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.

"The Pentagon is asking for a meeting to discuss a prospective alliance."

He spat out, his forehead furrowing with creases. We were privy to The Pentagon's dealing. The legendary five. How their previous generation was dismantled, and now their children reassembled, rebuilding the legacy for the last eight years, exactly like me. Building towers to see which one of us managed to take it up higher, and their offer would be enough to tip any man over his chart of haughtiness, but not me.

I'd started thinking that I was born to play this game for I mastered it in a short span of time.

"So the legendary five are ready to bow and bend their rules?" I arched my brow, smirking as I traced the rim of the glass with my lower lip.

"You could say." He shrugged, placing his almost untouched drink back on the dark, mahogany table with a soft thud, "Or it could be a ploy to get you in the palm of their hand."

"As if," I scoffed, reaching for the bottleneck on the other end of the table. The copper liquid poured down the glass, swirling, and settling as I continued adding more until I was satisfied.

This time I took a sip, savoring the taste on my tongue before I swallowed, formulating a plan to have them at my mercy before they started searching for my weakness, which quite frankly they wouldn't find. I was only human, if they shot me, I would fall and bleed, but nothing else could touch me. No words would be knives in my heart, I was untouchable because the part of me that felt what others did was dead. It had been long since dead.

And the dead didn't come back. I had a lifetime of trying to remember it and stop fucking hoping that by some miracle she was still alive.

"You're not going to them in Europe are you?" He sighed, his shoulders sagging as he rubbed his forehead.

"No, they come here." I rubbed my jaw, the light beard tingled my fingertips, I stopped, looked him the eye, and continued, "They want an entente, they fucking come here, prove to me that they're worth more alive, and they have a deal." He shook his head, more in amusement than disbelief.

"The Pentagon doesn't make the journey unless they're seeking redress."

"They also don't seek out someone for an agreement." I motioned with my hand to make a point, trusting my intuition once again, "They either come here or no deal, and you know me I won't budge, Alexei."

"I'll have Ivan relay the message. But I don't think making an enemy in them is wise, Nikolai." His brows scrunched, worry lines evident on his face, but the worry was unknown to me.

I chuckled, "I climbed this ladder with insanity, and I'd still trust the voice of mayhem over the screams of clarity." I leaned forward, shadows falling over this conversation, "And they aren't searching for me since the last year because they need me. They want us wiped out because we've taken over their market in Europe. They don't like sharing, and neither do I. So fair warning, it isn't ending well."

"Then we better start preparing," He shrugged nonchalantly like a beast was just awakened, ready for the fight, to kill.

"No, we let them have the first strike, then we kill each one of the legendary five, wiping away their lineage because I don't fucking forgive, and I sure as hell don't forget," I smirked, steepling my fingers on the table as I crossed my legs, my day yet again interrupted by the corrupt dealings I was a part of. The world I made. "Let them come here, and see my hospitality before they see my animosity."

"Очень хорошо(very well)" He mumbled and got up, buttoning his suit jacket as he turned away to leave. But then he turned around on his heel and took all the drugs he'd extracted earlier in his hands and left me to my misery again.

Misery was supposed to love company, mine didn't. It preferred isolation for it knew that I was too fucked up for companionship, too broken to not ruin anyone who came in a meter's distance of me. It sucked to constantly live wishing for death and then fighting for life when it came to your doorstep because I wanted to live as many years as I could, prolonging my melancholy for it had become a habit. A mortal proclivity whose indulgence only pushed me deep into flaw and sin, but I couldn't stop.

As soon as Alexei left, I leaped out of my chair and reached to lock the door, I'd faced enough disturbances for the day. I spent most of it sleeping by overdosing on sleeping pills the night before and now that duck had fallen over, I wished to be left alone and not think about what sort of life I was leading. All year I tried my hardest to forget her, to live with the fire inside me, but this day, I remembered the emptiness in her eyes, the pain before that emptiness; the sadness at the knowledge that she'd never see me again. That I'd never hold her again.

Three years I spent dating her. I'd only started my business, and she taught at a school, something about loving children. She stayed by my side despite my failures, the early losses, we were happy in our little bubble but then we weren't. She died. I couldn't even fault her for it, or hate her for it.

Each night when I gazed up at the million stars despite the clouds and city lights, I hoped that she was somewhere near, watching the same sky as me, but it was a foolish notion, one that only hurt me more, fuelled the monster inside further to go out and kill whoever pissed me off. But the lock on the door and my men kept me from revealing myself to the world. I walked back towards my table, and picked up the bottle, not bothering with etiquette now that I was alone. I opened the balcony double-doors with one hand and stepped out in the cold Russian night. My muscles stiffened under my thin cotton shirt, but the cold didn't bother me.

Any sensation was welcomed to let go of the pain inside, but nothing did. I closed the door behind me and slid against it, settling myself on the cold marbled floor. Tilting my head a little, the back of my head moving against the glass doors, I brought the neck of the bottle close to my lips, tipping the alcohol inside me. The poison gathered inside me, burning as it entered my stomach, all I did was close my eyes and imagine that we were back in our new penthouse in Seattle. That she was with me, living my life with me.

But reality washed over me like a bucket of cold water.

She was no longer alive.

If in some ideal situation she was then she would've found me by now. Some signal, I'd have gotten anything, and not the silence that accompanied me for the last eight years. I respected Alexei but seeing him happy with his woman killed me a hundred times. I felt envious that he had something I lost so painfully.

I now knew why Romeo decided to die when he thought Juliet no longer lived. It was a fucking painful existence to pass. Those who had the courage to move on had my utmost respect, but to me, love was a one-time affair—a fatal disease that once you fell victim to you could never recover.

I finished the whole bottle, and finally, my eyelids started getting heavy as unconsciousness became alluring, much better than the mayhem inside. Just like every year for the last eight years, I drowned my misery again in drugs on the eighth of November. I knew how long twenty-four hours were, and how much time everyone was busy wasting. They were ungrateful just like I'd once been.

You never know how much time you had until you spend every hour of every day counting the seconds because focusing on them was better than remembering what was lost.

Using the door as support, I balanced my drunk body and went back inside my study. Turning off the lights, I walked out in the corridor and made my way towards my room, trying my hardest to stay sturdy on my feet. Finally reaching the last room in this corridor, I turned the doorknob and stepped inside. Not bothering with the lights, I let my memory guide me to the bed, where I dropped myself on the mattress and got rid of my shirt and pants, leaving my boxers on.

Sleep finally found me in my intoxicated state, her memories slipped through my fingers like sand, and once again Nikolai King died to let the man the world feared live.

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

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