by SR Jones
Unlike Vasily and me, he’s Bratva born. Grew up on the streets basically, but of St Petersburg; not Moscow. Boy had a mother who didn’t care, father fuck knows where, and some kind older uncle figure takes him under his wing, gives him money, if he’ll just drop a package over the other side of the city. His father came back, started beating Bohdan, who still carries the scars on his back, and the kindly uncle killed the father for it. Ever since then Bohdan has loyalty only to his Bratva brothers. I’m lucky that he ended up in Moscow after leaving St Petersburg and fell into my path. He’s super loyal, whip smart, and if he wasn’t on my side, he’d be a threat. He’s on my side, though, and he and Vasily can start to train up some of the younger men to move up into positions of power.
Yeah, things should run smoothly enough over here if I’m based heavily in London.
“What about you?” I don’t get where she fits into this.
She shrugs. “I will visit Michael, of course, but I think at first, as he gets settled, it will be good if you’re the one there with him. He needs a firm hand, and you can provide that. Don’t go easy on him. Make him behave, and teach him what it means to be a man … a good man.”
I cross the room and take her face in my hands. “Yulia, you know I’m not a good man. How can I teach anyone else to be?”
“Oh, but you are, Konstantin. In all the ways that count, you are. You are loyal, and you protect your family and your friends. You saved me and Michael, so show him that side.”
“I couldn’t protect my mother,” I say. “Or my sister.”
“No, but you were a child. I know your operation isn’t entirely legal. I’m not stupid or naïve. I know there’s a dark side to your business, but you’ve never let that touch us. Michael respects you, he looks up to you. If we buy a house out there and get him set up on a course he wants to do, then I’m hoping he calms down and studies. Makes a life for himself.”
“Okay, Yulia. But you know, I can’t be with him all the time. I can’t reside in the UK permanently. I’ll need to return to Moscow, possibly often.”
“I know, but we can get staff, right? Employ like a butler of sorts, but really pay him to watch Michael and make sure things don’t get out of hand. No crazy parties at the house, or an endless flood of women.”
“Yes, we can.”
“He’s my son. I want him to have a chance at life; not screw it up before he’s out the starting gate.”
I consider all she’s said. I do need to be in the UK, and if I spent more time there, I could make a lot of money. There’s so much potential there. I also trust Vasily to run things for me here while I’m gone. More than anything, though, it’s the trust that Yulia is placing in me that is the deciding factor. Michael is the most precious thing in the world to her, and she trusts in me enough to believe I’m the best thing for him right now. I can’t turn my back on that.
I nod.
“Leave it to me. I’ll get onto finding a property and staff. And I’ll sort this shit with Annika out.”
***
The next morning I arrive at the office early. When Annika arrives, I call her into my office. I see the guilt all over her face. “Come here.” I raise two fingers and beckon her with them. When she reaches me, I’m out of my desk and have her up against the wall before she can blink.
I wrap my hand around her throat and force her chin up until she’s looking at me, her big eyes wide with fear.
“Are you fucking stupid?” She shakes her head rapidly. “Do you have a death wish?” Again, another shake.
“What did you think you’d achieve with that fucked up stunt?”
“I love you,” she gasps.
I let go of her, and she stares at me in forlorn rapture. Stupid fucking girl. “God, you’re pathetic. Get out, you’re sacked.”
She moves like lightning and slaps me across the face before I have the chance to move out of her way. Shit, the girl is fast.
I smirk, grab her and throw her over the desk, and give her five hard smacks to her ass. Hard enough to make her cry out. Then I pull her upright and point right at her forehead.
“You fuck up again, you’re on my shit list— got it? Get your things, now, and get the fuck out of my sight before I throw you out of that window.”
“I doubt you’d do that?” she says, her voice trembling. “People would see.”
“No, you’re right,” I say and then because I’m totally bored with her histrionics, I add, with a lie, but she doesn’t know it. “But I would sell you to a friend of mine who trades women. And, Annika.”
“Yes,” she whispers shakily.
“You do anything to hurt my wife, or to make any more waves, and I will send some associates around to hurt you in ways you can’t possibly imagine.”
“I won’t make trouble,” she says.
“You already have, and it’s only because I’m a soft-hearted fucker that you’re even still breathing. Now fuck off, and don’t utter my name again, understood?”
She nods and scurries out of the room. I will carry out my threat if she causes more trouble.
I’m not like my friend Andrius. I don’t have arbitrary rules about who I will and won’t hurt. You come after me and mine—you’re fair game. Man or woman.
Then I sit at my desk, compose myself, and begin to look through pictures of houses for sale in the UK.
London’s calling.
Chapter Four
The Monster is born
London-Two years ago
No one sane wants to go to war. The trouble is there are plenty of insane people in this world.
I’ve done all I can to protect my family, but sometimes, all you can do just isn’t enough.
For the last two years, I’ve spent most of my time in London, and increasingly little time in Moscow. I’ve let Vasily take a bigger role over there, and as far as I’m concerned, we’ve run a fair business. Or as fair as you can get in our world.
