Tsarevna

1.

JULIJA

My own scream woke me up as I jerked in the bed and sat up abruptly. Same nightmare again and again. Night after night. It will never leave like the scars on my back. I shook my head and let my legs down from the bed, steadying myself on my arms and exhaling deeply. Sweat ran down my back and I was shaking. Glancing at the clock I found out it was 5 in the morning and probably the whole house is still sleeping. Well not everyone for sure. Nathaniel and Jasper were probably outside my door, keeping watch as every night. My eyes zoom in on the door, trying to somehow magically make out their huge bodies standing outside. They probably heard everything, it only surprises me that they didn't burst in.

With a shake of my head, I got up, grab the rob tossed over an armchair and made my way to the bathroom. When my eyes met my appearance in the mirror, I flinched a little. Big dark circles under my eyes crowned a pale face, grey eyes lost their spark long ago and my hair - like a crazy crown around my head. I splashed cold water on me, on my arms and around my neck, trying to somehow calm down my nerves and look up again. It was like this every time after my nightmare. I couldn't go back to sleep, so the only thing left for me to do was work.

The water helped me a bit to calm and wake me up completely as I sat down behind my desk at the office right next to my bedroom. Not only it was connected to it by a secret door, but it was accessible from the hall too. It was as an office could be. Big mahogany table in front of a set of wall-high windows, the same mahogany library on the left from it and a bar full of alcohol on the right. A set of big leather armchairs was in front of the table facing each other with a little black glass table in between.

Since I would be alone for a few hours at least, I didn't bother with making myself presentable and sat behind the table in just my silk pyjama dress and long black robe over it, hair in a messy bun and was already going through some important papers about next shipments coming in that week. Just not completely my shipments.

Name Vladimir Yuriy Grigorev shone on top of the file and my eyes scanned over the information of each shipment of my bastard of a father. For a basic human, it would look like containers full of clothes, electronics and exotic fruit, but each of them had some kind of illegal stuff inside. Guns, drugs, even humans. I could lower myself to sell guns and drugs as any mafia boss would, but human trafficking? That was another kind of twisted fucked thing. It made my blood boil and sick at one time when I thought about all of those people locked up in a container for several days, prepared to be sold like animals for the highest bid.

I leaned back in my chair and brushed my hand over my face, closing my eyes for a second. If only I could crush my papa's head right now, nothing would make me happier. But I had other priorities than that motherfucker. I needed to stop those shipments and stole part of the goods, mostly all the people for sale and some of the drugs and guns. Wreck up my papa's plans as I did nearly past 10 years. Slowly bringing my papa down to his knees and his empire with him. It wasn't enough for what he did to me, but it was a start. I couldn't wait for the main course when he finally will be stripped of everything and at my mercy,

Getting my hands dirty have been so normal for me like breathing. Few punches here, few kicks there and knife play? Oh, I enjoyed that very much. Smirk appeared on my lips as my mind too clouded with a very graphic image of my papa's body, all bloody and begging for me to finish it. I think I'm losing my mind already and the only thing that saved me at the moment was a soft knock on the office main door.

"Ma'am? Are you in there?" A smooth, bit raspy voice of my oldest maid made its way into my ears and cut through the clouds of my thoughts. I blinked a few times and quickly straightened up, before answering.

"You can come in." My voice sounded soft but firm with a drop of authority in it. I was the head of this house and mafia of course. Being soft and kind-hearted was something I lost when I was still a child when the first ever cigaret left its mark on my body.