The Russian Roulette [The Mafia Chronicles #2]

Chapter XVII

I don't want my children to grow around guns and murder. I don't want their father to teach them the evil acts he does. I don't want to care for a murderer.

Hate was a commonly felt in Alexi's world, reserved to be felt towards others. But seldom did the Russian leader feel such an emotion towards himself. Seldom did he have any regrets. However, at this very moment he regretted what he was born into; what he molded himself to become.

A murderer. A soulless, apathetic man. Or at least that's what strangers called him.

He was taught by his father's underbosses before they were killed by Alexi's own hands for allowing the massacre to happen. He had to blame someone when he couldn't find the real perpetrator, so he ended their lives. They trained him to take a life without a spec of guilt smudging his conscience and taught him the anatomy of the human body to make sure his victims felt the most pain.

He was raised by maids, the only people with maternal emotions that were loyal to the Russian mafia, until he was of legal age to own the estates and companies his family left behind. All the Dimitri fortune became his; his parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and his grandparents' wealth became his. He was raised with money, power, and hate.

So, when the rays of his hate that were once directed towards everybody else turned his way, he felt a tinge of insecurity. More weakness for others to exploit, he told himself.

In my dream, he murdered children, мама.

He heard her cry and beg her mother for help. He laid there with closed eyes and a conscious mind, wondering why it pained him to hear her spill her nightmare to her mother- it would have never did before, so why did it start now?

I'm wor3ried about a murderer's sleep schedule, she had said.

Is that what I became to her? A murderer? She knew who I was before, why wasn't I a murderer when she laid in my arms? Alexi seemed to feel more emotions. Hurt, betrayal, hate, weakness; all of it. He reveled in being called apathetic and a killer, but not when it was coming from her mouth.

The Russian Don was used to his life being in a routine and now that Sophie was in it, it could no longer go in the same trajectory as before. Maybe that was why he was feeling all sorts of emotions he would have never felt had his life remained in routine.

A routine that protected him from unnecessary pain. A pain that he evaded when his parents died because he was too young to remember.

"Sophie." Alexi wanted to use her name on his tongue more. His wife was sitting on their room's windowsill with a cup of tea in her hands and a few revision notes for her approaching exam resting on her lap. She turned towards him and offered a small smile he knew to be forced.

Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. That's all you've been thinking, Alexi. Get a fucking grip.

"I have work in St. Petersburg. I will be gone for two days at most. I doubt that you can't take care of yourself; you did that very thing last week." He tried to lighten the atmosphere but failed miserably; he could see her visibly grimacing as she remembered the men he tortured. Had I known she was there, I would've personally taken her to safety before I had done anything. I would've done so many things differently.

"I'll be fine." Those were the first words she had spoken to him in days. He made sure he gave her space for her to process her emotions. I needed that space to think, I felt too much at once for me to work normally. I did not want to deal with an emotional woman.

Alexi scolded himself for making such a joke as he tried to decipher any emotions on his wife's face. He was usually able to do so effortlessly- she was an open book. However, at that very moment that felt like the hardest thing to do.