Kiss Me, Cole (Book 1) [COMPLETE]

Cole (39)

-Super draft chapter. Raw. Will edit properly once everything is done.-

==========

Not every change slaps you square in the face. Some are subtle, like Orianna's melancholy.

She still stares at me with the same intoxicating cognac-colored eyes. She smiles with the same naughty lift at the corner of her lips before making her outrageous demands for kisses. Though her mouth is as delicious as ever, the tinge of bitterness I can sometimes taste in it chokes me sometimes.

Over the summer, something happened to my kiska. Something greater than being forced to watch porn has robbed her of a fraction of her innocence

Minsan kong ipinagdasal na sana masabayan niya na ako. Ngayon, kung magagawa ko lang iyong bawiin ginawa ko na. I'd rather have blueballs for the rest of my life than see her sad.

And she's depressed. Even when she acts the same as she always has, there's no mistaking it. This is all a ruse. Unfortunately for her, she could deceive the entire world, but never me.

I wish I could help, but she has left me with no choice but to wait for her to open up about what is bothering her. My hands are tied until then. I can't live her life for her, no matter how much I want to, especially with my vor training wearing me down at times.

I'm being molded into a problem solver. To find a way for my family to move forward and take our place in our world. For someone like me, the most difficult thing to do is stand by and watch the most important being in my world suffer. But this is what she needs. At least, according to Igor.

"You can't fight her battles for her," sabi niya nang minsang magkomento ako tungkol kay Orianna.

"Why not if I could do?"

Tinitigan niya lang ako at akala ko hindi na naman siya sasagot, as his way usually is. Eventually, he deigned to give an answer.

"Your father must have told you that his way is not the way of the bratva."

What does that has to do with Orianna? I didn't respond and waited for the boyevik to continue. Minsan lang siya magsalita, kadalasan ay kung importante lang. This is important if it is about my kiska.

"The vor is the bratva and the bratva is the vor. Nothing and no one stands before and after him. Nothing and no one is above or below him. For life and after death. This is the way of the thief."

The mantra feels heavier when spoken in Igor's heavily accented Russian drawl. I know it, too, of course. Baliktarin man ang mundo, anak pa rin ako ng bratva. I learned The Thief's Code alongside the The Ten Commandments.

"Your father has broken the first code. He should have been put to death a long time ago. You and your mother stoned along with him."

Napatalim ang pagkakatingin ko sa kanya na inignora niya lang at nagpatuloy.

"Vasili Sokolov was the most powerful vor out of that arctic hell. With the insane monster of a brigadier like Fyodor Devin beside him, no one from the motherland would dare to touch what was theirs. Nobody, however, sings your mother's praises. Esmeralda Orizaga may not be bratva, but she has the strength of character to take on your father and us. The abbess is not an easy woman to scare but she has always deferred to your dainty mother. That should have told you something, little vor."

"What does that have to do with Orie?"

"Don't rob her of the chance to stand beside you as an equal. Let her fight her own monsters."