He coughs and splutters, a dying man’s breath ripping out of him in a haunting melody.
I don’t look away, don’t even blink as I watch through the red. I stand there as my father spits his last breath, all while holding the mask out of his reach.
When his irises stare at nothing, I snap the mask on his grotesque face and clean the blood off my glasses with his sheet.
When I slide them up my nose again, the world is much clearer and cleaner from the loss of another miserable soul.
Now. It’s time for my reign.
I won’t stop as a higher-up in the Bratva. Sooner or later, I’ll have the whole fucking thing.
He was right about one thing, my father. I will eat the world for breakfast and that still won’t be enough.
When I step out, I find Viktor and Sasha arguing about something. Or more like, she’s arguing, and he looks like he’s contemplating whether to bury her dead or alive.
“So what if she’s his mother? She has no right to hit him.”
“As I was saying, you don’t get involved in anything that’s related to the boss’s family.”
“Says who? And I didn’t know you were such a domesticated cat, Viktor. You act all tough, but it’s actually all white noise.”
“Watch it, you little disrespectful fucker—”
“Meh. Losing respect for you as we speak.”
Finally, they notice my existence, and their bickering comes to a halt.
I face Viktor, “My father is dead. Announce it, make arrangements, and do whatever it takes to get me the will from the lawyer.”
He pauses for a second before he comes to his senses. “Yes, sir.”
Sasha, however, remains frozen long after Viktor disappears around the corner. Her lips are parted, her stance is stiffened, and she looks like she’s seen her worst nightmare.
“What do you mean dead? He can’t…?”
“He can’t?” I repeat.
She opens her mouth, but it closes again, then opens, like a fish out of water.
“Dieee!” A shrill female shout fills the air as my sister attacks me with a knife.
Like they say, home sweet home.
16
SASHA
Ithink I don’t like this place.
Scratch that. I’m sure I don’t.
Ever since we got here, it’s been one freak show after another. And that’s saying something, considering all the disasters I left behind in Russia.
First, there’s a woman who fawned over the unfeeling monster Kirill, but calledmesuspicious. Then, we upgraded to a strange mother who flat out tried to kick her son out the moment he walked in, and then proceeded to slap him.
I wasn’t even through processing all those events when Kirill announced so coldly and emotionlessly that his father had died.
As in, the man I came all the way here for to uncover what happened to my family and the reason they were targeted is gone.