Chapter 3
Natsha pulled the zipper of her suitcase shut. Almost unconsciously, she looked around the room one last time. Her gaze, as though present and yet absent, came to rest on the pale bedsheets.
The vibration at her hip pulled her out of her daze. Natsha slipped her hand into the pocket of her overcoat and took out the object that had been vibrating incessantly. She pressed the button to accept the call.
"Natsha, the car is already waiting downstairs." A familiar voice came through. It was the manager who had been with her for many years.
"I know, thank you." She answered briefly. The call ended just as shortly. Natsha slipped the phone back into her pocket.
The door, which normally carried hardly any weight, seemed to make Natsha's movements noticeably sluggish today. By the time it was fully open, the face of a woman appeared before her.
The woman's sharp gaze locked onto her. The two of them simply stared at each other.
Suddenly, Natsha's shirt collar was seized, and her body was forcefully shoved backward by the woman before her.
BANG!
Natsha's back slammed hard against the wall. She exhaled, the unavoidable soreness immediately washing over her.
"Where do you think you're going?" Lorena still had a tight grip on Natsha's collar.
Natsha frowned, turning her face away for a moment.
"Ha." She let out a dry laugh, casting her eyes toward the woman who was inexplicably seething with fury.
"Where else could I possibly go?" She did not answer directly, merely leaving Lorena with a vague question.
And, of course, Lorena hated that.
Natsha's back was slammed against the wall once again.
"Answer it properly!"
The strong scent of tea pheromones spread through the air. Harsh and intense, unlike its usual faintness. A primal warning from an Alpha.
Yet Natsha, standing before Lorena's threatening pheromones, did not waver in the slightest.
"I'm going on a business trip."
Natsha could have chosen not to answer, but she did not know why... she still answered the question of this woman.
"You're not allowed to go!"
Lorena issued an instruction, a command that the other person was expected to obey.
Natsha lowered her head, and silence immediately settled between them. But whatever comfort might have come from that feeling was utterly nonexistent.
Lorena thought Natsha had listened to her. The grip on her collar loosened.
But before Lorena's hand could leave Natsha's collar, her calm voice rang out. Clear as a needle piercing through the air that had gradually grown dense.
"Why?"
Natsha looked at her, waiting for an answer.
Lorena suddenly felt something catch in her throat.
"Why do you ask so many questions?" Natsha turned away, her gaze no longer meeting Lorena's. "You only need to do as I say."
"Ha ha..." Natsha suddenly let out several dry laughs.
The action made Lorena turn her eyes toward her.
"Lorena Salvor..."
Natsha stepped out from behind the shell she normally wore. Her eyes were ice-cold.
Lorena instinctively froze at the sight of her expression. Natsha had never looked at her like this before.
"... who do you think you are?"
Natsha's words successfully caused the woman who had not yet recovered from her stunned state to freeze all over again.
Lorena's pupils trembled.
For the first time in all these years, her mind became a complete, pitch-black void. Her mind, always praised for its quickness and flawless judgment, suddenly could not produce a single answer.
Natsha looked at the woman before her. Her expression was exactly as she had expected. It was just that she knew the outcome beforehand... yet she could not change it.
Natsha suddenly felt a bitter taste rising in her mouth.
Perhaps she had simply been resting irregularly, and her body was beginning to rebel. Or perhaps it was the bitterness of the situation itself that allowed her to taste bitterness without having to chew on anything at all.
She brushed the other woman's hand away from her collar. Lorena's grip had completely loosened, hanging there as though the slightest force would make it fall.
Natsha took a step toward the door.
"You know the situation in Ramia isn't stable, don't you?" Lorena blurted out somewhat hurriedly.
By the time Lorena regained her senses, Natsha had already reached the doorway.
Her footsteps came to a halt.
"There are frequent shootings. Do you really not know that?" Lorena held her forehead, her breathing somewhat disordered. "Security is clearly as bad as it could be."
"What exactly are you trying to say, Lorena?" Natsha asked.
Lorena's anger suddenly flared up again.
"You're not out of your mind." Her voice rose. "If you go there, aren't you just walking straight into your own death?"
The lines of Natsha's face did not change. Every muscle in her body relaxed completely. It was difficult for anyone else to guess what she was thinking.
"I've considered it." Natsha answered. "And this is my decision."
"Have you lost your mind?" Natsha's response only made her lose even more control.
"Is that damn spotlight more important than your life?"
"Yes." Natsha answered indifferently. "Perhaps it is."
She turned around, intending to leave.
But her arm was suddenly seized tightly and pulled backward.
"I TOLD YOU, YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO GO!"
Lorena's eyes were bloodshot, as though she had completely lost control of herself.
"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE HER AWAY!"
The tea pheromones scattered wildly through the air, reaching the red-alert threshold.
"So you've finally said the reason out loud." Natsha smiled, but there was no trace of amusement in it.
Standing before a frantic Lorena, Natsha was strangely calm.
Her words suddenly caused the stream of tea pheromones in the air to drop sharply.
No one knew when Natsha had slipped free from Lorena's grip.
She turned around, completely facing Lorena.
"Lorena Salvor..." She stepped forward one step at a time. "... listen carefully."
Natsha did not release a single strand of pheromone, yet every step she took, pressing forward, forced Lorena to retreat.
"This face..."
Lorena's back touched the granite surface.
"... belongs to me."
Natsha's voice rang beside Lorena's ear.
"I am Natsha Triverson, not Natasha Triverson."
Lorena's body suddenly trembled. Not because of Natsha's presence or pressure, but because of a truth that had already been determined by reality, one that she could never change no matter what she did.
Lorena suddenly felt as though she could not breathe. Her lungs seemed to refuse to take in the air flooding into them.
"My sister is the person you love."
The words were like a blade cutting into the heart of the person who spoke them.
But no matter how many times every layer of her heart was torn apart, Natsha still chose to live with the truth that could never be changed.
"You and I..."
Natsha swallowed the tightness lodged in her throat. The words became caught there, stubbornly clinging on, refusing to be spoken.
Yet their very owner forced them out.
"... are nothing."
"That's right... it has always been you and me."
"There has never been a 'us' to begin with."
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