Red Reaper - Soldiers of Fortune [book one]

Chapter FIFTY ONE

Konstantin Ivanov

In a groggy early morning haze I groan in pleasured comfort, twisting beneath the covers and turning to my side.. My hand stretches out to seek the soft warm flesh of my bride to be, only to find the sheets cold and empty in her place.. My eyes snap open as I sit up to be greeted by a painful loneliness.. "Malishka?"

The emptiness of the bed is akin only to the emptiness of my soul when Lucky is not beside me where she belongs..

With the slicing silence ringing in my ears, I clamber out of bed to begin a search of the apartment to find my sunshine.. First, I lift a hand to knock on the bathroom door, but it swings open to reveal the desolate tiled space, devoid of her angelic presence.. There isn't a sound, not the patter of her footsteps or the hum of her sweet voice..

Nothing..

Where the fuck is she?

Ravenous for her company and starving to hold her in my arms again, I make my way out to the vacant living room and once more, there isn't a sight or sign of her.. She isn't in the kitchen, snacking adorably from the fridge with the door open until the appliance beeps angrily at her.. She isn't out on the terrace, scrolling through her phone and smoking my cigarettes..

She has simply vanished..

Disappeared..

If it weren't for the fruity scent of her perfume still in the air, teasing my nostrils, I'd so easily be able to convince myself that she was actually never here..

Last night could have been the lucid dream of a lunatic for how perfect it had been.. From the lazy time spent just holding her, petting her silky sunshine curls, to the stinging scratch marks she'd left all down my chest.. There isn't a fault to be found in my memory of her..

"Lucky? Moya Kiska?" I call out for herand my internal stress level starts to rise to a peak as I pace around the lounge to spy her suitcase, laying haphazardly on the living room floor.. It has been left open, as though she had gone through it in a hurry before leaving.. On the glass coffee table lies the diamond tennis bracelet I had given her on our first date, almost intentionally discarded as if left behind for me to see..

Is that supposed to be some kind of sign?

A 'fuck you' or sorts, or perhaps it's an apology for skipping out while I was sleeping?

I have no idea what to think, but what it means is obvious to me.. It means that Lucky is gone..

My heart plummets to the pit of my stomach when I glance over to see that her little pink sneakers are absent from their place beside the front door..

She's really gone..

A dull ache radiates deep in my chest as I sink down to sit on the sofa with my head in my hands, stuck somewhere between feeling stunned and sick..

Did she leave me?

Blyat'!

Of course she fucking did! She had a million reasons to go and so few to stay..

But then why did she instill in me this false hope?

In the light of what was supposed to be our wedding day, her sweetness now suddenly seems so cruel..

Of course I had always known in the back of my mind that I was deluding myself believing that she would ever choose to be with me forever.. I had been stupid to indulge in the fantasy that she'd actually want to marry a waste of an old man like me..

I rationalise that she never really needed me at all.. Perhaps I was a demon to conquer, or prize game to be hunted for amusement, the thrill of which evaporated the second she realised I was caught.. Perhaps I was just a means to clean up her mess last night and keep her out of trouble..

It is almost inconceivable to me that Lucky would use me with such carless disregard, but I should have known she was capable of cruelty.. Everybody is..

But I had foolishly believed Lucky was immune to any flaws of humanity..

The woman has the face of an angel, but beneath her surface lurks something darker.. Something twisted and hungry for wicked.. That is what she saw in me, danger, the heart of her attraction..

And last night, I bent to her will, exactly the was she had intended.. So maybe that's all she ever actually wanted.. To prove to herself that she could break me..

And she has.. I am broken..

My will is dulled and my pride is dashed.. I want for nothing once again.. My hopefulness is returned to the nihilistic numbness that I am so familiar with feeling.. The self loathing part of me had always suspected Lucky would come to her senses and leave me sooner or later, but I wasn't prepared for it to hurt the way it does.. it is a pain more savage than a shiv in the kidney or a slab of slate cracked over the back of my skull..

The shattering of my heart as it cracks and crumbles in my chest is unbearable..

I truly thought I was giving her what she wanted.. I thought by asking her to be my wife that I could protect her, I wanted to believe that I could love her, the way she needs to be loved, without reservation..

But I guess I thought wrong..

Maybe she had finally figured out the truth of who I am and reality had caught up with her.. Maybe it had finally clicked in her mind that I never actually deserved her in the first place, something I had tried to warn her about right from the start, yet she refused to hear it.

I always knew it was the truth that she was too good for me, too sweet, too innocent, but it didn't stop me from convincing myself I could make her mine..

"Blyat'.." I breathe a strangled, sorrowful sigh as I reach for the box of cigarettes on the coffee table, lighting one with shaking hands and the flint of a match.. Drawing a desperate inhale of the rich, relaxing smoke, I aim uselessly to calm the white hot fire that rises from the depths of my gutted stomach..

I try and I fail.. I cannot be calm anymore..

I haven't lost my temper in close to twenty years, I had learned long ago to control my emotions and not allow feeling to get the better of me.. But now that the pacifist in me has been punished, I am not passive any longer..

Nyet.. I am fucking angry..

"FUCK!" A blood red rush of rage overcomes me as I rise to my feet in an impulsive motion, flipping the glass coffee table with a violent howl of fury before a rain of sharp glass shards shower over the marble floor.. "Suchka skotina, v pizdu!"

The loss of self control converts me from an even tempered man into a violent and vicious animal.. A destructive intent that I have never experienced before overrides my rational mind.. I want to scream and shout and break every fucking thing in sight..

I want to destroy everything in my way and hurt somebody.. I want to lay blame and waste, I want to kill!

But the only person responsible for all this, is me..

I am to blame..

I am the waste..

I should be dead..

In an attempt to walk off the furious energy, I begin to pace back and forth in nothing but my boxer briefs while my thoughts reeling as bare feet stomp over the broken glass.. Muttering to myself in frustration of my failures and smoking like a fucking chimney, I scramble to fit the fracturing prices of my ego back together.. "Proklyat'ye, chto teper'?"

'What now?'; ask myself, 'what the fuck am I supposed to do?'

Am I supposed to chase her? Is that what she wants?

Do I let her go?

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