THE EXECUTOR

Chapter 2

             Vladivostok.

She had to do something to keep sane. Anything. She teetered on the brink of insanity. Her feet wobbled on the edge of consciousness, and her whole body spasmed from fear. Fear that with one misstep she may tumble into an abyss.

Swathed by a maelstrom of emotions, Lyudmila stood in the house she'd shared with her husband, taking in the paranormic view of Vladivostok.

It was the beginning of April. A cold draft dissolved her body in an assortment of shivers, and she pulled tightly her shawl over her shoulders. The city was a beautiful one. As a crossroad between Asia, Europe and America, it boasted some of the most successful businesses in that region. The clubs, the restaurants and the casinos were a small boat in a sea of ships . . . business ventures decades in the making.

Lyudmila enjoyed the moderate climate. It reminded her of simplicity and an appreciation for nature. For her, the winters were tolerable, the summers enjoyable. It was one of the city's greatest appeal.

From her view atop the balcony she could see the whole city laid bare before her aged eyes. Most prominent of them all was the arch.

The arch had been made a long time ago, in memory of Tsar Nicholas II who had visited the city. Although destroyed during the Russian revolution, it had been rebuilt and restored to its former glory.

Lyudmila could count on hand how many times she'd stood under that very arch and made a wish. Not possessing a single superstitious bone within her body, she failed to agree with people who went there solely to wish for something. Yet, Lyudmila had gone there to make a wish.

For Boris's life.

She had wished for him to be spared the agonies of life, and the excruciating pain he was in everyday. She had begged for his liberation. And now he was finally gone.

As she sat on her balcony with a glass of vodka in hand, she wondered if the arch — or whatever used the monument as its masquerade — had granted her her wish.

Lyudmila was no tippler. She never saw the point in dulling one's wit with alcohol. Yet today, she broke her own golden rule: gulping down alcohol, then wincing as the sting burned a hot path down her throat. The half filled glass of vodka stood testament to the fact that she'll never be an accomplished alcoholic.

She turned her gaze to the picture she held. It was a framed photograph in the negative of a young, serious-looking man. With a full head of dark hair, the man stood staring straight into the camera, his lips turned down in a frown, his eyes cold.

Her Boris has always been as cold as Russian winter, she thought with a smile. Even as a young man, Borislav had never seen the essence in smiling. Mila's wrinkled fingers caressed the photograph, a drop of tear alerting her that she was crying. Shedding tears for a man who had not loved her as she deserved, but whom she'd loved with every fibre of her being.

Oh, the things she'd done for him! She'd devoted her entire life to making sure he succeeded in life. She'd made sure Boris had become a powerful figure that evoked fear in the hearts of many with a single word : Kovalevsky.

His death, though not surprising still came as a shock. To her, Boris had always been the larger than life Patriarch of the Kovalevsky clan. A man whose name was synonymous with wealth . . . a dangerous man you feared to cross.