The track to this chapter is:
Distortion- LXST CXNTURY
Life went on cautiously after the day Tamik visited Mia. Yuri and Kirill met and increased her security three fold to make sure there were no surprises.
Kirill's birthday was coming up and Tamik and Dmitry planned a huge bash for him. All three men pretended that life was idyllic and everything was business as usual. The big party lasted into the night and Kirill's friends and business partners all showed up with their wives, girlfriends, and flavours of the month.
The event ran smoothly and besides a few disagreements at the bar, nobody was hurt. Both Tamik and Dmitry were acting like brothers to Kirill, toasting to his health and life, and his beautiful girlfriend and their future children. Kirill acted as if nothing was wrong and happily accepted all their toasts with hugs and jokes. On the inside, he was dying. He knew he was embracing two snakes who had their guns pointed at his back and he knew it would have to end sooner rather than later.
Yuri had warned Kirill that this night might be the one they would chose to get rid of him but Kirill knew they wouldn't touch him until he finished securing a new supplier and he took his time and extended the meeting for another few weeks.
Kirill was in a tough spot. He couldn't take out his partners for no visible reason as it would send a message of weakness and usurpation and he had to wait until they would strike first. He also knew they would probably try to target Mia so he watched over her like a hawk and had security constantly monitoring her every move. Mia didn't like the set up but didn't protest.
The morning of his birthday, Mia showed him his birthday present. As she was getting dressed, she casually turned with her back to him and he saw a tattoo on her butt cheek, just like the one they had jokingly discussed in the Bahamas months ago.
His name was written in cursive with little hearts for dots above the letters I. He grabbed her hips in pure amazement staring at the fresh tattoo and was fighting back tears. He worked hard at being an emotionless man but her presence in his life was changing him and he felt pure bliss in this moment.
"Oh my god, baby, what did you do?!" He called out staring at his name branded in her skin.
She slyly asked, "Do you like it?"
"Like it?! I... I love it!" He said looking up at her from where he was sitting on the bed. He turned her around and stood up to kiss her.
He suddenly turned serious and said,
"I love you." for the first time in his life. He was fully aware that she already knew that he was crazy about her but he had never said it before and now finally seemed to be the perfect time.
Mia smiled as she was on the verge of saying that herself to him a few times in the past months but wanted him to say it first.
"I love you too." She responded back smiling, "It would be crazy if I tattooed your name on my ass and thought you were just ok." She said jokingly. They spent the morning together and Kirill kept checking her tattoo and smiling at it like a school boy.
Easter was next week and like always, Viki invited all the girls to her house for Easter festivities. Mia brought Kirill to introduce him to her friends, she thought it was time. In between glasses of wine Viv cornered Mia alone and said with a smile,
"So does Kirill have a hot murderer brother? For me, you know, I want to live the life you lead too." Mia laughed at her words and was happy her best friend liked him.
"I wish it was all that easy and simple." Mia replied smiling. Viv looked at her surprised and answered,
"What? It's hard to hop on that big dick at the end of the day or difficult to have him wine and dine you?" She winked playfully. "But seriously. What's up?" She asked. Mia thought about how to respond.
"Well..." she started, "It's a dark world, man. You never know when danger can strike." Suddenly, Mia had a terrifying thought: what if one of her friends or family got hurt? She thought about what Kirill said; Tamik was sadistic, what if he suddenly started bothering her close ones in order to put further negative pressure on Kirill.
"So make sure you look after yourself too." she added hoping that sentence was vague enough to not translate all her thoughts but Viv would understand.
"What?" Viv replied wanting more information. "Why do I have to be careful? Mia, is there something you're not telling me about your crazy sex world?!" She suddenly turned to her all serious but a devilish smile on her face. "Don't worry, girl. I got you." She took a sip of her wine and went over to Viki's cousins who were roasting the lamb and who she flirted with mercilessly for years.
One day the week after, while getting ready for work, Mia was rummaging through their drawers looking for her watch. She thought that she had lost it or maybe the cleaner had put it away somewhere.
