who sent you? What the hell are you planning?"

The young man's reaction was not that of a cornered ambusher or a trained decoy. His entire body tensed, his shoulders hunched in fright, and his face displayed nothing but a mixture of utter confusion and genuine terror. He didn't attempt to defend himself or reach for a weapon in his pockets. He simply clutched his cane against his chest, frozen in place.

Without releasing his grip on the jacket, Valerik shifted his gaze toward both ends of the alley. He examined the ledges of the broken windows, the shadow cast by the dumpster, and the top of the fire escape. Absolute silence. No crunching footsteps, no glint of a camera lens, no disturbances in the shadows. They were alone.

Even so, the paranoia of a man with dozens of lives on his conscience demanded certainty.

To put his doubts to rest, Valerik performed an infallible test. With a swift, silent movement, he lowered his gun and suddenly swung his right hand toward the young man's face, pretending to strike him directly in the eyes. He stopped his knuckles just a millimeter from the boy's corneas.

The young man didn't even blink.

His dilated, vacant pupils remained motionless, reacting only to the sound of the air being displaced. Several seconds later, he tilted his head slightly to one side, responding purely out of uncertainty.

He was blind. Completely blind.

Valerik loosened his grip on the jacket with an irritated click of his tongue, allowing the boy to readjust himself against the wall. The mercenary had a strict code that had kept him alive and relatively sane: never mess with innocent children or elderly people. To him, any other adult in the city was a potential target or expendable collateral damage, but this young man fell into an uncomfortable gray area.

On one hand, the boy's blindness was an advantage. He couldn't see the dark stain of blood beginning to dry on Valerik's cuff, the silhouette of the gun at his side, or the outline of his car parked just a few meters away. On the other hand, a blind man wandering around a neighborhood notorious for settling scores at one in the morning was an absurd complication the mercenary didn't need.

Valerik slipped the Glock back into its worn leather holster, brought his cigarette to his lips again, and took a long drag, allowing the orange glow of the burning tip to briefly illuminate his tired face. He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke to the side, looking the young man up and down.

"Alright, genius," Valerik said, returning to his usual rough, monotonous tone. "Do you have somewhere to go, did you lose your guide dog, or do you simply enjoy wandering around the worst alleys in the city at one in the morning?"

Valerik remained silent for a few seconds, observing the young man's fragile posture against the wall. Leaving him there would be equivalent to handing him over to the city's nocturnal predators: gang members, drug addicts, or corrupt patrol officers. However, the real reason that tipped the scales in Valerik's mind was security. If the police or the men working for the man he had just eliminated found a disoriented boy wandering around the crime scene at that hour, he would end up being detained as a witness or interrogated. The smartest thing to do was to maintain control of the situation. He would have to "contain" the boy himself.

"Let's go," Valerik ordered curtly, taking the young man by the arm with enough firmness to guide him without hurting him. "Don't ask questions. Just walk."

He led him to the black coupe parked at the end of the alley. He opened the passenger door, carefully guided the young man into the seat, and waited for him to settle his cane before shutting the door with a firm, clean slam. Valerik walked around the car, slid behind the steering wheel, and started the V8 engine, whose deep roar reverberated through the stillness of the early morning.

He shifted into gear and accelerated down the deserted avenues. Keeping one eye on the rearview mirror in case anyone was following them, he broke the silence with the coldness of someone filling out a medical report.

"Alright, kid. Time to talk," Valerik said without taking his eyes off the wet asphalt. "Let's start with the basics. What's your name? How old are you?"

The mercenary paused briefly, adjusting the dashboard lights before continuing with another barrage of questions.

"Do you have any family? Anyone looking for you right now? Or do you live alone? Do you work somewhere, or are you still in school? I need to know whether half the police department will be searching for you before sunrise or if I can actually have some peace of mind. Talk."

As they ventured deeper into the financial district, the car pulled into the underground parking garage of a high-security residential building. Valerik opened the passenger door, helped the boy out, and guided him to the private elevator that led directly to the penthouse, a spacious, austere, and frigid suite.

As he unlocked the front door, the scent of leather, expensive wood, and a faint undertone of gun-cleaning solvent filled the air. Valerik left the boy in the entrance hall, looking at him sternly, even though the young man couldn't see the coldness in his eyes.

