by Mason, V. F.
I almost agreed, but then the memory from eleven years ago flashed in my mind and I couldn’t succumb to the desire to be with her.
She had to live no matter what; the second time around, I wouldn’t survive the loss. “We are done.”
“Okay,” she replied, even though she sounded anything but. “Okay,” she repeated and then hung up on me, but not before dropping news that swung my world on its axis. “I’m pregnant. I wanted to tell you tonight, but since I won’t get the chance, I think you should know.”
A man with no name
Sipping my whiskey, I turned to the sound of the knock, and Bill entered holding a laptop in his hands.
I motioned to the small table in front of me, and he placed it there, pressing the button for the conversation between Melissa and Yuri to play. For an agent and mafia member, they should have guarded their privacy better.
The minute the conversation was done, I leaned back in the chair and grinned widely, finishing my drink with one gulp. “Bring me one more bottle.” Bill danced off to get me what I desired. I couldn’t believe my luck.
Even if I tried, I couldn’t have designed a better plan than the situation both of them created for me.
A baby.
Losing Melissa would have devastated Yuri, but he might have survived. But losing his baby? That would be the straw that would break the camel’s back.
My laughter echoed in the space as I imagined all the ways a woman could be tortured to my satisfaction.
The kaznachei thought he had lived in pain all these years following the death of his first love?
He hadn’t seen anything yet.
Melissa
An annoying sound rang through the space, snapping me out of my sleep. I groaned into the pillow, digging my face deeper into it, hoping the ring would stop and whatever it was would leave me the hell alone.
I fished for the blanket by my feet and threw it over my body, almost sighing in relief at the warmth it provided, as the freaking AC was killing me. Then the sound came crashing back at me again, grating on my nerves. I glanced at the bedside table and saw it wasn’t my phone, so I sat up and shook my head. Then it rang again and my brows furrowed; it was the front door.
Who the hell would come at eleven at night? Removing the blankets and curling my toes into my fluffy white carpet, I dragged myself to the door while the bell kept ringing.
“I’m coming! Stop pressing that freaking button!” I shouted and briefly glanced in the mirror and found my hoodie and leggings presentable enough to see anyone.
It was probably Connor anyway, because the man became impossible the minute I told him about my pregnancy. So without looking into the peephole, I opened the door and said, “Connor, honestly, if you keep showing up in the middle of the—” The words stuck in my throat when I was greeted by the furious face of the most handsome man on earth.
Yuri.
Blinking in surprise, my mouth opened and closed as I searched for something to say, but he beat me to it. “Is it mine?”
Baffled at his question, I took a step back while folding my arms in a protective stance.
Instantly, overwhelming fury washed over me as I fisted my hands, barely containing the desire to punch the shit out of him.
We hadn’t seen each other in two weeks. I practically gave him my heart on a silver platter, and those were the words he decided to start the conversation with?
Fucking asshole. “Yeah, it’s yours.”
His blue eyes darkened. He swallowed loudly and stated, coldness coating his tone, “We used a condom.”
Rolling my eyes, I leaned into the doorjamb, because my head was dizzy from the strength of his too-strong cologne.
“Well, they are not effective all the time.” Then, without giving him the chance to speak, I announced proudly, “You can be as involved as you want. No pressure. Just know I’m keeping it.” Part of me, the one that died and went to heaven in his arms, hoped he would say something romantic and sweep me off my feet, claiming that this changed everything.
That he had been wrong in telling me to go away.
That I had meant something, that I wasn't just a body he tried to heal his broken heart with. As much as I hated this part of me, I couldn't help but stand there, almost not breathing, waiting for his reply.
And then he finally spoke.
Only to shatter everything. “It’s my baby. My baby will know me. Once it’s here, we can discuss the care for it.” With that, he left as another shot of nausea hit me. I quickly rushed into the bathroom, all while tears slid down my cheeks. In that moment, I didn't know if it was because of the pregnancy or Yuri’s words.
Or maybe I just didn't want to admit the kaznachei had shattered me into tiny little pieces.
Something even my family hadn’t managed to do.
Moscow, Russia
November 2017
Yuri
Wiping the sweat away from my forehead, I exhaled heavily and punched the bag again. It swung back with a loud thud and then came crashing toward me, so I punched it again.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My raspy breath filled the space as I punched and punched the bag, hoping it would ease my frustration or help the raging fury inside me, but it was useless.
No matter how much I tried, the anger didn’t go away.
My arms became numb from the two hours of exercise, and by my rapidly beating heart, I understood I soon wouldn’t be able to stand, so with a loud roar, I hit the bag one last time and swung quickly, knocking it from the ceiling. It landed on the floor and rolled to the edge of the ring.
Grabbing the towel, I threw it over my shoulders and drank from the bottle of water greedily, welcoming the cool liquid and the relief it provided.
Even if for one second only.
“Quite odd to find you here.” The voice behind me snapped my attention and I turned around to see Dominic walking slowly to the ring and then dipping under the ropes to step inside. He looked out of place in his suit with a bottle of whiskey in his hand.
