Forbidden Desire

[61] Legacy In Ruination

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐏𝐎𝐕

The biting frost in the storm crackling down in Moscow wasn't unusual, yet it felt like an eerie silence for the armed guards.

It was raining heavily, a violent and merciless downpour that lashed against the city and drenched the snow-frosted landscapes. Thunder gravitated down in lightening speed, as if it knew what was coming and wanted no part in it.

At the edge of the city, framed against the black outline of the dark clouds, stood the headquarters of the Bratva.

It was a towering, obsidian fortress of steel and rose like a brutalist in architecture. The slabs of smoked glass reflected the lightning streaks across the sky, while pale lights flickered from within it's thousand tinted grey windows.

The outer wings of the compound stretched east and west, divided into blocks that housed everything from war rooms to weapons vaults, underground bunkers to interrogation cells and many more which the general public couldn't even imagine to be real.

The interior of this structure was like the grave of dark modernity with black marble floors stretched beneath tungsten lights that buzzed overhead. The walls paneled in cold titanium reflected steel accents and resembled the silent witnesses of cruelty.

A faint hum of surveillance drones echoed down the endless hallways, while armed men in tailored charcoal suits patrolled silently with guns at their hips.

This was no place of celebration.

Because despite how festive the night was supposed to be, this place was only ever prepared for cold bloodshed.

Tonight, the Don of the Russian Mafia would actually get married. Yet, not a single soul could call it a wedding, not when their boss had dared to snatch away the Italian mafia boss's most priced possession and was going to legally tie her to him. Everyone shared the same silent fear of war, but chose not to voice it out.

A sleek matte-grey Maybach S680 glided through the estate's wrought iron gates, it's polished body cutting through the haze like a predator. Drizzles of rain glistened across the hood, flowing down in rivers as it pulled to a halt in front of the headquarters' front entrance.

The back door opened with a soft click as long leg stepped out first, then rose the man who was feared all across Russia.

Nikolai Igorevich Kravchenko.

He was draped in a long, tailored trench coat which soaked the color of smoke, his combat boots splashing into a growing puddle. His black silk shirt beneath clung slightly to his chest from the cold, displaying his well-defined body. His ruffled silver-blonde hair fell messily over his brow, damp from the rain.

His jaw was sharp and tight, a split healing just beneath his lip as bruises ran down the corner of his cheek from the bloody mission in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk he had returned from only hours ago. Yet, nothing dulled the usual glacial vacancy in his eyes.

Almost immediately, his chauffeur appeared beside him and held a wide umbrella over his head as Adrik Arkhangelsky, his second-in-command, fell in step behind him routinely.

Without a word, Nikolai strode through the heavy bulletproof doors of the huge estate, the sound of rain fading behind him and replaced by the mechanical noise of security systems and steel boots against tiles.