𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐎 𝐔𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 - 𝟏𝟖+

O N E

N I K O L A I

Moscow, Russia

They said before you initiated a war, you'd better know what you were fighting for. I thought I knew what my battle was, but I was no longer the man so naively in love that he didn't check his surroundings. Somewhere on my killing spree, I found a little solace knowing that she was no longer part of the cruel world I now lived in. Her memories were safely locked in my chest, burning, and fuelling me.

As I finished sniffing the cocaine, Alexei came inside my office, uninvited. Today marked eight years since she'd been gone. I wasn't a druggie, I needed all the intoxicants to get the edge off on this day. Eighth of November. Exactly a month after I'd married her. Fuck. I straightened in my office chair, the drugs kicking in; the dopamine in my blood fabricating my miserable existence for euphoria inside me.

He raised in hands in surrender as he closed the door behind him with the heel of his foot, "I'm just here to see if you're okay." He mumbled and reached for the stash I had on my table, and pocketed it with a scowl thrown my way.

"Well, you've seen me. I'm fine and fucking dandy." I hissed, reaching for the marijuana stash in my drawer. But before I could reach for my lighter, and burn enough to inhale something to steady the tick in my arms, to stop the tears that I thought I ran out of.

"Do you have a death wish?" He snarled, throwing away the rest of my drugs. All year I stayed clean except the alcohol, which stopped affecting me, just so I could get high as a kite and not remember her lifeless eyes. Not remember how incapable I'd been. How weak— "Don't go there, Nikolai." He poured some whiskey and slid it towards me over the table.

I didn't know what I did to have his loyalty. For the past eight years, all I did was become a monster, except I did one thing right, saved a drowning woman because she reminded me of Keira. Then her husband, Alexei swore some sort of blood allegiance to me, I hated him at first, how he wouldn't let me die when I'd stand in the middle of deals I fucked up just to end up with a bullet between my eyes. His friendship and loyalty reminded me of what a lonely and miserable existence I had, but nothing was enough to fill the void she left.

Nothing gets better with time. Except that my wounds got infected, they were worse.

Ever since he joined me six years ago, I managed to make an empire from the brink; I had more bounties on my head then the years many lived, but they didn't faze me if only I was waiting for someone who'd show the balls and come to me so I could rip their heart out like mine was nearly a decade ago.

Except that I knew no one would come now when you become so powerful, they didn't take their chances with a bullet, it all started with an alliance based on reverence, then a tiny issue was made into a problem, all for the wilful composer who'd planned an execution. That's what The Pentagon wanted now. I'd stripped Russia away from any other syndicate but mine. I was the faceless man in the underworld, I had a throne, except that I hadn't claimed it openly yet. They knew me by name, the streets whispered all the atrocities I'd committed, but no one had seen me.

No one knew what happened inside the large gloomy empyreal mansion in Rublyovka. And that was what had their insides turning and trembling because humans were programmed to fear what they didn't know. To hate what was beyond them because when it became tangible, loathing it cost their conscience.

I twirled my glass in my hand, leisurely leaned back in my seat as I watched Alexei sitting stiffly, his fingers tracing his jaw as he contemplated.

"Out with it," I threw the alcohol down my throat, welcoming the burn as I leaned forward, placing my fingers on my mouth, waiting for him to answer.