Nikita

"You didn't answer my question, Nikita," Carrie said to the good doctor who was already packing. He didn't want to be here when the press came because that would mean answering questions that he wasn't even ready for.

Such were the times Nikitha wished he was just another man in Todorov, one who wasn't born in wealth or even grown in it.

He wished their family was just the ordinary families with no one after them because of the power they wielded. However, it was impossible to choose where he was born, and maybe this right here was the only consequence of being a Pavlenko.

"Which question, Carrie?" Nikita asked, having genuinely wound up himself and without a memory of what was right and what wasn't. He knew that there were so many expectations pinned on him at the moment.

Nikita knew there was a lot that he needed to do. But right now, he preferred to do nothing, to run away and pretend like he wasn't stuck in a wild memory of everything wrong with his family. 

He hated everything, but so did his close friends because the more chaotic the Pavlenko topic was, the quicker Nikita Rostova faded into his loneliness and pretended like the world outside didn't exist.

He had created his safe haven, the place where he could avoid everything and stay without anyone knowing. 

He had built a place over the past six months, away from his friends and everyone who tried caring about him. He had morphed himself, forced himself into a shell that not even Carrie and Qiao had ever been able to get through—and they were his closest link to humanity. 

"How are you? How have you been? Give it all to me. I know we bȧrėly have thirty minutes of the press conference, but surely, you can spare me ten minutes, no?" Carrie said, her voice soft, without any command, which was new for a woman who was always fighting even when she was smiling.

She was always gruff, her voice nothing close to feminine and her stature so masculine; the only way to know her sėxuȧŀity was the beautiful set of tɨts on her ċhėst, things that she always tended to forget about, more times than she remembered to eat, and that girl ate, a lot.

"I won't lie to Carrie. I haven't been feeling quite well. Everything is messed up, but somehow I believe that with you guys helping me out, I can snap back into what I once was, or maybe something close to it.

"I meant what I said earlier. I will try. I will try to heal. I will get better for your guys, and I know you want me to do this for me too, so I will. I will make everything better, and I must find the person who ordered the hit.

"You should try to stop me; I won't back off this one," Nikita said with a smile plastered on his face.

He knew they cared, but he just wanted them to know that just because he was willing to find his way back to humanity didn't mean that he was going to sit and pretend like someone was after his family.

He would make everything unbearable for them. He would make them feel what he felt, a thousand-fold, and even the angels wouldn't have mercy on their souls.

"Yeah, I understand. We understand Nikita, which is why we won't stop you," Carrie said, making Nikita stop packing. Were they really serious? Wouldn't they stop him? What the fuċk was going on?

"You—You won't stop me?"

"No bother, not this time," Qiao said as he watched the maintenance guys come to fix the door. Since they still needed the room, Qiao Xi waved them off, telling them they would have to come back after ten minutes.

Of course, the conversation was for their own good, and they didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt in their fight for what was supposed to be correct.

"But—I was prepared for a long ȧss speech. I mean, isn't that what you guys always do? Talk me out of my bullshit decisions and try to snap me back to reality more than once. Are you guys changing? Should I be worried?

"Did something happen to your brain cells to make you guys as timid as you are right now? Was there something that I missed in all of this reunion? Does this mean—" Nikita ranted as his friends burst out into laughter.

Of course, they never stopped doing anything about it. Of course, they had more to worry about, especially when it came to him, but they were giving him the benefit of the doubt.

They knew Nikita for who he was - the doctor in the hospital rooms, the boss in the Pavlenko company, the man in charge of the Rostova legion, and the man himself, Nikita Rostova.

His was a name everyone either adored, got scared of, respected, despised, wanted to be, or even hated because they couldn't be like him. However, at the end of the day, Nikita Rostova couldn't give a shit about what people thought about him.

He didn't care that there was the chance that his life would be ruined in the process, but all this while, all this time, they had to learn to accept the man he was. Scandals or not, he was Nikita.

"Naah, today we didn't have speeches—" Carrie said as Qiao interrupted her.

"You don't have speeches? YOU?" Qiao asked Carrie before turning to Nikita to complete what he was saying, "She had a long-ass speech, alright. She always has addressed only this time, and she fuċkɨnġ lectured me for three hours.

"Three whole hours, and I didn't have so much as a choice. Anyway, it doesn't matter now because I took one for the team, but the next time I'm given a lecture, your ȧss better be ready to take the hit for me, brother."

"Well, it wasn't that long," Carrie said while Nikita just sighed and continued packing his backpack. He knew they were about to bicker, and there was nothing he could do about it to make them stop or hold off on it all. 

Nikita didn't have much to pack, considering he had a lot of money to buy him almost everything he wanted.

Right now, the least he could do was carry the little things that mattered the most to him, like the notes maggie always attached to his coffee cups. The books Liza always gave him to read were a lot, but he had read quite a number of them. 

"Are you guys done?"