Chapter 2 – Tristan
Chapter Two
Tristan
“The two most important days of
your life is the day you are born,
and the day you find out why.”
-Denzel Washington
Papa is dead.
Alexi Petrov wasn’t my biological father, but he was my Sire, my vampire creator. After I had been bitten by a powerful vampire, intending to turn me into a mindless minion, Alexi saved me. As the oldest and most powerful vampire in existence at the time, not to mention also the sire of the vampire who bit me, Alexi turned me into a vampire instead. I wasn’t just another vampire though. Alexi considered me his son, and damn if I didn’t embrace that.
I used to think that those days of my transformation were the most painful, torturous three days of my life, but it turns out that I knew nothing about true pain. Pain that hurts so damn deep that nothing else penetrates your psyche.
Papa is dead. Although it has been almost five years since it happened, the pain, the desolation has yet to lessen.
Alexi loved me too deeply, a parental love that made me feel worthy and contributing to something bigger than myself for the first time in my life. For two years we had almost lived in each other’s shadows. Wherever Alexi was, I wasn’t too far away. I loved his closeness, his patience, and most of all how much he cared about me. Although he had biological sons, neither Papa nor his sons made me feel anything but a welcomed member of their close-knit family.
Papa is dead.
I never knew until that happened that a vampire’s tears were tears of blood. There was no way of hiding that shit. It had been the first time since I was a kid that I had cried.
Papa is dead.
I spent almost a year in a place called the Iron Chamber trying to forget, trying to feel anything but this emptiness, this anguish. Feeling alone.
The Iron Chamber is a powerful demon’s replica of Satan’s underworld hundreds of years ago. The Chamber spanned several acres underground, interwoven with smooth rock caves and tunnels, cobbled streets, and vegetation that could only survive without sunlight. While it consisted of normal enterprises like restaurants, bars, strip joints, and even small convenience stores, it was mainly popular for the illegal shit that went on down there. Gambling, fight clubs, and drugs, human and weapons trafficking. It basically catered to every form of depravity and allowed its visitors to indulge in every vice. It was a completely lawless place where anyone venturing there had to survive on pure grit, brute strength, and the utmost ability to inflict violence.
Papa is dead.
I needed a place like the Chamber to lose myself, to bury my grief.
Immortal powers and gifts were all muted in the Chamber. I needed that. I needed to be mortal so that I could try to forget. I needed my powers of teleportation, super strength, and enhanced senses, telepathy, and the ability to emit a powerful fire torch from my palms to be muted. The Chamber is the one place that allowed us immortals to feel mortal again and again, for a brief time, the oblivion of alcohol and drugs and occasional unconsciousness.
Papa is dead.
And if it wasn’t for that fucker Aidan, Papa’s werewolf bodyguard, and Cyrus, my own wolf bodyguard, who were both descendants of the ancient werewolves, the Lycans, the Chamber would have served its purpose, and I would be dead too.
Aidan and Cyrus, along with Aidan’s brothers—Owen, Desmond, and Boggs—and seven other ancient wolves, were unlike normal wolves. They could transform at will, could maintain a half-human, half-werewolf form, were stronger, and would live longer than normal werewolves. Hell, they were already over eight hundred years old.
Aidan and Cyrus refused to leave my side. Every time I was right there, right on the precipice, and encountered some asshole who was bigger and stronger than me, who could deliver the much-sought-after death blow, Aidan and Cyrus would step in. They would either stop the fucker or, if a human weapon like a gun was used, they would take me back to the surface, where we were immortals and could instantly heal.
My body would immediately be revived, going back to its immortal state.
Assholes.
Papa is dead. Despite my best efforts and the passage of time, the despondency and pain of his loss have never lessened.
So, after a year of exposing myself to drugs, alcohol, and every form of violence without the final closure I was desperate for, I left the Chamber for a life that I had given up for Papa. Despite his very brutal life, Alexi had been a gentle vampire.He had instilled in us—his biological sons, Luka, Drako, and Xander, and his turned son, me—a life of philanthropy and protection. But I was back in Petrov Enterprises headquarters for barely an hour in a meeting with my brothers when I knew that I was still too raw with grief to deal.
Hell, Luka was Papa’s doppelganger. How the fuck had I forgotten that?
