How to rule a king

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AN: Good evening my lovelies, Unfortunately university started a week ago and let's just say she's a real bitch. My life currently doesn't involve anything but chemistry, physics and maths. Although I am trying to make up time for writing, it's getting harder and harder to actually do so. Therefore, I will only be able to update every two weeks...BUT I most certainly will continue this story...only at a slower pace. So please, have some patience and I promise not to disappoint you. Anyways, here's an update, so go on and enjoy it.

Only days after our late night talk Alexei had left again to visit his Arabic "friends" as I liked to call them just to spite my husband, to ensure their support on the upcoming war. During the past few months Alexei had made it very clear he didn't want to have any friends or close-knit relationships outside his own people, and even with them he was wary most of the time. Only when he was alone with Nikolaj or Piotr either training or meeting for a late night drink he would truly relax, allowing his guard to drop for once. Yet even he admitted to be in need of allies if he wanted to continue his iron rule over his empire as well as the world's arms trade. The arabs seemed to be just the right people to form such an alliance with, rich, hardworking, effective but most of all discreet.  

A day after my husband's departure, I had also left the TITANIC PART II. in the early morning hours to fly to New York in a deep cover mission to host a charity event in one of the penthouses owned by my husband. Knowing the risks of yet another attack, Alexei had at first been strictly against the thought of me leaving the TITANIC PART II. at all. My wish to fly out to New York only making it worse. Still, although I had understood his concern I hadn't let him take that chance  from me. Piotr and I had been working on this protect for months now. A few members of the Russian Conservatorium would let us listen in on their talents in music making while I would mingle with the Russian high society as they would critically eye the displayed pieces of art from my grandfather's private gallery. After a high class dinner, cooked by a michelin star chef flown in from France just for this very occasion, there would be an auction offering these filthy rich people the opportunity to purchase one of my deceased grandfather's masterpieces.

Of course Alexei had offered to provide whatever amount of money I would need to visualize the children's educational project Piotr and I had come up with. A project we had planned on launching early into next year, just in time for Vasyli to start his first year of school with his future fellow soldiers instead of still receiving only a private education by his tutors. Not that Alexei knew of this part of the plan. I knew he wasn't ready for that just yet. Not with all the threats surrounding us at this very moment. But somewhere in the back of my mind I knew even he would see reason. It was after all the best solution to let Vasyli grow up with his followers in order to forge a stronger bond between them and their future leader. Apart from the part he wasn't aware of, Alexei had more than willingly agreed to the project, since it not only gave me something to do I really liked doing, but also would help his kingdom with one of its main problems. Nearly always being at war thanks to some other crime lord's empire overstepping an invisible line or overstepping the line himself, Alexei's imperium suffered, just as most of the other crime lord's did, a quite high number of casualties each year, leaving even more children without their fathers. With their mothers no longer being able to provide for them on their own, these children would soon drop out of the public schools to hang around dirty city streets throwing their lives away as they drowned themselves in drugs and alcohol. Just as my husband had wasted his once upon a time, before Mikhailovich had taken him under his wing and had granted him with an empire. 

The concept Piotr and I had invented was rather easy to understand. Every man or woman working for Alexei for at least three years would have a guaranteed place for each of their children in the den's private educational facility. Not only would the kids be thaught the knowledge the classical public schools would teach them but as well would they be thought a special set of skills to survive their future as a soldier to my son. After five hours of school they would be provided with a shared lunch in the cafeteria before getting ready for another two hours of training, followed by another break as well as two hours of special training on the topic they are most interested and talented in. May that be computer science, boxing, languages or weaponry, we would offer them all. For the kids who already lost their parents, we would build another part to the school's complex serving as a boarding school. There they would be served breakfast and lunch as well as being able to meet their friends from the academy during the weekends. Yet, in order to start such a project and, most importantly, build the buildings we needed to house the children and the educational institution as well as to hire reliable and trust worthy people as teachers, we needed money. Money I refused to take from my husband. Although I had a plan on how to keep the faculty running by using five percent of my husband's empire's yearly incomes, I wanted to at least be able to kick start it myself, without him handing everything to me once again. I finally wanted to do something on my own. Which is why I now stood dressed in an exquisite light blue, off-shoulder evening dress on a balcony, enjoying New York's skyline as my feet already arched from the silvery heels I wore. Piotr was nervously walking up and down behind me as we enjoined, or at least tried to enjoy, a last few minutes away from our spoiled guests.