“Needed to blow off some steam,” I finally said, resting my arms on the rope and wondering if this raging inferno would ever go away.
God, why wasn’t it like this the first time around? Why did Melissa’s rejection sting so fucking much and I couldn’t bear being away from her?
I survived Savannah’s death, but I couldn’t go an hour without an update on Melissa without going insane.
Just the thought alone made guilt slip into my bones, reminding me that one woman was loved by me, while the other was…?
What was she, really?
A woman I fell in love with desperately and blew it all fucking off.
I couldn’t admit this shit to myself.
The corner of Dom’s mouth twitched as he asked, “In a gym?”
Since we grew up together in this brotherhood and got in trouble often, each one of us had a favorite place to go to let anger out. Dominic and Vitya’s was the gym, while Gleb’s was sex. God knew the guy liked to fuck around—well, not anymore, considering he fell in love with Victoria.
Which was hilarious in itself.
Contrary to everyone else, I used numbers to calm down. Hard mathematical equations, financial strategies—the harder the better. If my mind was busy with them, I couldn’t think about the source of my pain or anger.
But Melissa couldn’t be replaced even with them, and it scared me. Because I knew my capacity to love, and this time around it would destroy me.
“Decided to try something different.” He nodded and rubbed his chin, clearly thinking about something, but I couldn’t stand anymore.
I hopped down and went to a nearby round table, dropping onto one of the chairs and enjoying the AC fanning my heated body.
The smells and lack of fresh air drove me insane in such places, one of the reasons I hated a gym. If I had to work out, I preferred to do it outside.
Shortly, Dom joined me, placed two glasses between us on the table, and poured wh
iskey into them.
Without waiting, my hands wrapped tightly around the glass and I took a greedy gulp while he waited for the outburst that was sure to erupt. “I never wanted her,” I finally said, and immediately my soul rejected the words as if I was betraying her by thinking that.
“Yet you got her.”
A hollow laugh slipped through my lips. “And look what I did to her.” I still remembered her pain-filled eyes the minute the question echoed between us.
And tears that welled in them, but she kicked me out, so she wouldn’t have to cry in front of me.
My woman was strong; too bad she got a coward, aka me.
“You love her.” He didn’t ask, just stated a fact, and I nodded, not seeing the point to hide the fact. I told everyone all the fucking time our relationship meant nothing, that she was nothing to me.
Sex that resulted in pregnancy. I didn’t give her protection when I should have. I didn’t…
I didn’t do anything right. All she got from me was punishment, one after another, and for what? Because she dared to fall in love with me.
Because she dared me to fall in love with her.
Dom exhaled heavily at my silence and rested his back on the chair, while I just looked into my glass and wished for everything to be as easy as the ice melting in the fucking glass. “Savannah was a great girl, you know.” His words froze me on the spot as my eyes rose to meet his wistful stare. “She was everything you needed back then. Soft, gentle, loving. I didn’t understand how much we needed those things until I fell in love myself.” A slight smile graced his mouth for a second at the thought of his wife. “She gave you peace. She gave us you.” My friends knew how I’d ended up in the Bratva.
“My angel,” I murmured, and immediately the blonde-haired beauty showed up in my mind, taking me back in time to when life seemed easier.
He cleared his throat. “But you lost her, Yuri. It was sad and painful and unfair… but she died. You are alive. Falling in love again doesn’t mean you’re betraying Savannah.”
I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, willing myself to get the courage to speak the fearful words but not wanting to.
Saying them out loud would cement the truth from which I’d run all this time.
But I sat opposite my best friend who knew me better than everyone else. So he said it instead of me, not that the truth was any less nerve-racking. “Loving Melissa more doesn’t mean you didn’t love Savannah.” A beat, and then he continued, “Savannah showed up in your life when you desperately needed saving. The love for her was pure and untainted by anything.” Leave it to Pakhan to indirectly address the fact that we never slept with each other. “And I’m glad she was in your life, because you wouldn’t have survived without her.” His words didn’t sit well with me, and I felt the need to defend her.
“It was love.”
“You were a boy in love with a girl. Yes, it was love. But with Melissa, you are a man in love with a woman. Don’t beat yourself up for feeling more. You loved them both. And both gave you something important. The difference is… one of them is dead. And the other one is very much alive and carries your child. But every love dies if you don’t nourish it. So in time she will move on if you don’t get your head out of your ass,” he said and gulped his drink, clearly done with the wisdom for the day.
Was it so simple?
Accepting that it was okay to love twice in life, and more importantly, accepting the fact that loving Melissa differently didn’t disgrace what I had with Savannah.
Savannah was my first love and showed up in my life when I needed her the most to survive.
Melissa though… she would be the love of my life, not ever allowing me to swim in desperation or live in coldness my entire life. She would demand everything from me, but in return, she would give me everything too.
What sane man wouldn’t love such a woman?
And we were about to have a child.
Suddenly, I felt like the heavy weight was lifted from my chest and peace settled inside, while I could almost swear I heard Savannah’s voice in my head as her smiling image appeared in my mind.