“As you know, Papa never left a will. As there was no need to,” Luka started as soon as the other board members left and only Drako, Xander, and I remained with him. “Papa had already divided his assets and all of his shares in Petrov Holdings between everyone in the family, including our wives, the kids, Meredith, Owen, and you. So, while Meredith was going through his things in the house he left to you, she came across a file of a woman Papa had been watching over, and he left instructions for you to continue the task.”
I laughed sardonically. “Yeah, right. That’s not happening.”
“It’s what Papa wanted,” Drako added.
“I don’t give a damn what Papa wanted. I’m not falling into his mind-fuck of a trap. I don’t need or want a damn mate.”
“I don’t think that’s what this is, Tristan,” Xander said softly. “This woman is in her late forties with four children. She used to be an exotic dancer at a nightclub and is now a waitress at the same establishment in Vegas. Papa could have easily given her money, but he seemed to have been ensuring her safety. He gave the younger children scholarships to private schools and the oldest even went to university.”
“Papa’s tracking of the woman started more than two decades ago,” Luka added. “You know Papa felt that it was more important to give a person a hand up instead of a handout. However, with her inability to read or write, and her desire not to learn, his assistance in that regard with this woman would have been limited.”
“Then you deal with her. You guys don’t need me for this,” I dismissed, itching to get the hell out of there. “Just send someone to watch over the family.”
“Papa charged you with this,” Drako drawled. “Besides, we have no idea why Papa wanted you to protect her.”
I frowned. “Why haven’t you asked her?”
“I visited her a few months ago when Meredith found this missive and we couldn’t find you,” Luka said. “This woman, her name is Monique by the way, had no knowledge of Papa. She had never heard of him or even remembered ever seeing him. Which is not surprising, given that Papa probably wiped her memory.”
“I still don’t understand what the hell you guys want me to do about this,” I gritted out. If my teeth were clenched any tighter they would be ground to dust.
“We want you to visit her and determine for yourself what is required,” Luka said reasonably. “Obviously, as this task wasn’t set to us, we are unable to discern what Papa intended. Perhaps you will. Afterall, this is in your realm. You are the Capo , the Boss , are you not?” he asked sardonically.
“ Il Carnefice ,” Drako teased.
I narrowed my eyes, not liking that they were so close to knowing my plans. Papa had taught me years ago how to shield my mind from most psychic powers, including mind reading. So, it wasn’t possible that they would know what I intended next. “Shut the fuck up, Drako.”
Drako laughed. Usually, he and I took pleasure in annoying the fuck out of each other, but I found pleasure in nothing these days.
“I think the name is appropriate,” Luka said coldly. “We can’t even count your kills in the past year. You have been reckless.”
“Don’t give me that shit. I kill only fuckers who try to kill me first.”
“You deliberately provoked them!” Luka roared.
I gave him a hard glare, wishing like hell that I could provoke Luka. My death would be assured then. I sighed. Fuck it. I couldn’t do that to him. He would only blame himself for having to put me down like a wild animal. “Spit it out,” I growled in the heavy silence. “What does this have to do with the family I was born into?”
“We don’t know,” Xander murmured. “And that’s just it. This woman works for a nightclub that is owned by the local Italian mafia. When dad started protecting her, you were barely a teenager, so this is not about sending you to your mate. Since then, Monique has had four children with four separate men.”
I wish Xander would stop treating me as though he expected me to fall apart any moment. “Listen, guys, I appreciate the heads-up, but I have plans to be very busy in the next few months, if not years. So, you do what you can for Ms. Monique and I’m sure that will satisfy Papa’s legacy.”
“Let me repeat,” Xander said impatiently. “This isn’t a matchmaking endeavor. In case you didn’t know, your mate can’t be human anyway. To be a true vampire mate, she would have to be an immortal.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “I’ve got somewhere to be.” I didn’t give a shit about any of this.
“Where the hell are you going now?” Luka’s irritation with me almost made me smile. “This is the first time that we’re seeing you in more than a year, and now you’re planning to disappear again?”
“Don’t worry,” I said dryly, embracing how much I didn’t give a shit about anything right now. “I will be here for the next quarterly board meeting. I like having shares in a weapons company and especially like the part where you can’t veto my access to the merchandise.”
“Papa didn’t want this for you,” Drako said soberly, his usual mischievous demeanor nowhere in sight.
“Yeah, well, he should have stayed alive to make sure that I stayed on the path of the righteous.” I didn’t even feel bad about walking away from them afterward. I had to leave before I drowned. Drowned in the memories of how we used to be as a family.
