Demyan
I couldn't breathe.
Valencia wasn't lying and I was a fool who never get to see the true colors of those around me. Zack, I had always thought him to be the closest to me. He had been the one trying to kill me.
What a fucked up situation this was? Zack tried to warn me about Valencia but he was a fucking rat himself. No one tried to warn me of him. The man I had trusted for so long. Everything was a fucking lie.
Was his love for my sister also a lie? Was there marriage also a lie for him? Why did he do all this? All the lies and deceptions for what? That asshole really did stab me in the back all because I believed in him too much. I raised the snake he was and what good was it doing to me? Questions bombarded my mind.
He had tried to fuck me up. Was this his game plan always?
Fuck!
I wanted to shout and scream but all I could do was just stand there and not let my emotions show on my face.
"Did she hurt you?" I asked her as calmly as I could. Everything seemed to be out of control. Valencia was now in the same lead as me. I had thought that I could betray her but it had been that had been betrayed.
I wanted to laugh at the irony. All the scheming and everything was wasted. She always had the upper hand and still did even after so many years.
"No but she warned me against telling you," she replied looking ahead. There was a swarm of people ahead of us but yet we couldn't trust anyone of them any longer. I was on my own but I had to know who was on my side and who was on others. Yet I had to go by the rule of keeping my enemies closer than my friends.
"He," Natalia paused in surprise. I looked at her line of vision.
"Who?"
"The man near the tree where our uncle is," she said with her eyes set on him. He was surely a new face I had no idea about. Yet the guy seemed familiar. Leaning against a tree with a bored look in his eyes he looked at someone. At first glance, it seemed nothing out of the normal but there was something wrong with the way he stood there. I couldn't point out why. The more I looked at him I felt unease. His eyes were set on Sophia and an old woman who had come in front of me to console her. It felt like they were mother-daughter by how close they were.
"What about him?" I asked looking away from him at my sister.
"He was the one who had saved you. Do you not know him?" My eyes turned once again towards him but he was no longer there.
"Where did he go?" I asked my sister as I tried to find the swarm of people ahead of us. He was just right there.
"I don't know but I swear he disappeared like a ghost," her eyes moved frantically trying to find him. She had even tried to rush forward to look for him but I had just held her arm stopping her.
"We have a lot of people around, Natalia," she looked at me trying to calm down. There was fear in those eyes.
"And yet we aren't safe in our own house," the tone she spoke in sent shivers down my body. I could see that she was scared but more than that she was desperate.
"I married a man who wants to kill my brother while along he had pretended to be his right-hand man. I have a child with him and there is nothing more I can be worried about than my child. Try to see it through my eyes and I bet you would be scared too," she whisper yelled looking right into my eyes. She took a step closer to me.
"I saw her kill him, she carved her skin, cut out his tongue and his eyeball rolled out right towards me. She didn't even bat an eyelash at me as she walked out of the room warning me not to tell anyone. I was helping her to look for her child thinking she was weak but she is no longer innocent. She is more dangerous than even you or anyone else I know. She is crazy and I'm scared to be her target." I had to be the one to look away from her. She was scared and there was nothing I could do. A confident woman like her had broken down. This was no longer manipulation and trying to get something you want.
She had always gotten to know the soft side of the business while I had got my hands dirty. My hands were dripping with blood and if only she knew she would have hated me too. For the first time, I realized that shielding her away from what I did in business had caused her to become weak.
Knowing about Zach and Valencia had caused me shock and distress but I was nowhere scared. there was no need for me to be scared until I could use my hands and stand on my own two feet.
"I will sort everything out," I assured her but I didn't know if she would believe it. "I will try to send you and Anton away just don't worry about it," I told her as I saw tears welling up in her eyes. The realization that she was still younger than me and we were both all we had. Our parents were long dead, I had done everything for us to get here and I won't let anyone take that away from us.
Wrapping my arms around her shoulder I hugged her. She cried silently and I just held her as a big brother who was helpless at the moment to console her sister.
"I promise that everything will be fine just hold on to all you know for a bit," I just didn't want her to slip on her own. She needed to be safe so did my nephew. My main aim was to get them safe and sound.