Now, the darker side of my world has come slamming back to hit me full force. If my worst fears are correct, it’s about to touch my son.
I stare at the TV screen in shock. I’m watching the Russian news channel, and there are reports of a shooting in Moscow. In my building. The place where Yulia is right now, with her partner, Melissa.
Heart pounding, I grab my phone.
“Da,” Vasily answers on the first ring.
“Turn on the news,” I grind out.
He does, and his sharp intake of breath tells me he’s seeing what I am.
“I need you to get over there and check on Yulia and Melissa right now. I can’t have Michael waking up and hearing about this before I know they are okay and can reassure him.”
I hear Vasily moving around. “On my way over there right now, boss.”
“Call me as soon as you know anything.”
I try to calm down by telling myself the news didn’t mention it being the penthouse apartment where the shooting occurred. Yulia still lives there. I took the apartment next door for my infrequent visits, which isn’t quite as grand, but what do I care? I’m hardly there.
The last two years have seen business, both legit and non-legit, explode. The legit side has given me wealth and status; the non-legit side has given me power and even more wealth.
On the legit side I buy and sell firms and make a fortune. On the non-legit side I deal in armaments and make a fortune. I used to deal in cigarettes, weed, and other drugs, but that shit is small time and messy. I play with the big boys now. Hell, I am the big boys… The biggest.
I bite my cheek as I watch the rolling ticker tape of headlines, trying to gain more information.
Since we’ve moved up from smuggling cigarettes and weed, Vasily and I haven’t had to shake anyone down. We don’t go after the small fry hoodlums dealing on the corners, so we have few enemies within Moscow. The only people we had to remove from the situation were cartel members from South America who had the fucking temerity to try to take over our operation in America. I dealt w
ith them ruthlessly, so there isn’t any of them left to come after us.
It won’t be Yulia, I tell myself. It won’t be. I can’t have failed someone else in my life. It’s like losing my sister all over again if I lose Yulia.
Thirty minutes later my phone goes, and I answer it, heart hammering so hard I can barely breathe.
“Boss,” it’s all Vasily says. It’s all he has to say.
“Fucking no.” I throw the phone against the wall.
Shit, Michael. How can I tell him? How? I know this pain. Know what it does to a person. How it eats them up inside, destroying the good until only bad remains. It’s insidious, like poison.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I need to control myself, to calm down. He needs me. I can’t lose it now.
I go to my phone and curse when I see it’s unusable. I grab the landline and dial Vasily’s number, grateful I know it by heart.
“How? How did they die?” I ask.
“Konstantin…”
Oh shit. It must be bad if he doesn’t want to tell me.
“Tell me now.”
“They were raped, both of them, and then executed.”
Oh shit, no. Not that. No, no, no.
Something is on my cheek irritating me, and I wipe it away to find my skin wet. I’m crying, and I hadn’t even realized. I never cry.
“Is it the Mexicans?” I ask.
“No, boss. I … you’re not going to… I don’t know how to say this.”
What the fuck?
“Spit it out,” I growl.
“The police have two men in custody. One is a young vagrant, high on meth.”
So this was random? Jesus fucking Christ. “The odds of this being random are…”
“Yeah, I’m not finished, Konstantin. The other man … is your father.”
And just like that any remaining good in me dies. Extinguished by the man who helped give me life. That very same man has snuffed out anything left over of the old Konstantin, the boy who still saw the good in some people, who married his childhood friend to help her out. He’s gone, consumed by the vicious, violent man I’ve been becoming for many years.
I drop the phone and bend over.
Fuck, I can’t breathe.
I struggle to get air into my lungs and as soon as I manage it, I regret it because it seems to trigger the contents of my stomach to force their way back up my throat.
I throw up all over my extortionate carpet, unable to stop it.
My father? My fucking father? That piece of shit, good for nothing bastard did this? How? Why?
I can hear Vasily shouting at me to pick up the phone, so on autopilot I do.
My hands are shaking like crazy as I hold it to my ear.
“How?” I grind out. “How the fuck did my father manage to pull off something like this?”
“I don’t know,” Vasily says. “He had to have help, though, Kon, and I think it’s got to have come from within.”
He’s right. No way would my useless father and some drug-addled street kid have the knowledge or skills to break into the penthouse. It was highly guarded by a state-of-the-art security system and cameras, so they had to have help.
“Find out, Vasily. You find out, and I don’t fucking care what you have to do in order to get them to talk.”
“Of course.”
“Go to Ilya.” I tell him. Ilya is a friend, and he’s like me—partially legit, a whole lot not.
“Ask Ilya for some men. Other than you, no one else from within our organization can know any of this. Not even Denis or Bohdan; not for now.”
“Done. And, Konstantin.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to go; I need to wake Michael and tell him his mother is dead.”
I hang up the phone, and walk in a daze to the kitchen. Grabbing the bottle of Scotch from the side, I drink straight out of the bottle until I’m able to think clearly.
Okay, firstly, I need to clear up the mess down here. The sick, the smashed shit. Then, I need to get ahold of my contacts in the Moscow police force. I don’t want any of the details of Yulia’s death releasing to anyone. If the media get a whiff of this, they’ll splash it everywhere, and I can’t have Michael finding out about what truly happened to his mother. Not ever.
