Brutally Broken: A Dark Mafia Romance

by Loki Renard

  The Vristok turned my own heart against me, turned intimacy and emotion into weapons, and now I am filled with nothing but pure, cold rage. There are betrayals in love. I knew that. Men can be unfaithful. They can cheat. They can lie. But this is a whole level beyond.

  The man I love was sent to kill me.

  If I was any other woman in the world, I might be surprised, or shocked, or devastated. I am all of those things, but mostly I am just plain pissed off that I did not see this coming. The Vristok are always devastating in their attacks. It’s not enough to kill someone in my familial line. They have to do it in the most twisted way possible, inflicting maximum cruelty. What better way than to have me fall in love with someone who was supposed to protect me, and have him himself kill me?

  I lie in bed, wishing that Vadim’s arms were around me. I miss his touch. I miss his scent. I can still smell him faintly on the pillow and on the sheets and I find myself burying my face in them, taking deep breaths and trying to desperately draw him in. He can’t be here with me. He had to go.

  A small chime sounds by my bed. It is time. I rise from the blankets, one wrapped around me and start walking the halls of my home. For a while it rang with the boots of men, but it has gone quiet again. I dismissed all of Vadim’s men, and some of mine. I have cut back to a skeleton crew, only my oldest and most faithful men. Jeeves and Chef, and a couple of the very old guard who know this place like the inside of their souls.

  I will never make the mistake of letting anyone new into my life again. I will keep to myself. I will keep my thoughts, feelings, and person to myself. I will never have sex again.

  Half-asleep, half-awake, entirely consumed by grief, my feet take me to my father’s office. This is the last room Vadim was himself in. I wish I had been there when he took that call from Ivan. Things might have gone another way if I could just have been present... but I wasn’t.

  I sit down in the big leather chair my father used to sit in, and I reach my hand out to the mouse. Nothing has been changed in here since Vadim took that call. It all went so wrong so quickly.

  I open Skype, mouse over the call history, and see that it displays a contact. One that is currently online. I let out a little borderline hysterical laugh, seeing the Vristok as a contact on my Skype account.

  I have hidden from these men all my life. I have never seen one of their faces, never heard one of their voices. At least, I suppose, aside from Vadim. A dark curiosity is gripping me, along with the outrage and anger that has been coursing through me since I had to tase Vadim out of his mind.

  Sitting down in the chair that once belonged to my father, I slide my finger over the trackpad, and I click on the call button.

  Doo Doo Do... Doo Doo Do... the ringtone sounds so completely pedestrian. Evil overlords don’t answer Skype calls from the people they’re trying to kill. Do they?

  Bing!

  Apparently, they do.

  I find myself looking into the face of a man who wishes nothing but death, destruction, and misery for me. He is a heavy-set guy, with a lot of white facial hair, whiskers curling from beard and mustache. He looks like Santa Claus.

  I used to think about what I would say to the Vristok if I ever got the chance to talk to them. They have dominated my life from the moment of my birth, tormented me in every way possible, and now they have come closer than ever. What words can accurately convey the utter derision and complete loathing I feel for them?

  “What’s up, asshole?”

  Not what I’d planned, but it will do.

  He stares at me with plain hatred written on his old features. I think he is stunned on some level too. I wonder how it feels to look into the face of the woman you’ve sworn to destroy and realize that she looks like a sorority girl. This big Russian man with mafia, Bratva, Vristok, and probably a dozen other ancient associations and lineages has been waging a war against me my whole life. Pathetic.

  “You are calling to tell me you have killed my boy.”

  That... is not what I thought he would say to me either.

  I sit back in my chair and realize for the first time something I think Vadim tried to tell me from the beginning. These men are afraid of me. They have been since I was a little girl.

  “He was never your boy,” I say. “You never treated him like a boy. He was just a toy for you to use. I have broken your toy, if that’s what you mean.”

  “His death will be avenged.”

