Chapter 14
Artem
I’ve always tried to stand against the monsters’ voices, fighting against their hunger for blood.
It was all they wanted and all they demanded from me, and I couldn’t find peace until I carved into the raw flesh of some unfortunate bastard, or until I savored that final spark of terror in the eyes of someone standing in front of my gun.
With Ekaterina’s arrival in my house, the voices have grown even stronger. Beyond blood, they constantly demand that I feel her. Touch her. Taste her the way I did in the bathroom.
But now, they no longer ask me for her blood.
They ask me to paint her with my blood and make her mine.
They ask me to start a slaughterous war, even if it means spilling my brothers’ blood along with my own, as long as I’ll do it for her.
And the worst part is that I want it too.
“You’re not well,” my older brother tells me when Sasha goes to check why Ekaterina isn’t sleeping and is wandering around the kitchen at this hour.
He saw her on camera and suddenly remembered he was craving the chocolate I hid from him.
The bastard is turning into a Tasmanian Devil after one chocolate bar, and I have forbidden him from having any, especially at night. He doesn't care, of course...
But I know he actually went to see what is happening with the woman haunting the halls of my house like a ghost.
“I’m not?”
“I hate when you do that.” His jaw clenches. “When you answer with a question.”
“Is that what I do?”
“Artem...” he mutters, frustrated.
I slowly lean back in the large chair I’m sitting in and look at my brother. I was actually wondering how many days he would last before bringing this up again.
“Since Ekaterina moved back into her room, you’ve turned the city into a blood pool. On the first day alone, you ordered the attack on the Italians in the southern district without even giving them a chance to surrender.”
“It would have been a waste of time.”
“Maybe you’re right, but you didn’t leave room for negotiation either. Then you attacked the Albanians.”
“Well, they’re friends with the Italians,” I state the fact.
“Which led to another night just as bloody.”
“And was I wrong to save time and resources by acting quickly on both fronts, without giving them time to mobilize?”
He is a little thrown off, because he knows I’m right.
Even I know I wouldn’t normally have done things that way. I would have been more restrained and talked it through with my pravaya ruka before making a move.
But the decision came to me overnight.
It was that, or go to her room.
Difficult choice. Both options were equally tempting.
“You weren’t wrong,” he says, “but you usually don’t rush decisions like that. And let’s be honest, Artem, you’ve been on the edge ever since. The longer you go without seeing her, the closer you get to snapping, and I’m afraid you’re going to lose control completely.”
“On the edge? I like that.”
“Artem,” he warns me again.
“Do you trust me?”
“Not when it comes to Ekaterina. I’m still afraid you’ll hurt her. I saw the bruises she tries to cover during the day with makeup or scarves. You did that, didn’t you?”
My blood freezes at the memory.
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he hisses, worried, dragging his hands through his hair.
“But I stopped.”
“Obviously,” Yar exclaims, pointing toward the door. “Otherwise, right now they’d be organizing a funeral, not a wedding, and we’d have an actual ghost in the kitchen.”
“There will be no wedding.”
He goes still, his hands still buried in his short hair. I can almost feel the air turn electric and heavy, and no sound exists until he speaks again, nearly frozen. “You’re not serious.”
I blink unfazed. “She won’t do it.”
“Because she won’t want to, or because you won’t let her?”
“Probably both.”
“I think you’re forgetting some very important details, Voron,” he says firmly, reminding me with my nickname of what my role is. “A Pakhan’s promise is everything to him, and you intend to break something that sacred. The Bratva will not forgive you. Father will not forgive you.”
“But will you forgive me?”
My question catches him by surprise.
I don’t think he ever expected me to care what he thinks. But to be honest, until recently, I cared about no one and nothing. They have always been by my side, but Ekaterina has made me understand that not all people are merely physical presences I can do without at any moment.
Some people, my brothers, to be precise, matter to me.
Just as she does.
“Is that what you want? My blessing?”
“Your support.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
We look at one another in a way I don’t think we ever have before. Like two brothers who are also human beings, not only bloodthirsty killers born and raised together, knowing their life was to rule an empire side by side and remain a family.
Now we are also people who feel.
Or at least, I am.
Fuck me. Is all her fault.
“It does,” I say shortly, because the message is important enough without me adding emotion to the consonants.
He tips his head back and mutters several curses in Russian, then looks at me with a frown that tells me he is thinking the entire situation through carefully.
