CHAPTER 2

...AYSEL KARANLIK...

There’s a particular kind of peace that comes when you stop expecting softness from the world.

A quiet, brutal kind.

I learned that young—so young I can’t remember the first lesson, only the bruise it left on my ribs and the taste of blood behind my teeth. Since then, I’ve carved my own rules, my own empire, my own identity.

People call it survival.

I call it evolution.

Tonight, Istanbul glows beneath me like a jeweled serpent—alive, coiling, hungry. The city never sleeps. Neither do I. Sleep requires trust, and trust is a luxury reserved for fools and corpses.

I sit at my lacquered black piano, the keys cold under my fingertips. The melody I’m playing isn’t tender—it's sharp, violent elegance. Notes fall like knives, one after another, relentless and unrepentant.

I prefer it this way.

Silence is too honest sometimes.

Mid-phrase, my encrypted phone lights up on the piano. One message. No name. No ID.

Impossible.

Nobody reaches me without clearance.

I let the piano ring out before I pick it up.

> Unknown:

Funny how a woman can rule fear, money, and blood… yet still look like she’s waiting for someone bold enough to touch her soul.

I blink once.

Not because it affects me, but because most men talk to me like I’m an altar—or a bomb.

This one speaks like he’s already dissected me.

My pulse flicks—not fast, just aware.

I set the phone down. Don’t respond.

Not because I don’t care—

but because I’m curious how far he’ll push.

Curiosity is dangerous.

It’s how wars start.

The city hums outside. Sirens. Wind. Life.

People out there crave predictable things:

Love. Warm hands. A family dinner table. Safety. Someone to come home to.

Good for them.

I crave something else entirely:

Long legs and Louboutin heels, Hermès leather tight enough to bruise my wrist, a Porsche 911 devouring asphalt—

and a man built like sin and precision, someone I could break… and who might break me back.

Not because I want him.

But because destruction has always been a sweeter language than devotion.

Another message. He doesn’t hesitate.

> Unknown:

Pretend you don’t feel this. But your heartbeat gave you away, Aysel.

My name.

No one uses it casually.

I finally type a response.

> Aysel:

Who are you?

Three seconds.

That’s all he makes me wait.

> Unknown:

The man who sees you—not the queen, not the monster. The woman beneath the crown.

The one you swore no one would ever reach.

My inhale is slow. Controlled.

Am I rattled?

No.

Intrigued?

Absolutely.

He sends one more text—this one colder, deliberate, intimate in a way no touch could ever be.

> Unknown:

And the dangerous part, Aysel?

You’ve already felt me.

A soft laugh slips from my throat—dark, amused, disbelieving.

“Well,” I murmur to the empty room, “finally… someone interesting.”

Because for the first time in years—

I’m not the only predator awake tonight.

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