  I think I will tell them what happened between Vadim and me. I think I will spell it out explicitly enough to cause them the same pain they tried to cause me.

  “He screamed a lot,” I say. “Yelled my name until he couldn’t yell anymore. I enjoyed it.”

  Ivan slams his hand against the table, making papers visibly dance on the surface. Who even uses paper anymore?

  “You are a sick woman.”

  “I am,” I agree. I am enjoying this more than I thought I would. I always thought my inevitable encounter with the Vristok would be in person and utterly terrifying. I assumed I’d be dying at the time.

  “What do you want?” Ivan snaps the question impatiently.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just thought it might be nice for us to talk finally instead of sneaking around, plotting against one another. Sending assassins to kill one another. That sort of thing.” I wave my hand casually.

  “He died before he knew what you really were, didn’t he,” Ivan says.

  “If you didn’t tell him, I sure as hell didn’t,” I smirk. This is nice. I haven’t been able to drop this particular mask in a very long time. Being the depraved descendant of a man who killed his lover in a fit of rage and triggered a war that has lasted over a thousand years is not an attractive quality in this modern world. When I went out into the world as my father insisted I should do, I always felt out of place. But here, in this quiet room, in the middle of the night, facing a very old man who is my mortal enemy, I finally feel as though I make sense.

  It’s sick. I know that. But I also don’t know if that matters. Ivan and I are as different as two people can be, but we have both done unspeakably terrible things in our lives. Maybe the only real difference between us is that he is old and has had longer to build up his store of sins.

  I sit back in my chair, and I stare at the man who has loathed me from across the oceans since before I was born.

  “I liked hearing him scream,” I muse. “He deserved it. I’ve never heard a man cry that way before, and I don’t think I will again.”

  Ivan bristles with impotent fury. I am sure he answered this call because he thought it was Vadim reporting my death to him. He must be so incredibly disappointed to see me still very much alive and entirely unharmed.

  “He was never going to hurt me, you do know that, don’t you,” I say conversationally. “You hurt him for no reason.”

  “You are the worst, most depraved member of your lineage, and that is saying a great deal,” Ivan says. “Your great-grandfather was known to eat the livers of his enemies while they remained alive.”

  “And I thought gluten-free was an unpopular dietary choice,” I muse dryly.

  Ivan does not approve of my attempt at humor.

  “You scoff at the blasphemous and profane. You are decadent. A curse on the Earth. The sooner your line is ended, the better.”

  “But then your line would be bored.”

  This is a metaphysical war that has been waged nearly since the days of Lilith and Eve, Abel and Cain, and other infamous archetypes of righteousness and evil. The problem is we both keep insisting that we are the good guys. The truth is neither one of our houses are without blame, and this blood feud is a self-perpetuating sacrifice to something that is not remotely religious. We fight and we kill because it has become our purpose.

  The Vristok are very close to winning, but they know better than anyone that the Mortari are at their most dangerous when they are close to death. We have fought back from the brink a thousand times before, and I am about to do it y
et again. Ivan has no idea, but I’ve won, and I didn’t even have to try.

  “We will never be bored celebrating your death.”

  “Now see, that’s not nice. How are we ever going to reconcile if we can’t get along?”

  I am mocking him now, speaking in a pouty little girl voice. He doesn’t see me as a woman. He sees me as an embodiment of a thousand years of hatred.

  “Did that work on Vadim? Did he fall for your innocent act?”

  “He fell for every act.” I smile triumphantly. “He fell in love with me. I don’t know why you didn’t anticipate that. I’m really quite charming.”

  “You’re a beast,” he hisses. “You have tormented us endlessly.”

  “Since you killed my parents, yes, I suppose I have. What can I say. I enjoy revenge. I like to think I have a talent for it.”

  Oh, I really am enjoying this. I should have done this years ago.

