Leonora didn't foresee the ultimate ending, and yet she didn't rest on the assumption that maybe it was about something other than her and Blerimi.

    She looked, without taking her eyes off for a single moment, as Graniti put his hands on his knees and rose to his full height, and her heart seemed to her as if it would burst out of her chest from the beating-screaming in silence for Leonora to disappear from there, without turning her head back because of the danger that had been waiting for her at home and she, without knowing anything, had slipped into the pitiless abyss.

    She looked enviously at his brother, who, in the accentuated and slightly sharp features of his somewhat square face, looked totally unconcerned and as if he had everything under control, while she trembled like a perch in fear of her life under their enslavement. Every attempt of hers made in the past, to have the same authority as her brother had failed due to the weak self-confidence from the surrounding environment and the panic from overthinking, that she wasn't stronger than the people she faced.

    "Come in, Nora," her husband invited her with a smile. "Graniti has come to greet us. Since we are going to Kosovo the day after tomorrow."

    That explanation was not enough for Leonora to free herself from the grip of the anxiety. Maybe they were lying, so that she wouldn't suspect anything?

    Her brother's calm gaze backed up Albioni's words.

    "Okay," she responded dryly, and hurried toward her bedroom when she saw Graniti approaching her.

    She sat on the bed, breathing heavily with her patience at its peak. She could no longer bear to live in fear of when they would end her life, which they had mercilessly taken from her under their control.

    To fight; the solution was clear, but what would happen after that war? Where would she go to live? She ignored Graniti as an option, to have him by her side and thought of Denada, who could help her, but she felt bad, about falling into her hands, because of fear that something would happen to her, and she wouldn't be able to repay her afterwards. Denada had always offered her support if Leonora decided to separate from Albioni, but the latter had not wanted to risk Denada and Albioni hurting her, to take revenge on Leonora.

    Surely there wouldn't even be an "after that war,"  because she wouldn't be able to win. She would have to defend himself with words, which could even lead to her death. Leonora had always tried to speak carefully, so as not to anger her father, brother and husband for fear that they would become too angry and after abusing her, they would kill her.

    The words, which had often seemed like the only way for her to begin to save herself, could become the reason why her lips, which had set those words free from the prison called "the mind", to drown in her blood after she died.

    She didn't understand how other people managed to win. Where did they get all that confidence?

    What did she have to say to be motivated? All her life, she had only allowed herself to be possessed by negative feelings for her soul. Now she was being asked to do what she had always avoided, to get out of that kind of comfort zone, to do the right thing for herself and not only.

    Maybe... that was the reason why she was encountering so many obstacles, because she was on the way of doing the right thing and to win that war she had to let the existence of the future, surprise her. First, she had to deal with the present and, if there was no future, the fact that she had fought for it and had not allowed anyone else to force her to live as a prisoner any longer would give her the much-missed peace of her mind.

••••
    Graniti stepped back slowly, hurt by her continued disregard. When Albioni had told him about their departure, he had thought that Leonora didn't want to leave, but was forced by his brother-in-law, and he had decided to talk to his sister once more, to convince her in accepting the help offered by him. She was refusing only out of pride, to forgive him so easily, and it didn't seem fair to Graniti to leave her in the wrong, just because Leonora kept insisting on continuing on that kind of path.

    He sat back on the couch and silently waited in disbelief for her arrival. Leonora was deliberately not leaving the room, so as not to meet him. Another payback, that he was paying off from the past between them.

    "Excuse me," Albioni went to his bedroom.

    Graniti heard him when he asked Leonora what she was doing and decided to leave. She didn't want him there, and maybe he was wrong. Leonora wanted to go to Kosovo.

    "I have to leave," he said, standing up when Albioni entered the living room and wanted to justify his wife's absence.

    "OK."

    "Text me when you arrive in Kosovo."

    "Will do," agreed Albioni and closed the door happily, after Graniti left.

    That job was also successfully done. He had been afraid that Leonora would reconcile with Graniti, only to not go to Kosovo, but she still kept her distance from him. Now all that was left was the journey, a few days in the country next to their motherland, to avoid being noticed and everything would end easily.

    He headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water but stopped in the hallway when he heard the sound of something hitting the floor in the bedroom.

    He found Leonora putting some clothes in the black travel suitcase.

    "Did you need help?" he entered. "You could've called me."

    She turned to face Albioni and looked at hom very seriously.

    "I have decided to get divorced from you," she announced in a firm voice, and he looked at her in surprise.

    "What?" he asked with a frown.

    "What you heard, but you are asking 'What?', to give me the opportunity to change my mind," replied Leonora in the same tone, as she took her other clothes from the white wardrobe and Albioni looked at her, confused by the sudden decision. "You don't have to. I think we are too disgusted already with ourselves, by being unfair to each other, and we need to stop. We're not evil people."

    "Nora, what are you talking about?" Albioni approached her quietly, not to scare her.

    "About our marriage," she decided to play his game, this time with the undisputed goal of winning. "You and I don't love each other, so we have no reason to stay together."