"Listen carefully," Valerik said, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt as he walked toward the kitchen. "You're in my house. There are strict rules here if you want to make it through the night in one piece. You stay exactly where you are, you don't touch absolutely anything, and you don't become a problem for me. If you hear anything, ignore it. If you need something, speak up. Understood? I'm going to change my clothes, and I don't want to find a single glass out of place when I come back."

The morning passed in tense silence inside the spacious penthouse. Valerik stood beside the kitchen island, finishing cleaning a glass with a dry cloth while occasionally glancing at the young man, who remained seated rigidly in one corner of the leather sofa, holding his cane between his legs.

Suddenly, a sharp buzzing sound broke the silence. The video intercom screen beside the entrance lit up. Valerik glanced at the camera. A short man wearing an immaculate suit, a gray overcoat, and a neat scar running across his right eyebrow was patiently waiting in the hallway outside the apartment.

It was Viktor, his main intermediary with the local crime syndicates. The man who secured contracts and delivered briefcases full of cash.

Valerik frowned. Viktor never showed up at his private suite unless the payment was exceptionally large or something had gone seriously wrong with the latest target.

"Stay on that sofa and keep your mouth shut," Valerik ordered in a rough but uncompromising whisper, addressing the young man as he adjusted the Glock holster behind his back. "If you breathe too loudly, I'll kick you out. Understood?"

Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the entrance, disengaged the security lock, and opened the door just enough to position his body in the doorway, blocking the view inside.

"I don't recall making plans to meet you here, Viktor," Valerik said in an icy voice, resting one hand against the doorframe.

The suited man smiled with professional coldness and raised a black leather briefcase.

"Relax, Rostov. Last night's job involving the Italians' accountant was flawless," Viktor said, casually taking half a step forward. "Your usual fee, plus a bonus from the management for your discretion. I wasn't planning on coming personally, but the client wants to close the case today. Are you going to let me in, or did you forget Russian hospitality along the way?"

Valerik didn't move.

"It's not a good time. Give me the briefcase and leave."

Viktor let out a dry laugh, but his shrewd eyes narrowed. Without asking permission, he stepped sideways, forcing Valerik to turn slightly, and stole a glance inside the apartment. His eyes immediately settled on the young man sitting on the sofa, his cane resting against the armrest.

Viktor's expression changed in an instant. His smile disappeared, replaced by a cold, dangerous calculation. The intermediary's hand imperceptibly drifted toward the lapel of his overcoat.

"Rostov..." Viktor murmured, lowering his voice to barely more than a hiss. "Who the hell is that? You know the guild's rules perfectly well. No loose ends, no witnesses in your residences. If the clients find out you've got a stranger in your apartment after last night's job..."

Before Viktor could slip his hand inside his coat, Valerik stepped forward, slammed him against the wall of the outer hallway, and pressed his forearm against the man's throat. He shoved the barrel of his Glock directly beneath the intermediary's chin. The movement was so fast and precise that the briefcase fell to the floor with a dull thud.

"Listen very carefully, you fucking idiot," Valerik hissed, his face barely an inch from Viktor's, his eyes bloodshot and filled with such murderous fury that the suited man swallowed nervously. "He's blind. He didn't see my face, he didn't see yours, he didn't see the car, and he has absolutely no idea who I am or what I do. He's just some street kid I picked up last night because he was getting in my way in the alley."

Viktor tried to move his head, choking under the pressure on his throat, but the gun beneath his chin pressed even harder.

"If you ever set foot in my apartment again without warning me," Valerik continued in a sinister tone that left no room for argument, "or if you say a single fucking word about this to management, I'll make damn sure you don't live long enough to collect your commission. Is that clear?"

Viktor nodded slowly, his eyes wide with fear as he struggled to breathe.

Valerik suddenly released his grip. With the tip of his boot, he pushed the briefcase full of money toward the inside of the apartment, picked up its handle, and watched Viktor straighten his tie while coughing slightly.

"The job is done. Your money has been collected. Now get the fuck out of my sight," the mercenary declared.

He slammed the door shut and engaged all three steel deadbolts.

Valerik took a deep breath to calm his adrenaline, holstered his weapon, and walked toward the center of the living room. He dropped the briefcase onto the coffee table with a heavy metallic thud. When he looked up, he saw that the young man hadn't moved a single inch from the sofa, but his fingers were gripping his cane so tightly that his knuckles had turned white with tension.

