A Mafia's Letter

8

Peacefully Dimitri laid in his bed. The room was dark except for the light shining from the moon. The clock on the wall showed that it was half past midnight. The room was nicely decorated, the walls brightly painted, still the private Nabatov hospital had a dark, scary feeling about it.

Slowly the door was opened without making a sound. It wasn't one of the nurses stepping into the room... no, it was something, someone way scarier. The figured moved fast and sufficient in the shadows, slowly approaching the bed.

Dimitri woke up startled as he felt hands wrapped around his neck, strangling him. He tried to take breaths but the stranger's hands suffocated him, enabling him from breathing.

"You betrayed me." An all too familiar voice wispered into Dimitri's ear. A voice that haunted his nightmare, corrupted his life. The voice of the scariest man he had ever known, the voice of his wife's brother.

In a second the hands left Dimitri's neck, they finally let Dimitri taste the sweet air. He took deep and steady breaths, not sure how long his brother-in-law would let him breath.

"You betrayed me." Vadim repeated.

"I'm so sor-" Dimitri tried to say, before the merciless hands returned. Dimitri tried not to move, not to struggle. He knew that would only make it worse.

"You betrayed me, stepping to the enemy. Not just any enemy, no you stepped to Leonardo Martínez." Vadim spoke, a emotionless chuckle left his lips. "Did you enjoy planning my murder?!" Vadim screamed, pushing his hand down even harder on Dimitri's neck. "You tried to fucking kill me!" Black spots started to decorate Dimitri's vision. He could feel it. He was going to die tonight.

"Why did you do it?!" As Vadim screamed this he let go of Dimitri's neck, taking a step back. He turned his back to Dimitri, taking a deep breath, before facing Dimitri again. "What did he offer you?"

"How do you know?" Dimitri asked in disbelieve. "That doesn't matter, Dimitri! You tried to kill me!" Vadim screamed, his hand ready to punch the traitor. "You are lucky my sister loves you, that you father my heir. Otherwise you would have been dead a long time ago....."

"He made an offer I couldn't refuge. He offer to get my family, Anastasia and Nickolai, away from the crime world." Dimitri confessed, while looking at the ground. He felt embarrassed, humiliated and dumb for ever agreeing to that plan. He should have never reached out to Leonardo. "But I said I didn't want to continue the plan. I called him to tell him I quit. That's why I crashed into the tree." Dimitri continued quickly, looking up into the icy dead eyes of Vadim Nabatov.

"Why Leonardo?" Vadim asked, taking a step back. He couldn't do anything to take revenge. His sister would notice, she would go wild. She would probably disappear just like she did many times before in the past. He didn't want her to leave. He already lost his parents, he didn't want to lose his sister too.

"He has a sweet spot for Stacy, you know that Vadim. They used to be lovers, they have a connection even I can't understand ." Dimitri told him, sighing. Dimitri couldn't believe how low he had sunk. He had asked his wife's ex for help, he had wanted to kill his brother-in-law.

With that a silence fell, the two men looked at each other. They were bound to one another by a woman they both loved. A woman who was very awake at that moment, walking through the corridors of the mansion she growed up in.

She walked to her old room, a room that had been abandon ever since her parents died 17 years ago. Maybe even from the moment she had left her parents and brother at the ripe age of 19 after the accident. Only to return when her parents were killed 2 years later. Vadim had taken over the mansion, alone. The mansion was way to large for him alone, causing parts of the mansion to be abandoned. Never visited, the only ones that came there were the maids any other week to clean.

A smile appeared on Anastasia's face as she entered her old room. 'Maybe this will be a new era' she thought as she brushed her finger over her old desk. Maybe Karina was the solution, maybe she was the one to revitalise the forgotten parts of the mansion. She could bring it alive again.

Looking around the room, old memories filled her mind. Some memories reminding her of her amazing childhood, but most of them reminded her of the pain and the suffering. She slowly entered her old walk-in closet. A place that was off limits to everyone except her. When she lived in the mansion and after her leave, no one was allowed to enter. She was the only one ever to enter the closet.

Anastasia walked to the corner of the room, pulling at a string hanging from the ceiling. Before her a staircase to the attic unfolded. The wooden planks were dusty and a little bit outworn, caused by the heels she loved to wear as a teenager. Anastasia climbed up the stairs, entering the attic.

The place was even more dusty than the closet. A small window let the moonlight lighten the place. Anastasia down on the spot she had sat many times before. She took a deep breath before pulling the box from underneath the seat.

She slowly opened the box, looking inside. Looking at the stuff that held so much memories for her, that held the secret she could tell nobody. Slowly a tear rolled down her face.

What she didn't know was that she was watched. By the one person that knew her secret. The person that would bring the news that she never wanted to hear. The news that would shake up not only her world, but also the worlds of her family and her worst enemy.