  Ivan snorts. He is still furious, but I think he might be enjoying this on some level too. The worst part of having a nemesis is having to imagine their rage rather than being able to see it for yourself. I mean, apart from having everything you’ve ever loved torn away from you piece by piece until you’re a hollow shell of the person you might have been. That is also bad.

  “It was particularly nasty to send someone to me to kill me in the guise of a bodyguard lover. I have to commend you on manipulating me into purchasing him. I spent a lot of money.”

  “Of which I took a cut,” Ivan says. “If the plan had gone, er, to plan, then you would have paid for your own death. I quite liked the idea.”

  “It was derivative though. You remember your second wife.”

  “Yes, you sent her to kill me.”

  “Not to kill you. To annoy you. And to take half your assets,” I smirk. “But sending Vadim was a mistake.”

  “Why? Because he died? So did my second wife.”

  The only reason that woman died is because Ivan killed her when she tried to divorce him. Women do not traditionally fare well when it comes to the Vristok.

  “No. Because Vadim wasn’t just a plant, was he? He was more than that. He was one of the original purebloods. A descendant of the brothers, just like you and me. A distant relative to us both.”

  “He was an orphan.”

  “Yeah. I bet you made sure he was orphaned. Easier to turn one of the original lineage into a murderer when there aren’t parents in the way to stop you.”

  “I helped him fulfill his destiny. Or I at least tried. His failure is a great disappointment.”

  “So you sent one of your line to me. And you wanted him to kill me by becoming my lover.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t anticipate what would happen. I fucked him. Over and over. No protection.”

  I am deliberately crude. I want it to sink in, so when Ivan realizes how many mistakes he made, he curses his own foolishness from now until forever.

  “You think I am impressed that you are an American whore?”

  Harsh, but what else can I expect.

  “No. I think you should have thought about what happens when a girl has sex with a guy.”

  “You were never meant to fuck him. You were meant to be killed by him.”

  “I guess I had other plans,” I say, leaving out the part where it was Vadim who claimed me, over and over and over again. It was Vadim who made sure I was full of his cum, though it was me who ‘forgot’ to take my birth control once or twice, or maybe ever.

  “I’m pregnant,” I say. “I carry a child that unites the two lineages. Half Mortari. Half Vristok. You can no longer kill me without killing your own line. The bloodlines are united.”

  I don’t understand what Ivan says next. It is in Russian, and there is a lot of it. I am guessing that he is cursing up a storm.

  “You don’t seem pleased,” I say. “It’s strange. I would have thought you’d be pleased for me. Maybe you’d congratulate me.”

  “You’re a vicious little bitch,” he curses in English for my benefit. “And you will never be allowed to keep that child. I will have it cut from your lifeless body.”

  His words are harsh. Vicious. Nasty. I shouldn’t be surprised. Ivan wants this feud. He doesn’t want me dead, because that would end things and it would make his life meaningless.

  “I don’t think you will,” I tell him. “I don’t think you’ll do much of anything ever again.”

  “Why is that, you little bitch?”

  It’s because I can see what is happening behind him. I can see that he is no longer alone. He has made so much noise cursing and slamming around that he didn’t notice the door behind him as it opened, and he doesn’t know that the man he assumes to be dead is standing behind him with several inches of piano wire in his hands.

  Vadim looks into the camera over Ivan’s shoulder. Our eyes meet. And then the camera is pushed down so I cannot see what happens next. I hear the beginning of it before I kill the speakers. There is cursing and gurgling and... silence.

  The perfect silence of a true end.

  An ending is a rare thing. I am sure my father and his father and all those before them thought this would never end. The men of our lineages have only ever known how to be at war. It took a woman to bring peace.

  I know I am a mute witness to awfulness. I know what is happening on the other side of the world is on my account, but it is not my fault. These events were set in motion generations ago. All I could do was be on the winning side. The side that doesn’t get murdered by Vadim.

  After a minute or two, the camera pans up. It is amazing, how quickly life can be taken. I saw it once before with my parents. Their attacker was just as swift and just as effective. It could have been Vadim himself...