"Is everything alright?" I heard from beside me and it took everything in me to not my anger burst out. Keeping my face neutral I faced him. Zach stood there facing me. He had no hesitance in looking right into my eyes.
"She is just a bit shaken up by everything," I told him as calmly as I could. "I think she should be with Anton right now." His son was the only thing that could keep her calm and sharp enough to not let anything slip.
"Where he is by the way?" I asked him as I felt Natalia holding onto me tightly.
"He is with his nanny and I think you are right. Anton would be restless by now too. A mother can't be replaced by anyone," I heard him but I just didn't care. If he hurt my sister or her child I would kill him. Plunge the knife hard into his heart and twist it until he was dead.
"No, she can't be," I just agreed to ask Natalia to go and be with Anton. Zach and I stood there alone as she left. There was no guilt in his eyes. He pretended as if nothing had happened and so did I.
"How are you feeling?" He had the audacity to ask.
"I'm better but it still hurts," I stared into his eyes. "Doctor said it will get better if I rest for a bit and I have been following his instruction."
"I'm glad you are fine. You gave me scare there," there were many people around us but there couldn't be such a two-faced man like him.
"Don't worry death and I have a deal. I will let you know in advance when that day will come," I just gave a slight smile not letting him show that I knew everything.
"That's nice to hear," I bet it was as he was the one who had tried to kill me.
"I will get going for now," there was no point in being near him because I couldn't clearly think around him. Red and burning anger was all I could feel with him in my vicinity. I had to think through what I wanted to do.
"I'm sorry for your loss. I will get going, I still need rest." I didn't wait for a reply and walked away. There was no point because I didn't want to hear from him until I had calmed down.
My driver was waiting for me and it felt like I could once again breathe as I got inside the car. It was hard to normalize with him so close. The world was closing on me with him that close to me. His betrayal was something that I would never forget. It was a lesson learned. The one I had to learn the hard way. The more we got away from the cemetery, the easier it got to breathe.
I had to get Natalia and Anton out of there without raising any suspicions. The sooner they were away, the easier it would be for me to kill him. I wanted to choke him with my bare hands. Look him right in his eyes as I saw the life leave his eyes. Rip him part by part just to make sure that he would never turn back alive. All through the way all I could think about was how to kill him but I had to wait.
I can't just kill him off like that. I needed to know why he did that. Who he was working with? Whose order he was following? I had my guess that it was Viktor but I wasn't sure.
What if it was Valencia? What if this was all of her doing?
I needed to do more than kill the plant. I had to destroy the root too so that new plants couldn't grow out of it. So lost in my thoughts I hadn't noticed that we were back home and a pair of cars standing in my driveway.
"Who has decided to visit?" I asked as one of the guards opened the door for me. No one would come like this to kill me.
"Your Uncle, Dimitrio. He has brought a guest too," he informed me. A guest?
Now, what was he planning? I know we rarely had the same vision but bringing guests to my house after what all had happened was. What was he thinking?
"Where is he?" He might be my brother's father but he had never been much on my side. He was neutral and that's what tick me off. If only he could take sides my life could have been better. He had come with his set of guards.
"In your study," I breathed in a frustrated sigh. Of all places in the house he just had to go there with a guest. I made a beeline for my study. It didn't seem like today was going to be a good day. There was no halt to the surprises the day had for me. One after another something was showing up.
I even had Valencia to deal with. My uncle's guards stood outside the study guarding it.
They acknowledged me with a nod before opening the door for me only for me to hear words that just set fire to my world.
"How has your marriage to Viktor been?" I heard him and it was only when I entered I saw her. Sitting on the sofa with her legs tucked in and a glass of my whiskey in her hand.
"Ah finally he is here," I heard from the other side of the room where a guy was busy working on my fucking computer. My hand went on the gun tucked in my waist before the guy raised his head to look at me finally.
"I would advise you to keep aside your again, Demyan. Just because I saved your life doesn't mean that I can't take it away," he smirked as he leaned back in the chair.
He was the same guy Natalia had pointed out.
What the fuck was going on here? My head snapped towards Valencia who rather than looking at me chugged down the whole bottle of whiskey as if it was water.
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