Chapter 2
Sasha
Grigori and Nikolai were talking with other boys their age near the entrance.
I clenched my fists against my thighs, forcing down the furious urge to join them.
They didn’t want me. I was too small, according to them, according to everyone, really.
I pressed my lips together and looked away, scanning the square for my little brother instead.
Roman was playing in the middle of the plaza, chasing other children his age.
We were attending one of the charity events the women of the Bratva regularly organized to raise money for the families of men who had died for the organization. It had been my mother’s idea years ago, after seeing how difficult it was for widows to raise their children alone.
“Sasha, stop fiddling with the tablecloth, moy angel,” my mother’s voice suddenly sounded behind me as her light hands settled on my narrow shoulders. I wasn’t tall yet, nor as muscular as Nikolai but I would be. I trained every day.
I let go of the tablecloth and lifted my head to look at her. Elena Ivanov was the most beautiful woman I knew but wasn’t that true for all sons and their mothers? People said a girl’s first love was her father. It was the same for boys. Our first love was our mother.
She studied my face with eyes as blue as mine, almost turquoise. Her long, straight black hair slipped over her shoulder as she leaned down to speak to me, her scent tickling my nose. A scent I could never quite describe, it smelled like warmth, softness, safety. Like home.
“I know you didn’t want to come, Sasha, but this event is important to me. Don’t you want to make me happy? Go play with Roman, will you?” she asked, her gentle hand brushing my cheek but I pushed it away and turned my gaze back to the table, jaw tight.
I heard her sigh softly as she straightened behind me. She was right, I hadn’t wanted to come. I was tired of being treated like a child. I had to sit with the kids, play with Roman, while Nikolai attended meetings with Father and Grigori. I was almost nine years old.
“Is there a problem?” my father’s deep voice asked suddenly as I saw him approach, hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers.
“I’m trying to convince our Sasha to stop sulking, but nothing works,” my mother replied, taking the hand my father offered her. He pulled her closer and kissed her cheek with a faint smile. Father rarely smiled in public, only when he was with mother.
Once, I had overheard Aunt Natasha talking to her, she said we must always present a united front outside, even when we didn’t feel like it.
At the time, I hadn’t understood what she meant but later, after mother and father had fought violently at home, mother had even grabbed a kitchen knife to threaten him, I still hadn’t understood.
Father had smiled then, too. That puzzled me even now.
Afterward, mother had ignored him all day, not saying a single word.
And like magic, that evening, during a dinner with another Bratva family, they had talked, laughed, and mother had even let father kiss her, more than once.
That night, they had completely disappeared into their bedroom, leaving us with Aunt Natasha.
That was when I understood what Aunt Natasha had meant.
Weakness was never shown outside. No matter how much war raged at home, in public we were a family.
“Maybe I could convince him?” my father said, wrapping an arm around my mother’s waist. She shot him a sharp look and slapped his hand away.
“Don’t start, Mikhail Ivanov,” she sighed but neither father nor I missed the smile tugging at her lips.
“So, champion, what’s the problem?” my father asked as he crouched beside me, one hand resting on the back of my chair.
I pressed my lips together, unwilling to confide in him.
I didn’t want him to see me as a whining kid.
He was the head of the Bratva, one of the most dangerous organizations in existence.
Everyone feared him. I wanted his respect, not his pity.
But he was my father, and like my mother, he needed only one look to read me like an open book.
A crooked grin appeared on his face before his hand ruffled my hair.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, son.
Your time will come far sooner than you think.
Much sooner than necessary,” he added, his smile slowly fading as his dark eyes so much like Grigori’s and Roman’s studied my face.
I merely shrugged, eyes fixed on the white tablecloth.
From the corner of my eye, I saw him lift his gaze toward my mother behind me before standing up.
“All right, big guy. This weekend, I’m going to the seniors’ training.
Want to come with me? I’ll let you shoot with the weapon of your choice.
” I straightened instantly, my interest fully awakened.
I glanced at my mother, she was the one who had forbidden us to touch any weapon before the age of fifteen.
Even Nikolai had only just begun training.
“Only with your father. Never alone,” she said, locking her eyes onto mine.
“Promise!” I answered without hesitation.
She nodded with a small smile as I turned back to my father, who laughed at my sudden excitement. “See? I told you I’d convince him,” he said, winking at Mother. I didn’t hear her reply. Grigori’s voice suddenly rang out across the reception hall. “Take cover!”
I found myself in my mother’s arms as father shoved us to the ground, covering us with his body.
The floor shook. I screamed as a deafening blast tore through the room.
My ears rang violently. Screams and cries echoed all around us.
“Sasha!” a voice called as I coughed, dust burning my throat. “Sasha!”
Someone shook me. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt unbearably heavy, “uncle Sasha!” I didn’t startle, simply opened my eyes to find Dimitri, my nephew, bouncing on my bed, wearing nothing but his swim trunks.
“Come on, uncle Sasha, wake up! We’re going to play in the pool!
” he shouted. I groaned and sat up, trying to grab him, but he had already jumped down and was running down the hallway, laughing, his bare feet slapping against the floor. That little menace…
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. A dull ache formed at the back of my skull, a headache beginning to surface. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. 10:15 a.m. I had come home late the night before because of a meeting about a future merger.
I sighed and sank back into the bed, grimacing as I realized the sheets were soaked with sweat.
It had been almost a year since I’d had that nightmare.
A nightmare that had haunted me for years.
A nightmare that reminded me of my mistake, a mistake that had destroyed us.
A mistake no one knew about. No one except one person.
She had understood that I was hiding something the moment her eyes had met mine. I lowered my forearm from my eyes and let it fall onto the bed, to the space on my right. Empty. As it had been for the past three months.
That was why the nightmare had returned. It had vanished over the past year because of her. She had allowed me to forget what I had done, to forget what I was doing, what I was. When she had been beside me, there had been only her. Only us.
‘‘Sasha! Come have lunch before we clear the table,’’ Elif called from the dining room on the ground floor.
I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time and got up, heading to the bathroom to wash my face, once, then again, then a third time.
By the time I managed to find the strength to turn off the water, I was already at twelve.
I clenched my jaw and grabbed the towel from the counter with an angry motion. Another nightmare resurfacing.
My OCD had appeared after my parents’ death.
The psychologist had said my brain was trying to regain control after the trauma it had endured.
But that need for control had spread to everything, from the way I washed my hands to the way I ate, that constant urge for everything to be in order, perfect.
The irony was that this obsessive need for control was uncontrollable itself, and it was driving me insane.
From the age of eight to ten, it had been pure hell.
I was losing my mind and driving everyone in the house crazy along with me.
My uncle had even tried to convince Grigori to send me to a psychiatric facility.
Thank God my brother had chosen instead to get married.
The best decision he’d made since our parents’ death.
My eyes drifted back to the mirror, to the empty space in my bed reflected behind me.
I tightened my grip on the towel as a thousand questions spun endlessly in my head.
I finally growled and threw the towel into the laundry basket before getting ready.
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