Drawer after drawer she couldn't find it and then looked again. Something caught her finger the second time and a gold chain appeared in her hand. It was shiny and had a symbol on it. Mia was confused as she'd never seen Kirill wear it and it wasn't hers. And then she recognized it and the knowledge of who it belonged to hit her like a moving train. This was Ari's chain. He always wore it and it always peeked out of his shirts that were unbuttoned a little too much.
She felt her heart in her throat as she stared at it in her hand. Her face became hot and tears swelled in her eyes as she began piecing it all together. Kirill was responsible for what happened to Ari. She grabbed the chest of drawers to steady herself and catch her breath. Suddenly, everything about Kirill was again placed into doubt but this time, she had concrete evidence about the kind of trauma he inflicted on innocent and unsuspecting people and moreover, she knew that he had kept this from her and lied.
Tamik's words about Kirill rang through her mind once more. Maybe those were not baseless accusations in the end, maybe he lied about many things in his past. He clearly lied about this. Mia was descending further and further into a spiral of all the wrong choices she thought she had made.
She remembered how Kirill acted at her dad's house during Christmas, perfectly playing the role of the doctor. He was a master manipulator and he played her like a puppeteer. Of course, he had planned it all out perfectly and now she was in a situation where he knew where she was at all times for her so called safety but really, it's because he wanted to trap her. She'd never visited him at his office before and didn't even know where it was. Another thing he kept secret from her, she thought. He lied, he lied, he lied, pumped in her head with every heart beat.
All these negative thoughts piled onto her mind like heavy snow. She laid down on the bed clutching Ari's chain and bawled, tears streaming down the sides of her face. She was broken.
Kirill had already gone to work so she got dressed and grabbed Ari's chain. She went downstairs to her driver and forcefully got in the car.
"Take me to see him." She said angrily to the young man who tried to protest but she responded with, "If you don't take me to see Kirill now, I will personally shoot you in the face next time I see you."
The young man put up his hands as if to say he capitulates and started the car. It was about a 25 minute ride to Harlem at this time of day and they arrived at a nondescript building on a quiet, forgotten street that was right by the edge of the water. There was writing on the front frosted window that said "Feldman & Feldman & Associates, Barristers & Solicitors."
Barristers my ass.
Mia jumped out of the car and walked over to push the door open but it was locked. She knocked loudly and waited for an answer. Kirill swung the door open hurriedly but was met with her standing there calmly with a fake smile plastered all over her face.
"Baby, what's wrong, are you ok?! What are you doing here? What happened?" He fired off questions with a look of worry on his face.
"Won't you invite me in?" She asked her voice laden with false curiosity. "Or is this another part of your life that you don't want to show me?"
Kirill figured out that something was terribly wrong but instead of inviting her into the office he led her outside onto the sidewalk.
"What is it?" He asked with great worry.
"What a great question! I have a similar one: what is this?" She took her hand out of her trench coat pocket and lifted up Ari's chain for him to see glistening in the spring sun.
Kirill looked at it and moved his head to the side whispering, "Fuck." He squeezed his eyes shut thinking about how bad this looked.
She stood there holding the chain waiting to see what he would do next.
"Look, I'm sorry, ok? I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. This is a long story-"
"Everything is a long story with you!" She yelled at him and he was taken aback by her explosion.
"Everything is hard to explain!" She breathed fast and felt like she could charge at him. "You lied to me. How could you-" she broke off not able to get all the words out. She turned away from him tears falling from her face.
Kirill looked down at the ground knowing that this conversation was going to either end in a marriage proposal or he was going to lose her, there was no in between.
"I was going to tell you, ok? I just couldn't find the right time." He called out to her taking a few steps towards her. She whirled around and continued,
"He had to have reconstructive nose and teeth surgery, Kirill! How could you do this! What the fuck! What the fuck were you thinking! Why, why would you do this to him!" She could not stop yelling and crying. Kirill tried to grab her hand but she violently ripped her hand out of his,
"Don't you fucking dare touch me! You will never touch me again! You're a fucking psychopath! And a liar! And I'm the biggest idiot in the world because I fell for you!" She started sobbing and took her face in her hands still clutching at Ari's chain.