  The thought stops inside my veins and turns to ice. It could have been Vadim.

  I was just twelve when they died. He is eight years older than me. He would have been twenty at the time. It’s precisely the sort of thing Ivan would have done to me. Send the same man who took my family to take my life.

  “It’s done.”

  Vadim’s face is framed fully by the screen. I don’t know what horror exists behind him, but I am glad he chooses to spare me it. There are so many things going through my mind right now, I don’t ask him if it was him who committed the act that destroyed me. He has a question for me in the absence of speech.

  “You’re pregnant?”

  I guess he heard that part. I wanted to tell him, but he was completely out of communication. We couldn’t let Ivan and the Vristok get the idea that he survived. His death had to appear real. We even buried a fake body behind the house to further bolster the illusion.

  “I am.”

  I watch a series of emotions play over Vadim’s face. Joy. Fear. Delight. Horror. I recognize them, because I felt them too when I realized why I hadn’t bled since we met. There is life growing inside me, and neither one of us are equipped physically or emotionally to deal with that. Fetuses don’t care for convenience though, and we should have been more careful if we didn’t want this outcome. On some level, I don’t think either of us thought we would live long enough for this to be an issue. How miserable we must have been to think that it didn’t matter where his cum landed.

  “You didn’t tell me,” he says, sounding accusatory, as if I was supposed to keep him perpetually updated on the state of my uterus. We are both stressed out, though I have to admit he is probably more so. He just killed the man he used to worship and is probably standing in a pool of his blood.

  “It was too soon to tell you, and let’s face it, you were consumed with the need to kill me. I didn’t know if you even wanted to know. I didn’t know if the baby would stick. I still don’t. But I wanted that asshole to know before he died that he had failed. The work of hundreds of ancestors was destroyed by his ineptitude, because he couldn’t kill me. But guess what. I killed him.”

  Vadim is giving me a long, solemn look. At first I think it is because he doesn�
��t want to be a father. He should have been more careful about filling me over and over with his cum if that was the case. But he immediately changes the subject.

  “I heard a lot, Sophie. I heard what you did. You weren’t the innocent victim in all of this. You struck back. Time and time again. You were as much a part of this as Ivan was. Maybe worse.”

  “Goddamn right I struck back,” I say defensively. “Are we really going to pretend that matters now? You came to kill me.”

  “I didn’t know that. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice. Just like I had a choice to shoot you in the head and instead I sent you back to Russia to kill the man who victimized us both.”

  “So instead of being Ivan’s lackey, I am yours. Is that it?”

  My jaw drops. There is no way this is happening. At what should be the most jubilant moment of my life, at the pinnacle of triumph over the man who made himself my enemy a decade ago, I am actually having a fight with the brainwashed father of my unborn child. And they say money makes life easier.

  “You’re not my lackey,” I say. “You’re my lover.”

  “Hard to be your lover when I can’t be near you.”

  “We can fix that. You can be deconditioned. There are experts in the field.”

  “And are there experts who can make you tell the truth?”

  “What?” Now I really don’t know what he is talking about. He sounds so bitter, so angry. Maybe it’s just the adrenaline from what he just did. Or maybe he’s still being affected by the conditioning.

  “You lied to me,” he says.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “You made me believe that you were innocent in all of this. That you had never retaliated.”

  “I didn’t say that. You assumed it.”

  “You let me assume it.”

  “Yes, I did. And you know why? Because it was all part of your sexist, bullshit attitude where you thought that somehow I’d survived this long without a man but I couldn’t possibly make it another minute without you being in control. You never stopped to think, did you? You just assumed I must have somehow bumbled my way through my life before you. Well, let me tell you something,” I say, feeling my mouth run away with itself, wanting to stop, but being unable to. “I don’t need anyone to look after me. I especially don’t need some hypocritical Russian asshole who expects me to be pure and innocent. So you can just... fuck off!”