I go through everything, numb and locked down. By the time I’m ready to talk to Michael, I’m feeling like shit. I’m frozen cold, and it’s nothing to do with the temperature.
My father, my own blood deserted me and his family, and if that wasn’t enough, he then came to me sniffing after my money. When I refused him, he did this … this abomination against a woman under my protection. My fucking wife.
It doesn’t matter that our marriage wasn’t the real thing. I respected and loved her like a member of my family. He defiled her, and now I will make him suffer.
Why now? Did he wait for so long after I sent Vasily to give him a beat down for a reason? They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I’m going to get mine hot. So hot. He’s going to pay in the most painful and depraved manner.
I want him dead, but slowly. I want him tortured, his fucking fingernails torn out, and his tongue cut out, or maybe… I’ll make him eat his own dick. I want him to know untold pain before he dies.
Pushing these thoughts aside so my expression doesn’t add to the fear my son is about to feel, I enter Michael’s room.
I awaken him with a heavy heart and tell him his mother has been killed in a break-in gone wrong. I tell him she didn’t know anything because it was so sudden. He cries like a child, and I hold him like one, rocking him as he sobs into my shoulder.
In the end, I call in a doctor friend, and he gives Michael a sedative. He offers me one too, but I need to stay focused. I can’t get messy because I need to coordinate with Vasily.
I can take a drink, though. I pour myself a huge whisky but sip at it, letting the burn warm a touch of the deep cold that has settled in my soul.
Yulia didn’t deserve this, and it only happened to her because she knew me. I’m poison and this proves it. My mother, my sister, they all died because of the evil that is my father and my inability to protect those I love. Even with my father dead, I’ll still remain the pathetic man who underneath it all couldn’t protect his loved ones. Everyone fears me, but I fear my own failures.
Sometime during the day, my phone goes. I answer it when I see Andrius’ number.
“I heard,” is all he says.
“How?”
“Come on, brother. News in our little world travels. Fuck, Konstantin, I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t know the full story, though. He doesn’t know how bad it really is.
“Yeah,” I say, because right now I’m out of words.
“You have two choices, you know?” Andrius says.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, either you take the higher ground. Realize this life is fucking disgusting, get out, and take Michael with you… Or, you get your vengeance on every single motherfucker involved in this and become the coldest, hardest bastard you can be, so no one and nothing can hurt you again.”
“Which would you do?”
He laughs darkly. “I think you know the answer to that, my friend. I’d get fucking biblical vengeance on those cunts.”
“I have to say that’s the direction I’m leaning in,” I reply.
“You need help, you know where I am.”
“Thank you.”
He hangs up with a curt bye, and I stare at the wall. Nothing. I see nothing. My eyes are looking, but my brain isn’t parsing the visual information coming in. No, my mind is far too busy calculating and thinking and raging.
My father has changed me irrevocably.
Before, I was driven, at times I did illegal things, very illegal, but I was fair, I had a heart … a soul. Now, my soul is black, and all I want is my revenge. I don’t fucking care anymore. I don’t care if I hurt others or risk my life. My only priority is protecti
ng Michael and getting my revenge.
I’m going to become so powerful the world will tremble before me. I’ve been a soldier all my life, but now I will become a king of all I survey, and I will start here, in the UK.
Chapter Five
Cassie
Life Interrupted
London-Six months ago
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
They say life isn’t meant to be easy. That those who think life is easy, or even meant to be, are wrong. Life is a struggle. Difficult. For some, life is one long emergency.
Much of my life has been like that. My father left when I was young. My mother couldn’t cope and developed mental health issues that got so bad the state took me away from her. I bounced around for a while, foster homes, back to Mum’s then she’d lose it, so I’d be taken again, until eventually, thank God, the government made my grandparents my official wards. For a period, things got good. My grandparents are amazing, and they looked after me well. I got good results in my exams and enjoyed three years at university.
Then, the universe decided I’d had enough of a break from shit and decided to reinstate emergency measures once more.
My mum died, suicide. My grandfather got sick, and I failed to find work in my chosen field of Information Technology despite a supposed fantastic degree, and thousands of pounds of debt.
So here I am. A barista in a coffee shop, with a sick grandfather, a worried grandmother, and a dead mum. Life sometimes sucks. It sucks balls. Big hairy ones.
Just when it seemed I might be on a good trajectory, life got interrupted. Again.
I stare out the window of the coffee shop, wet cloth in one hand, and watch the rain pour down. The weather matches my mood.
When I get like this it would be far too easy to give into the fear and sadness, so I purposefully try to think about the good things.
I start listing them in my head.
I have a job. It might not be a job doing what I want, working in IT, but it’s a job. I get free tea and cakes, so that’s good, right? The pay sucks, and really, the reason I chose IT as a degree is because it pays well, and I don’t want to struggle like Mum. Not mentally, or emotionally, or financially. She’s like a big neon warning sign hanging over my head, guiding every decision I make in life.