Kirill came close to her and grabbed her shoulders and bent down to her eye level, tears pooling in his eyes too,
"Mia, I'm so sorry. I don't have a good excuse or reason. I was a different man when I met you, ok? I deeply regret having done that. Please, please...I'm so sorry." He was ready to break down too because he saw that this was the absolute worst way for her to find out. How the hell did she find this chain anyway, he thought.
"No, you are still the same man, Kirill." She said trying to calm herself down and slowly walking out of his arms. "I think back to how incredibly blind I was. You're a fucking criminal and a murderer and a rapist too, God knows you lie about everything. You killed that young guy in front of me. What the fuck was I thinking?!"
She was more asking herself at this point. She had stopped bawling but fresh tears continued falling from her eyes.
"I never want to see you again. Ever! You are a liar...and a manipulator...and a fucking psycho and I somehow was so...so..." she couldn't find the words to express how deeply hurt and in pain she was. Finally, she gulped and said, "Whatever we had, it's over now. Please, just leave me alone. I never want to see you again. I'm disgusted at myself and I hate myself for falling in love with you." She was now walking backwards about to turn around when in two large strides he came up to her and grabbed her crying and pleading,
"Please, please, Mia just hear me out...please, just listen to me." He looked at her with his big beautiful green eyes that were filled with tears. Kirill had cried only a few times in his life and the feeling of tears in his eyes was foreign.
"I saw you with him after our first meeting and I saw how you laughed with him and he was on top of the world being beside you. I wanted to... remove him from your side. Look, you've changed me, Mia. You've shown me what true joy and happiness is like and I've never had that in my life. Being with you, is like being alive. I was a dark man before and granted, I still do shady shit but-"
"You run the fucking mafia, Kirill! And you sell drugs and then people die from that too!" She interrupted him not caring who heard her yell on the street. "No amount of church going is ever going to clean your bloody hands!" And she reached in her shirt and grabbed the cross that he had given her.
She ripped it off her neck and threw it at him as another wave of tears overpowered her. She loved that cross and having thrown it away, she physically felt that she was breaking their bond for good.
Kirill stood in front of her, his hands on his sides and tears running down his face. He grabbed his hair and was completely lost. He had no clue how to save this situation. She was way more upset than he had ever anticipated she would be and absolutely everything he said, she didn't want to hear.
"Mia. I can't deny that I have done a lot of wrong and bad in my life. But I never, ever wanted to hurt you. You are a pure ray of light and you have changed who I am. I'm sorry I had Ari beaten up. After waiting 10 years to see you, I couldn't imagine that someone would be in my way." He picked his words carefully knowing that he was running out of time and if he didn't say the right thing, she would walk out of his life. "I can do whatever you want me to do to help him, I can pay for all his surgeries, whatever you want. I love you so much, I will do anything."
She laughed a laugh of pain and grief. "No one needs your fucking coke money." She finally responded bitterly and crossed her arms. She felt like she had said it all and this was it. "Do not follow me, Kirill. Do not contact me, do not look for me, do not stalk me. I don't want anything to do with you and I never want to see you again. You have really hurt me and I can't forgive you."
Realizing that this was the end brought another wave of anguish and her eyes filled with tears again as she began walking away from him.
Kirill was standing in front of her not believing how everything was turning out. He stepped in front of her not letting her leave and pleaded with her to please stay. He had never acted this way before and he realized he probably looked ridiculous but he didn't care.
He couldn't lose her, she was his light, his joy, and he didn't know how to live without her anymore. He walked with her continuously trying to block her path and pleading with her but she was determined and started walking away faster. Finally he said,
"I can't let you go just like that into nothing... Sergei will drive you where you need to go. Please. Remember that you are not safe. Please reconsider." He looked at her with such pain in his eyes that it almost broke down her resolve.
She lifted up her arm and a taxi pulled up to which she opened the door. Turning to him for the last time, she said with sorrow in her voice,
"I'm no longer a part of your world so my safety is not your concern anymore. Goodbye...Kirill." And she climbed in the car and closed the door. Kirill stood there knowing that this was the biggest disaster of his life. No physical wounds and injuries he sustained in the past could come close to the pain he felt inside.