𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 |𝟏𝟖+

55 || All Roads Lead To You

Lorde - Glory and Gore

Moscow, Russia
Seven Months Ago

Snow falls, the day reads the thirteenth, while the crisp November air filters through the open window.

One. Two. Three.

The third knock is much lighter than the others. I pull open my door, and she enters, her cart in tow.

Routine moves me back to the seat at the window, compulsion darts my eyes to her array of disinfectant sprays, while her silence settles what disorder another presence in my space brings.

Until she's not silent anymore. "Sir, you have a visitor."

My eyes dart past her mops to the living space outside, spotless and empty. A single glance back to her is all my housekeeper needs to understand me. "It's one of those twins." She begins at my library, carefully pulling each book from the shelf and wiping it like she'd been doing since I was a child. "The one that visits my room too often."

I move to the door, she calls after me. "Tell him I'm shipping my daughter to the ocean if he keeps coming at night when I'm sleeping." Her words are long forgotten when I walk out of my bedroom, and to the door that separate my space from the rest of this place.

The hinges creak, six people stand outside the hallway, all peeked at the sound, while their eyes soak in the sight of me.

Thirty thousand square meters of space in this palace and yet I couldn't breathe without someone whispering about my whereabouts. Asking for my orders. Reporting my every move.

I let Dima inside where he hurries, knowing to make it quick for it's only a matter of time before my mother hears of my visitor and comes running.

The door clicks shut and I instantly look at him.

He's back too soon. Why.

"Zlata has run to America." He speaks in a hushed tone, while I tense at the news. "Do you suppose she knows of your plans?"

If she did, Dima would have be hung before everyone under my mother's influence as a symbol of what would become of a traitor.

I offer a simple response. "No."

"There's more." He hesitates. "She's been captured by Italians. They think you sent her as a spy."

That sours my mood but doesn't surprise me. My sister was good for one thing, ruining all that she touched.

If she's been captured, she's been compromised. My sister wasn't all that strong, nor could she be trusted not to talk. If she knew anything of my plans, it'd complicate things.

She wasn't worth the complication she'd bring.

My mind works fast and forms a plan. "Arrange a call with Alessio Galanti." I'd been maintaining peace with the Italian Don, I wouldn't let Zlata ruin it. I also wouldn't be foolish enough to use a phone within a twenty kilometer radius of this place. My mother had it all tapped.

"It's not Alessio Galanti that's captured her." His words make me pause. "It's a man called Silvio Ademaro."

Of course, the name rings a bell, I'd studied any and every potential threat that I'd face when it was time to go to America. Dima, however had been there and met them all on my behalf. "Will he be a problem?"