Half a War Apart

The borders of the Republic and the Federation have been bleeding for a decade, a slow-motion catastrophe etched in smoke and silence. For Layla Al-Rashid, the conflict is not merely political; it is a ghost that haunts the marrow of her bones. As a senior diplomat, she is the architect of a fragile peace, tasked with navigating the razor-wire negotiations in a neutral Swiss compound. But the peace is a lie. Trapped behind the fortified walls of Geneva, Layla is forced into the orbit of Nikolai Volkov—a man whose reputation is as cold as the winters of his homeland. To the world, Volkov is a ruthless agent of a warmongering regime, a man who leaves ruin in his wake. To Layla, he is the embodiment of everything she has been trained to hate. Yet, in the suffocating proximity of their forced isolation, the lines between duty and desire begin to blur. Volkov is a predator who watches her with a terrifying, singular obsession, shielding her from the world’s violence while becoming the m