Goodbye, Yuri.
Chapter Nine
Moscow, Russia
Yuri, 27 years old
Exhaling smoke into the air, I lay on the bed while the woman next to me groaned softly, just waking up after our night of fucking.
Well, more like two fucks and then she fell asleep, and since I couldn’t give two shits about this place, I didn’t give a fuck what she did.
I gulped more whiskey right from the bottle. The liquid burned my throat and numbed me even more to everything, fading away the pain and the date with it.
It had been five years since Savannah died, and nothing dulled the pain, nothing.
A hand slowly crept up my shoulder, and she slid it lower to my abdomen and was about to aim for my dick, when I said, “Don’t.” She stilled her movements and then exhaled heavily, but didn’t complain at the order.
Sonra knew better than to push me into breaking the rules.
“You are probably hungry. Let me prepare you lunch,” she whispered and jumped from the bed, disappearing behind the bathroom door while I gulped some more liquor and got off on the taste of cigarettes and alcohol combined.
Savannah never liked any of it, so it was only fitting I forgot the date of her death with women, whiskey, and smokes.
It was more evidence that I shouldn’t have touched her in the first place.
Stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray, I grabbed my clothes and sat up on the bed, swung my legs to the side, and quickly got dressed.
I glanced at the mirror and made my hair into a bun, then shouted, “I’m leaving.” She immediately came out to face me with a white towel wrapped tightly around her.
“Already? But I—”
“You know the rules.” Her hands trembled as she most likely searched for the words to convince me to change my mind.
Lately, Sonra had done it a lot, and I recognized the signs.
In the last five years, I had discovered sex and all the ins and outs of it, exploring different types of pleasure, seeking the high everyone spoke of and never finding it. I poured myself into the wildest of actions, but the oblivion never came.
Only self-loathing that didn’t go away no matter how much whiskey I’d drunk.
Sonra wanted more than our arrangement; they always did. God knows why women deemed themselves in love with me, claiming that they could heal my broken heart.
“This shouldn’t be the end,” she said stubbornly, moving a lock of her golden hair that reminded me of Savannah.
The only reason Sonra was one of my mistresses. Through the years, as fucked up as it sounded, I always chose women who reminded me of Savannah, in one way or another.
Some of them had her smile, others her eyes or hair. Sleeping with them provided less guilt for me, because in a way I wasn’t betraying her memory.
In a way, I stayed faithful.
“You need to leave,” I said, and she flinched, opened her mouth, but then snapped it shut. I just raised my brow, daring her to object to my decision.
Without another word, she dropped the towel to the floor, leaving herself in all her naked glory, and then seductively sauntered toward me, making sure to put extra sway to her hips. She placed her hands on my chest, trailing her fingers down my stomach as she leaned closer and was about to kiss me on the neck, but I stepped back.
Her eyes widened in shock as I grabbed her wrists and pulled her away. “I said get out.” Determination and coldness laced my voice, and this time she listened, hastily picking up her clothes and putting them on, avoiding my gaze. In a matter of second,s she was gone, the door of my headquarters’ apartment closing after her.
Women failed to understand one thing.
The minute the light creeped in from the window, I would never touch anyone, because I could no longer pretend.
Nothing and n
o one would ever fill the void that was like a deep wound in my chest that refused to heal.
Three knocks on the door snapped my attention as Michael entered the room, clearing his throat. “Hey. They’re waiting for you in the main room,” he spoke softly, avoiding my gaze, and I just shook my head at the kid.
Dominic found him on the streets of Irkutsk strolling through, offering to do about anything for food or money, on a good day. But on a bad one, he’d hustle and try to steal.
That was how Dominic recruited him, although the guy didn’t have it in him to live in this brotherhood. He was shy, couldn’t stand blood, and in most cases just stayed quiet.
He was also only fifteen years old, so everyone cut him some slack.
However, there was something about him that only Dominic and I noticed, like how he would flush whenever some guy walked around shirtless and how he’d have a completely bored expression when a whore was passed around, her tits on full display.
Not a hard guess where his interest lay. Ironically, Vitya wasn’t around to witness it, since Vasya sent him on a mission abroad. It was good for the guy, but I suspected things would get interesting once he was back.
Nodding, I grabbed my gun and phone and followed him into the common room where, to my surprise, everyone waited for me.
Including Vasya who paced the room and stopped in his tracks once I entered. He raised his brow at me and clicked his fingers, and at once, everyone cleared the room, leaving only Gleb, Dominic, and me with him.
Even the kid disappeared, God knows where.
“The deal with Drakos,” he finally spoke, and I smirked inwardly, hating the fact that I didn’t get to see his face while he discovered my machinations with the deal.
The fucker provided good guns and drugs for the brotherhood, but he worked for both corporations. Vasya wanted him firmly on his side, so he offered him ten million more.
Unfortunately for Vasya, I didn’t send the money—or rather didn’t calculate the estimated revenue how he wanted. So he had no choice but to take Kuzmin’s deal.