Any of the brothers could have tried to stop me if they wanted. Like me, they had abilities that far exceeded their dhampir powers. And over the years, their abilities had exponentially increased in power and potency, as had mine.
Luka had psychic powers to read minds and liquify a person’s entire body. Drako’s powers included telekinesis, teleportation, and the ability to merge into anyone’s skin to rip them apart from within, and he could generate electrical energy from his hands and feet. Xander’s abilities were less violent, but not any less deadly because, while he could heal, he could also transfer any injury to anyone, he could freeze time, and he wielded an ancient sword that could split a man in two in a nanosecond.
If they truly thought that I had turned completely corrupt of character, they would have tried in some way to stop my ascent in the criminal world. And since I still wasn’t sure what I intended to do with the power when I got it, they had more faith in me than I deserved.
I had no need for the petty street wars of my biological father. I had no need for territory or to convince anyone of my superior merchandise. But then I also had no use for morality and caring for others. My attempt to do good, to be better, cost me more than the lives of half my family and one of the finest men I knew. Yeah, in our last big fight with Papa’s enemies, they not only killed Papa, they killed many of my half-siblings and their children. Morality and caring only brought me pain. So, I had no need for any of those ideals.
I had no need period, other than my need for a mind-numbing distraction from my grief.
I deliberately resurrected the long-ago ambition to become the Don of the La Famiglia Sicily Mafia. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t that fear and domination really did it for me anymore either. Afterall, being a made man was as dehumanizing as being a soulless vampire. The violence, the depravity that I experienced in my more than fifteen years in the mafia jelled with my current dark existence as an immortal. I embraced that cold, lethal vessel that came naturally to my kind. It was freeing. It allowed me to function again with no pain, no worry, no encumbrance.
Just maybe I could become so dark, become so damn numb that I would never remember the softer feelings Papa had garnered from me. Fuck, I wanted every emotion muted. And then I could return to being the block of ice I was before Papa found me.
Given my supernatural abilities as a vampire, convincing la famiglia to make me their Don took a mere few weeks. It was just too damn easy to gain power and take the position of the Don, succeeding Bruno instead of my half-brother, Raoul. It didn’t provide the distraction I thought it would. I needed more to occupy my time.
More power. More reach. More complexity.
It then took a mere six months to become the Godfather of the mafia families in Italy and Sicily. Getting the other families of North America and the rest of Europe took almost a year of bloodshed and uncompromising brutality and violence.
My position as the Godfather was etched in concrete when I gained the sworn fealty of the Dons and Capos of the big five mafia families. The smaller mafia families fell pretty quickly thereafter. They had all learned, oftentimes in the most brutal way, that any dissention would not be tolerated.
While I hadn’t needed the extra protection, the presence of two large wolves by my side and sometimes my nephews, who were already well over six feet, were added deterrents to that bent. And if anyone didn’t get the message, I gladly reminded them why it was a bad idea to fuck with me.
My wealth and power created a unified crime family, the sheer size and complexity of which law enforcement and the other crime syndicates had no hope in hell of taking on.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that they and others didn’t try. The other crime syndicates like the Russians Odessa and Bratva, the Yakuza, the Triads, and the Cartels came at us hard, providing me with lots and lots of distractions.
And then there was another organization that I had never heard of before becoming the Godfather. They were an international crime syndicate that went by the name The Regiment and had been trying to bring me down along with everyone else.
The Regiment, as far as our intelligence had been able to gather, was led by a group of nine men who were former top military figures from nine major countries: China, Russia, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, United Kingdom, and Italy. In the criminal underworld, they were considered the true rulers of those major countries. There were no world leaders chosen that they had not sanctioned, no wars fought without their full endorsement, and certainly no major international initiatives, movement of arms, climate or law treaty undertaken without their say-so.
With my control over the mafia families, I was probably the most powerful crime figure in existence next to them. In the past few months, there have been repeated attempts on my life. They had been sending some interesting and usually competent assassins after me. However, since they had no idea that I wasn’t human, they were doomed to continue failing with their human weapons.
As the assassins didn’t really pose a threat to me, I had yet to become annoyed with their efforts. In fact, their attempts at least allowed me to let off some steam and add some more bodies to the black hole of my soul.
I welcomed the diversions.