The silence in the apartment was absolute.

"Relax," Valerik said, pouring himself a glass of water with a steady hand and returning to his usual cold, monotonous tone. "He was just an annoying salesman."

The morning silence of the suite was interrupted only by the gentle gurgling of the coffee machine in the kitchen. Valerik was dressed in comfortable clothes, enjoying what was, for him, an absolute rarity: a day off. No calls from Viktor, no targets to track down, and no need to check the locks every ten minutes.

The young man had already been staying in the apartment for several days. He had gone from being an annoying inconvenience to a quiet presence occupying the guest bedroom at the end of the hallway. Since the boy had arrived with no belongings other than the dirty clothes he had been wearing that night, Valerik had no choice but to rummage through his own wardrobe and lend him a couple of outfits.

A faint metallic click broke the morning calm: the boy's cane tapping against the first step of the spiral staircase connecting the upper floor to the main living room.

Instinctively, Valerik's reflexes kicked in. He set his coffee cup down on the counter and quickly but silently walked toward the bottom of the stairs, ready to intervene if the boy took a wrong step or lost his balance on the polished wooden steps.

However, when he looked up, he froze.

The young man was slowly making his way downstairs, one hand resting on the steel railing while the other carefully guided his cane. He was wearing one of Valerik's dress shirts. In the dim morning light, the garment looked ridiculously oversized on him. The shoulders hung inches below his own, the sleeves reached his hands, and the hem of the shirt reached almost halfway down his thighs. He looked fragile, almost cute, wrapped in the clothes of a man who had made his living taking lives only hours earlier.

At that moment, Valerik felt a strange, sudden tightness right in the center of his chest. An unfamiliar sensation, a warm pang entirely foreign to anything he had ever experienced before. It wasn't fear, alertness, or adrenaline. It was something heavy, a peculiar weight that stole his breath for a second.

The mercenary blinked, furrowed his brow in barely restrained irritation, and clenched his jaw. He decided to crush the feeling immediately, blaming it on accumulated exhaustion or simply the strangeness of seeing someone else wearing his clothes.

He cleared his throat with a dry cough, trying to regain the firmness of his voice before speaking.

"Come down carefully," Valerik said, breaking the silence with his usual rough, deep tone. "The stairs are slippery. Once you finish coming down, head straight to the kitchen. Breakfast is already on the table. Eat before it gets cold."

The aroma of freshly ground coffee still lingered in the kitchen when Valerik watched the young man bump his hip against the corner of the counter for the third time in a row. The boy was trying to memorize the distance between the sink and the coffee machine, but the vastness of the space and the polished granite surfaces made everything seem like a smooth maze with no clear landmarks.

Valerik sighed, setting aside the newspaper he had been reading on the barstool. He had spent years teaching himself not to feel sympathy for anyone, but watching the boy hesitate with every step inside his own home was beginning to cause him constant discomfort, an impatience bordering on something far more dangerous: empathy.

"Stay still before you break something or crack your skull open," Valerik said, standing up with the slow, deliberate movements of a predator deciding to intervene.

He walked around the marble island with heavy steps until he was standing directly behind the boy. The difference in their height and build was unmistakable; Valerik practically enveloped him in his shadow. For a moment, the young man tensed when he felt the cold draft accompanying the mercenary and caught the faint scent of tobacco and neutral soap that always surrounded him.

"If you're going to walk around here without breaking a bone, you need to learn how to measure the space with your hands instead of blindly swinging that cane around," Valerik murmured in his deep voice, leaning forward just enough for his words to resonate near the young man's ear.

Without asking permission, but moving carefully to avoid startling him, Valerik extended his arms on either side of the boy, subtly cornering him against the counter without quite touching him. Then, he lowered his hands and gently took hold of the young man's wrists.

The contact was immediate and electrifying. Valerik's hands were large, rough, and covered in hard calluses from years of handling weapons and combat training. The boy's wrists, on the other hand, felt warm, and ridiculously fragile beneath his fingers.

At the touch, the young man's breathing momentarily stopped.

