Truth of Chains (A Dark Mafia Romance #1)
Prologue
I slip the blade back into the sheath as I stare down at a bloody, dead, pathetic excuse of a man. One by one, I will rid them of their plague.
“Roman, I set the cases back in the truck. Fucker thought he was getting a deal.” Nikolai sticks his hands in his pockets, snickering out a grin. I light a cigarette as we gaze at the man with accomplishment.
Bells of triumph and cellos play a melody in my head as I lift my head into an exhale, “One-by-one Nikolai… It is time for all who scorch their cities with crimes to end.” I feel poetic as the man bleeds out slowly to the cello, “May death to the interconnected families be a new day.” The smoke fills my lungs, drifting its dopamine to my brain. It smothers the strings in my head, tucking the composed masterpiece into a deep sleep.
Sergey walks to the opposite side of the man, “Alexei and I will take care of this,” he motions with his hand to Alexei and the fresh justice that lies at our feet. He squats down, spitting slightly. “Not so tough now,” he says, stretching a smile to his ears. This was personal for Sergey. Hell, it was personal for all of us.
We are brothers, even though we may not be by blood. For the better part of our lives, we spent our growing-pain years as classmates. We were sent to a school where young boys are to be shaped, beaten, and scorned. A place to condition us so we could perform our duties to our Bratva because our families believed we needed to be fixed.
The warehouse’s fluorescents illuminate Sergey’s back as he crouches over the body. Perspiration thickens across his forehead as he stares down with blank eyes. The man he is kneeling over just so happens to be an old head from his Bratva who convinced his father to send Sergey away. It was a real asshole move to send a kid away for stealing candy for the neighborhood kids, who couldn’t buy any for themselves.
St. Kilsreny was the school for boys like us. The family outcasts, the underdogs, the ones who had burning questions, and the ones who thought the seen and not heard lore was only that. We were shipped like packages to Moscow and hidden away like the center of a Matryoshka doll.
Alexei, Sergey, Nikolai and I met when we were nine years old and have been inseparable since. When we were sixteen, we swore to each other that we would walk with virtue in the free world one day. I can still smell the blood every so often from that class, which ultimately changed the plan our families initially had for us.
Combat classes consisted of being beaten to a pulp to test your strength. I withstood the blows to my face by classmates as Sergey, Alexei, and Nikolai watched from the sidelines. They couldn’t help me because of the backlash they would have received, but they refused to partake in any of it. Blow by blow, my blood spilled into my hair as my eyes started to swell shut. A slice along my neck made me see red as time ticked its crimson waves into a tranquil teal blue. It had swept over me, calming me into submission as the pain disappeared. I thought this was it. This was the end. I was going to bleed out everywhere and die. But by the grace of good timing, the muddled voices and laughs flashed in and out until it was silent. Nikolai, Sergey, and Alexei lifted me as they dragged me to the closest kitchenette. Then and there, we decided to take back the world’s tenderness as they patched up my wounds. The most comical part of it all is that the same combat class I was beaten in, is also the same class that supposedly teaches us to not fold under pain, brutality, and pressure. I did though, and so did the boys. We were going to take the mafia out. One after another.
Alexei’s laugh echoes in the abandoned warehouse as he slithers into a bounce to my side. His head bobs back and forth as he wipes the splatter of blood from his cheek. “We gain some ground in their punishment and receive money for the deals not to blow our cover. It’s classic, and they still don’t get the hint of who we are,” he laughs maniacally. He was the youngest of us in spirit but ruthless. We were all relatively young, twenty-nine to be exact, but years of torture doused some dust on our souls.
Alexei and Sergey have families who reign from different cities, but we all are connected to work together and sell my family’s imported guns from city to city. Their sect gets a cut which keeps the families from splattering each other against the streetlights and cold city pavements. When we left the school, we were sworn back into our families. They had a meeting to decide if we were all to stick together. Since we dominated and made it out alive from St. Kilsreny, it was sworn in that we would be a team. Our own unit, tethering the snakes together.
“They will get their money, but like I’ve always said, their chance of redemption has passed,” I say, walking to the driver’s side of the box truck. I flick the cigarette butt to the ground as I toss the duffle bag of cash between the seats.
Nikolai hops into the passenger seat as my phone starts to ring. He was the only one who didn’t belong to a Bratva, but had ties in Russia, serving as a commodity of ours. Or at least that is what I convinced the interconnected families to believe. They were too busy snorting their products and sweating beneath their blood money to give a shit about what I was demanding.
My phone screen flashes Fucker, as it rings a second time, and I answer silently.
“You will come home. We need you here while your brother takes over—” my father coughs, stopping him mid-sentence, “—to take over the family. Be here by tomorrow,” he says in Russian.
“What about the deals?”
“No English when you speak to me,” he pauses for a moment, “What the fuck about them? It seems these fucking deals haven’t been leading us anywhere, and I didn’t stutter.” I close my eyes in frustration. “Your brother is taking over, and you will be his right-hand man. But I am not sure you are even ready for that.”
Click.
I crack my neck, “I’ll be there tomorrow,” I say in English as I lock the phone screen and place it in my pocket.
He has only cared about one thing since moving to America, and that is to run it. He doesn’t see the beauty of his power or the opportunity to make life better for anyone but himself. He is too busy pleasing politicians and using people until he has someone strangle the life from them.
I mutter under my breath, “Bastard.” Not at his sorry excuse of a hang-up—I am used to his overbearing lethal tone and coldness by now—but because this changes the plan of us working inward to cut the head off the beast.
Him.