And while I didn’t have to be concerned about ever being captured by human authorities, it didn’t stop my immortal brothers from getting in my face. They even sent my nephews, Apollo and Drago, to guard me sometimes. They knew that it would force me to keep from descending into utter depravity when the boys were with me.
Five years later, the pain of Papa’s death was still an ache, but at least it was a bit less acute. The sight of Luka, and to some extent Apollo, always sent me spiraling and wanting to spill blood, but at least I had the mafia to go back to. It was the mind-numbing darkness I thought it would be. All that violence was an endless distraction and stoked my soulless and heartless state.
I felt nothing, and I embraced that shit. I didn’t even care that I had no ability to find pleasure in anything.
Pleasure, pain, fear, or enjoyment, I felt nothing for anything or anyone. The things that I used to enjoy, the friendship between me and the brothers, my relationship with my sister, or even the sexual pleasure with a woman had all faded for me. I felt no pleasure, so I had long ago stopped trying.
In fact, I haven’t been with a woman since the one time I tried after Papa’s death. I had been so devoid of feeling that I hadn’t even been aware of almost killing my vampire lover. I hadn’t been aware of gripping her too hard and pounding into her with a viciousness that left her broken and almost dead. If it hadn’t been for her enhanced healing ability, she would have been dead. And even though I had spilled my seed, I had felt empty and hollow after. Disgusted and repulsed by my behavior, I hadn’t tried it again since.
Not that I could chance having sex with a mortal female even before Papa’s death. I couldn’t have a sexual relationship with a human because I tended to go feral and kill them, or they would wish for death after being so brutalized. Only a female vampire could be my lover or my mate. And since a female vampire couldn’t have children, I was doomed to never having a family. I was doomed to being alone. After Papa’s death, being alone was my desired state, and my reward.
“Your ward needs your assistance,” Luka told me telepathically.
“What the fuck?” I muttered, conveying my annoyance in every word and responding to him through the same medium. “I don’t have a damn ward.” Over the past three and a half years, Luka has constantly been trying to get me to go visit the woman they claimed that Father wanted me to watch over, as if they weren’t doing that shit already. How the fuck did he know I was in the United States anyway? In my frustration, my fingernails elongated to razor sharp points and pierced the neck of the bastard stupid enough to be caught trafficking women through our weapons shipment. Since I became Godfather and streamlined our organization, we usually didn’t have much interaction with human smugglers, but somehow Emmanuel and his crew had gotten into bed with a smuggling ring that not only sold women for the flesh market, but they were also using some of the cargo to harvest healthy organs and sold them on the black market. I had intended killing the fucker slowly and painfully, but Luka’s interruption gave the idiot a quicker death than he deserved. I released the body, letting it fall hard to the floor of the cargo ship we were conducting our little interrogation on. The cargo ship was docked in the Port of New York and should have left for Europe hours ago.
Aidan and Cyrus held Emmanuel’s underboss, consigliere and head enforcer, who seemed to have pissed their pants on seeing their six-foot-three capo die so effortlessly. The other capos and their entourage of underbosses and bodyguards, about twenty of them, looked on and tried unsuccessfully to hide their fear. The thick air reeked with their desperation and terror. Truth be told, I was getting tired of teaching these fuckers to obey orders. Next time, I might have to conduct a fucking cleansing.
“Just because you refused to go see the woman and her children doesn’t mean that you’re not responsible for them,” Luka answered patiently.
If I didn’t know that he was trying to manipulate me into doing his bidding, I would have been impressed with Luka holding back his temper.
“I am not getting involved with that!” I snapped. It still irked me that no matter how powerful and dangerous I became, Luka had the ability to make me feel like an annoying little brother.
“I don’t give a fuck what you want or what you have going on,” Luka hissed. “According to the guard we have watching over Monique, her deadbeat boyfriend and her remaining minor children will be picked up by the Russians in a few days. You need to get off your ass and shut that shit down.”
“Fuck!” I hated dealing with the Russians. They had no honor, and worse, they had no fucking fear. No matter what you threatened the fuckers with, they just kept coming. The only way to deal with them was to kill them.
“I’ll deal with it,” I finally muttered, knowing that as much as I might not want to walk into whatever trap Papa has set for my life. I believed, with everything in me, that Monique Williams was a trap, but I wasn’t going to let an innocent woman, and her children, suffer because of my refusal to be manipulated.
Conveying the message to Cyrus and Aidan, we made plans to be in Vegas at dusk.