    "What makes you think that I don't love you?"

    Leonora couldn't help but laugh at his question.

    "Because if you loved me, you wouldn't force me to do things that didn't make me happy at all, and you know very well that I was never happy with you and neither were you with me. But let's leave everything behind," she asked politely while approaching him and looking at him sadly that he had not been happy, although he himself had chosen that kind of life. "We have the opportunity to start a new life and we deserve it. Let's not suffer anymore."

    She lowered her head after saying that request and brought Graniti to her mind, how injustice she thought she was doing to him and the feeling of guilt hit her in the chest. Albioni deserved another chance, and he didn't?

    After the divorce, she would talk to his brother.

    "Do you have someone else?"

    His question made her look up to meet Albioni's inquisitive, ready-to-attack gaze.

    "No," Leonora decided to say.

    From her point of view, there was someone else, not that she had, meaning that she was in a relationship with him, as Albioni would think, and risked becoming a murderer because of her. Maybe he would never find out, he would go on with his life happily with another woman, and all that impending tragedy to happen, could only be prevented by Leonora denying it. For herself, for Albioni, Blerimi, Graniti and for all their acquaintances, Leonora said 'No.'

    "My lawyer will soon bring you the request for the divorce," she continued by folding the clothes in the suitcase.

    "Who said that I accept the divorce?" Albioni chuckled.

    "I didn't say that someone said it." Leonora kept her indifference from his insistence, to continue the same situation. "And no one needs to say it, except me or you. I said it first, it's up to you to accept it."

    "OK, this situation is annoying me a lot. Are you going to tell me what it's really wrong with you, or not?" he asked angrily.

    "Enough, Albion!" she hardened her voice, too. "Why are you so obsessed with making both of our lives worse? What's your problem?"

    She got the answer from his eyes. He considered Leonora's happiness as an obstacle for him to be jubilant. The opportunity to be happy is offered to everyone, but some people don't want to use that chance only out of anger and envy that that opportunity isn't offered only to them, but to some others too, and that's why jealous people try not to allow those others to be happy.

    "I don't have any kind of problem, Nora. You need a visit to the asylum, I'm noticing."

    "I give up on you," she raised her hands in surrender, and took a black coat from the wardrobe.

    "But you were OK a while ago. What happened to you?"

    "I'm tired!" Leonora accompanied the shout by throwing her coat on the tiles next to her, and Albioni looked at her as if she had really gone mad. "I'm tired of putting up with people who only hurt me and want to control my life when it is only mine, and I do whatever I want with it!" she said emphatically with a non-negotiating look, to change her mind.

    "Your life has always been controlled by someone." Albion sneered at her. "You remember now that it's yours to fight for?"

    "Now, later... whenever I want to." Leonora kept the same stubborn attitude and arrogant look. "No more games, Albion. The story of my life will be written by no one else, but me. And whether I write or scribble, its my choice."

    "You? Do you have any idea how many times I have protected Graniti when he had been in danger?" He used the last card against her. "Your brother is alive only thanks to me. A lot of people have wanted to kill him, but I have saved him."

    Leonora was found unprepared by those words and immediately lowered the barriers of indifference, upon hearing Graniti's name and what had nearly happened to him, by expressing on her face the fear of losing her sibling, who was now trying to deserve her love and the feeling of complete loneliness from his loss.

    "You're lying," she pulled herself together. "I am sure that in fact the opposite happened."

    "I'm saying it now, so you don't complain later that it's my fault, if something happens to Graniti."

    "Are you threatening me with my brother?" she flashed her menacing eyes. "You have a brother too, Albion. Anything can happen to Agustini, too. Life has very fair people," she returned the threat, obviously not bluffing, and closed the suitcase.

    "OK, Nora. Can you come to your senses?" Albion asked, too annoyed. "Honestly, my head is starting to hurt from nerves."

    "Wait. I don't think I care about that." Leonora remarked thoughtfully. "Nope. Don't care at all." She pulled the suitcase from the bed on the floor and headed for the exit.

    "You're trying in vain. You will return here again, remember that." Albioni called after her as she closed the front door behind her back and finally left that house.

    She did not feel the happiness she had expected to when she left the apartment building, but only more fear of what could happen to Graniti because of her. When she had been unaware of the dangers that threatened him, she had not been at all worried about him, but now that Albioni had told her the existence of the events that might take her brother's life, she was terrified, that she might lose him. She didn't want to lose forever the opportunity to come to terms with him.

    Maybe she had been hasty in the decision to divorce and would act more correctly if she returned to Albioni? He would punish her for daring to stand up against him and torture her more. She turned her head toward the house to the third floor and sighed hopelessly, having no strength at all to continue the battle with the wounds still unhealed from the war until those moments.

    Why was she suffering so much? All those events that people experienced on the planet, none of them could accidentally affect her life, to save her, without her being forced to sacrifice more freedom from herself?

    She was born in war, and she had lived in war. Now she just wanted to at least die in peace.