"Relax," Valerik said in a low voice, loosening his grip without letting go. With deliberate slowness, he guided the boy's hands forward until his palms touched the cold edge of the granite countertop. "This is the main edge. If you walk along it, the counter ends exactly three steps to your left."

Valerik moved the boy's hands to the right, keeping his own hands over them and feeling the warmth radiating from the young man's skin. He guided his fingers toward the stainless steel faucet.

"The sink is here," the mercenary continued, gently pressing the backs of the boy's hands so he could feel the curve of the metal. "The lever on the right gives you cold water. The one on the left gives you boiling water in three seconds, so don't even think about touching it carelessly."

The young man's heart was beating as rapidly as a trapped bird's, and Valerik, standing almost completely against his back, could feel the faint vibrations through the fabric of his shirt. A strange warmth began creeping up the mercenary's neck. Acting on an impulse he couldn't quite understand, his fingers slid from the boy's wrists to cover almost his entire hands, guiding them a few inches farther until they reached the glass coffee maker.

"Here's the coffee machine," Valerik murmured. His warm breath barely brushed the young man's cheek, making the fine hairs on the boy's neck visibly stand on end.

Valerik froze.

For one endless second, he didn't move a single muscle. The boy was completely enclosed between his body and the counter, their hands intertwined over the glass coffee maker, and they were standing so intimately close that he could count every one of the young man's unsteady breaths.

The silence in the kitchen grew dense and heavy, charged with an electric tension that neither of them dared to break for several seconds.

Aware of the danger of allowing that strange feeling to take root, Valerik abruptly released the boy's hands, as though the young man's skin had burned his own. He took two steps backward, reclaiming his distance and composure, then crossed his arms as his usual cold expression settled back onto his face.

"Practice with that," Valerik said, his voice slightly rougher than usual as he turned toward the living room. "If you need anything else, speak up. I'm not going to stand here guessing."

Valerik's plan was simple: fifteen minutes at the supermarket, buy some basic supplies, and get out of there before the lunchtime crowd turned into a headache. However, he made the mistake of not leaving the boy at the apartment.

As soon as they walked through the store's automatic doors, the sight of them was almost comical to anyone who happened to cross their path. Valerik, a man nearly six feet two inches tall, wearing a black leather jacket, a perpetually scowling expression, and the posture of a military bodyguard, walked at a slow pace beside a slender young man wearing a hoodie three sizes too big for him. The boy held his white cane in one hand and the handle of the shopping cart in the other.

"Let go of the cart," Valerik said in a low but authoritative voice as soon as they entered the produce aisle. "I'll push it."

{{user}} ignored him. Instead, he decided to use the shopping cart as an extension of his cane to feel his way around.

The result was immediate. After just three steps, the front wheels crashed straight into a perfectly arranged pyramid of discounted canned goods. The clatter of metal hitting the linoleum floor echoed through the entire aisle. Around twenty cans rolled in every direction.

{{user}} froze on the spot, raising his hands slightly as if he had just set off a land mine.

An elderly woman passing by with her own shopping cart let out an indignant gasp and shot the young man a stern look. Valerik felt a vein bulging in his temple and returned the woman's glare with such a sinister, icy expression that she immediately quickened her pace, muttering apologies under her breath.

"I told you to let go," Valerik hissed, abruptly dropping to one knee to collect the cans at the speed and efficiency of someone picking up shell casings at a crime scene. "If we knock anything else over, I swear I'll leave you in the frozen food section."

Valerik clenched his teeth, reluctantly put the cans back in place, and stood up. He grabbed the shopping cart's handle with one firm hand and secured the boy by the back of his hoodie with the other to keep him under control.

"From now on, you stay right by my side. You don't move a single inch unless I tell you to."

They made their way toward the bakery aisle. Valerik tried to maintain his composure, but {{user}} began reaching blindly toward the shelves. His fingers brushed against a bag containing something soft and oval-shaped.

"That's sweet bread. You don't need it."

The young man lowered his hand slightly, finding a long box instead.

"Fruit-flavored ring cereal. It's got enough sugar to kill you by the time you're thirty. Put it back."

{{user}} didn't move his hand away, and Valerik sighed, feeling a sharp headache forming right behind his eyes. A man who charged five-figure sums to take out high-profile targets in the dead of night was now standing in aisle four of a supermarket, debating whether or not to buy a box of childish cereal just so a blind guy wouldn't look utterly devastated.