“I think we’ll need to strengthen security in the house. And bring more soldiers into the area.”
“Agreed.”
“I can’t believe you’re like this because of a woman.”
Fortunately, the door opens, and Sasha storms in, furious, heading straight for me. He stops, leaning with both palms on the desk, one second away from vaulting over the furniture right at my throat.
“Tell me where the chocolate is, because I am dying here if I don’t get even one little piece!”
“What was Ekaterina doing?” I ask, ignoring his tantrum.
“Give me chocolate, and I’ll tell you.”
The little shit knows how to take advantage of the situation, this is clear.
“I’ll give you tomorrow.”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
With a victorious smile on his face, he straightens his shoulders, and I know I have to give in.
Because I would do anything for her.
Even for the smallest piece of information.
“I’ll give you one square. That’s all. And you will tell me everything.”
“Chocolate!” he exclaims like a wild warrior.
I pull from the secret drawer the chocolate I keep here solely to calm this restless menace, and after handing him the piece he snatches like an addict, he begins to chatter.
“She was making chamomile tea. She doesn’t know where the chocolate is hidden. She looked tired, but it seems she’s having trouble sleeping. She had a thin silk robe on, cream-colored, but underneath I’m almost sure she was wearing something like a little nightgown. Oh.
And she still has bruises on her neck.”
He licks the remaining chocolate from his fingers, what managed to melt in the two seconds he held it before throwing it into his mouth.
I nod slightly, satisfied with the information, though the last addition tenses my body all over again.
“I don’t know what is more concerning,” Yaroslav says loudly, rising to his feet, visibly shocked. “The fact that Sasha would sell even our Mother for a piece of chocolate, or that you gave in to this cheap blackmail just to learn that Ekaterina made herself tea!”
I learned more than that.
Beyond the clothing details, which warmed my blood, I learned that she has trouble sleeping. More precisely, I received another confirmation, because Dima also reported that she seems tired, judging by the dark circles under her eyes these past few days.
“Hey,” Sasha defends himself, offended. “For Mamushca, I’d ask for more chocolate. She’s not you.”
I start laughing, because Sasha’s joke makes even Yar to fight back a smile, though he does not miss the chance to curse him.
But slowly, both of them look at me as if a purple horn has grown out of my forehead.
“Do you see it too?” Sasha asks him.
“I see it,” Yar says slowly.
“Do you think he’s dying?”
“Judging by the way he acted these past few days, I would say yes.”
I frown at their exchange. They look like two statues speaking without wanting to be seen. Not even a blink.
“Do I need to put a bullet in each of your legs to bring you back to your senses? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“There. He’s fine,” Yar announces with relief, his body relaxing.
“But he laughed,” the blond says, still shocked. “I haven’t seen him laugh like that since we were children.”
“It’s because of her.”
“Helen?”
“What Helen are you talking about? Her name is Ekaterina, you idiot.”
“Ekaterina is Helen,” Sasha tells him, poking his temple with one finger. “Helen of Troy, but ours.”
“You’re so stupid.”
“No stupider than you, since you don’t know who Helen is.”
“That’s it. I give up on both of you,” the older one says, irritated. “Fine, fuck it, at least I’m the rational one and won’t lose my mind like this because of a woman. You’re both a lost cause.”
“WAR!” Sasha exclaims again, in his usual style, theatrical above all. “For women and chocolate!”
“Fuck both of you,” Yaroslav mutters dryly. “I’m going to bed.”
“I’m coming too,” the youngest jumps after him. “Will you tuck me in?”
They walk out, but I can still hear their conversation.
“He shouldn’t have given you that fucking chocolate this late.”
“But tell me. Will you tuck me in? You haven’t done it in ages.”
“No. You’re twenty-five. Stop it.”
“At least read me a story?”
“Sasha. I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
“That works too.”
I take my phone from the desk and check the time. It is late, but exhaustion pushes me toward actions lacking any detailed analysis of the situation, and I become impulsive again.
That is why, after climbing the stairs in a hurry, I don’t stop at my door, but at the one across from it.
I stay for a second with my hand on the doorknob, thinking carefully about whether I should do this.
Clearly, the answer is that I should get the fuck back to my room, but I can’t.
I can’t...
And it’s not some voice asking me to be here, but my entire being, controlled by that toxic feeling I fear I can no longer escape.
The one that comes from the heart.
She is probably asleep, but all I want is to see her for a few minutes, the way I do every night.