I saw Sofia for the first time when she was nineteen; she was sitting on the lap of my buddy, swinging her thin leg in a nylon stocking, the edge of which showed under a short skirt, and she looked at me as if there was nobody else in the whole room except us. Then I realized I no longer had a friend—someone I would remove from my path by any means, in a fair fight or by betrayal—it didn’t matter. She was mine. And in the end, it happened that way too. In yet another brawl, with my not-so-light hand, he got a bullet between the eyes. Did I feel pangs of conscience then? No. And I wanted to bring her one simple truth: she will leave me only if I decide it myself.