He dropped the cereal box into the shopping cart with a dull thud.

"One box. And if you find anything in this place with protein that doesn't require two hours of cooking, add it before I regret taking you out of the apartment."

Valerik rolled his eyes, adjusted his jacket to make sure his Glock wasn't visible beneath the waistband of his pants, and continued pushing the cart down the aisle, scaring off any shopper who dared to get in his way with nothing more than a glare.

The air in the suite's master bathroom was thick with the scent of steam, shaving soap, and the subtle fragrance of freshly used shampoo. Valerik had placed a wooden chair in front of the mirror and forced {{user}} to sit in it, covering his shoulders with a tightly wrapped black towel to keep the short strands of hair from getting down the collar of his shirt.

{{user}}'s hair had grown far too long during the weeks of voluntary confinement. It fell down the sides of his face, covering his ears and brushing against his eyelids, forcing him to awkwardly push it back every few moments. Valerik, accustomed to military rigor and to maintaining his own impeccable appearance without relying on anyone, couldn't stand seeing that mess for another day.

Valerik opened the leather case on the sink. He took out a pair of professional stainless-steel scissors and a fine-toothed comb. The metallic sound of the steel clicking against itself echoed off the tiled walls, and Valerik immediately noticed {{user}}'s back tense slightly in the chair.

"Stay completely still," Valerik said in a low, stern voice, taking a step forward to position himself behind the boy. "One wrong move and the bad haircut will be the least of your problems."

The mercenary placed his left hand on top of {{user}}'s head to keep it steady. His palm was large, heavy, and warm, his skin rough from the calluses caused by handling weapons. To {{user}}, the contrast between the firmness of that hand and the cool air of the bathroom must have been obvious.

Valerik began combing the damp strands downward. With a slowness and precision that seemed out of place for a man whose fingers were usually squeezing triggers to take lives, he threaded his fingers through {{user}}'s hair to measure its length. His knuckles brushed against {{user}}'s ears, and he felt the slight shiver that traveled down the young man's neck at the contact.

Snip, snip.

The sound of the scissors cutting the first ends filled the small space. Valerik worked in complete silence, focused on the angle and making sure to leave the cut clean and even. He gently tilted {{user}}'s head forward to clear the nape of his neck, carefully running the comb from the base of his neck upward.

As he ran the pad of his thumb behind the boy's ear to move aside a few stubborn strands, Valerik felt the young man's skin break out in goosebumps. {{user}} held his breath, head lowered and shoulders tense in a silence that was strained, yet trusting. There was no trace of fear in his posture; {{user}} was simply surrendering his guard to a man whose hands were stained with blood, blindly trusting that he would not be harmed in the slightest.

That realization alone made Valerik stop the scissors mere millimeters from {{user}}'s skin.

The mercenary stared at their reflection in the mirror: himself, standing upright with a serious expression, holding the sharp steel mere inches from the neck of a blind boy who had no idea how many lives had ended at the hands of the person currently cutting his hair. Another dense, unfamiliar warmth settled in Valerik's chest, making him clench his jaw slightly.

He blinked, exhaled a long breath through his nose, and resumed cutting with quicker strokes, trying to shake the feeling off.

"I'm almost done," Valerik murmured, his voice slightly deeper than usual as he ran the palm of his hand along {{user}}'s neck to brush away the tiny loose hairs that had fallen onto the towel. "Don't move."

He moved to the front, leaning slightly to trim {{user}}'s bangs so they would no longer get in his eyes. Being so close, Valerik could feel {{user}}'s slow, steady breath brushing against his wrist. For a couple of seconds, he studied the young man's calm features, his eyelashes, and the quiet stillness of his sightless eyes.

He pulled the scissors away, gently untied the knot of the towel around {{user}}'s shoulders with a soft tug, and took a step back, putting the tools away in the case on the sink.

"Done," Valerik said, resting his hands on his waist and regarding his work with an unreadable expression. "You no longer look like a shipwreck survivor. Go shake the rest of the hair off over the sink before you end up covering the living room carpet."

The sharp click of the steel bolts locking into the doorframe echoed through the entrance hall with the finality of a death sentence. Valerik turned the special key for the third time, locking the main door's touchscreen panel and reprogramming the exit sensor. From that moment on, the penthouse on the upper floor was an impenetrable fortress. No one could get in... and no one, under any circumstances, could leave without his permission.

Valerik took off his leather coat, still carrying the cold scent of gunpowder and rain from his latest assignment. He had eliminated his target without the slightest complication, but what had truly occupied his thoughts throughout the entire drive back wasn't the payment or the details of the job. It was the absolute certainty of a revelation: waiting for him in that apartment was a peace he had never experienced in his thirty-eight years of existence. {{user}}'s presence, his fragility, his blindness, and the way he depended on every single one of Valerik's decisions gave him a sense of absolute control, an almost addictive stillness that quieted the demons of his profession.

He wasn't going to let that peace slip away. He wouldn't look for {{user}}'s family, teach him to fend for himself, or open the door to the outside world. The boy belonged in this place, in this luxurious cage of silence where Valerik was the only one in control.

Valerik made his way silently toward the kitchen. {{user}} was sitting at the counter, slowly eating a bowl of warm soup that the mercenary himself had prepared for him before leaving. His fingers cautiously explored the table with that slow, deliberate dependence that ignited a possessive spark deep in Valerik's gut.

"You're just in time to finish your meal," Valerik said in his deep, measured voice, pouring himself a glass of water before walking around the counter.

{{user}} stopped with his spoon suspended in midair, turning his head slightly toward the sound of Valerik's footsteps.

"Finish eating," Valerik ordered, his tone gently commanding. "Afterward, we'll go to the living room. We need to talk about something I discovered while I was out today."

He waited in silence until {{user}} placed his bowl in the sink. With imposing firmness, Valerik took him by the wrist and guided him toward the large leather sofa in the center of the room. He sat down beside him, so close that {{user}}'s shoulder was pressed against his own. The difference in their size and presence was overwhelming.

The atmosphere in the living room was heavy, illuminated only by the orange glow of the setting sun filtering through the large, reinforced windows.

"I've been making calls, looking into the neighborhoods where I found you and the police stations," Valerik began, lowering his voice to a deep, rough, enveloping murmur, using every inflection to weave an invisible web around the boy. "I asked about you. I made sure your description reached the right circles."

Valerik paused deliberately, feeling {{user}}'s body tense slightly beside him in anticipation. He extended his hand and rested his palm on {{user}}'s shoulder, squeezing it with slow, domineering pressure.

"No one's looking for you, {{user}}" Valerik revealed, letting the lie fall into the air like a dead weight. "No one cares that you never came home that night. There are no missing person reports, no family members asking about you, not a single person in this city who's lifted a finger to find you. You're completely alone out there."

He felt {{user}}'s slight reaction, the hesitation in his breathing. The trap was beginning to bear fruit: desolation and absolute isolation were slowly making their way into {{user}}'s mind.

"The outside world is a filthy, merciless, and violent place, especially for someone in your condition," Valerik continued, leaning toward him and wrapping an arm around his back, drawing him closer until {{user}} was pressed completely against his chest. "If you set foot outside that door, you won't last two days. They'll hurt you, use you, and leave you lying in some alley. Is that what you want?"

Valerik didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he tightened his arm around {{user}}'s waist and squeezed. It was a strong, suffocating embrace, entirely devoid of any trace of warmth or paternal comfort. It was pure possession, the embrace of a predator claiming its prey and making sure there was no human way to escape. He felt the boy's ribs pressing against his hard muscles, the fragility of his frame trapped beneath his own weight.

"But you don't have to worry about any of that," Valerik whispered near his ear, his sinister yet protective tone bordering on obsession. "You don't have to look for anyone anymore, because I'm here. I'll take care of you. I'll feed you, bring you everything you need, and protect you from anyone who wants to hurt you. Your place is here with me, in this house. Nothing and no one will ever touch you again."

Valerik buried his fingers in the hair at the nape of {{user}}'s neck, holding his head against his shoulder to prevent him from pulling away. He leaned over his face and pressed his lips firmly against {{user}}'s temple, leaving an invisible mark, a cold seal of ownership in the dimly lit apartment.

"You're mine now," Valerik murmured against his skin, feeling {{user}} slowly surrender in his grasp, completely ensnared by the illusion of safety and the invisible rope of dependence. "And you're never leaving this place. Not ever."

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