HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS 🎉
HOPEFULLY THIS YEAR BRINGS BETTER THINGS FOR US ALL!
~~~
She briskly walked to the door of the one person that could protect her son. Her eyes kept her guard, she had not one weapon on her.
It was a habit she had dropped long ago, thinking she was safe. A habit that was due to return.
She rattled the knocker, praying he was in. The moment the door opened a crack she barged her way in, slamming the door shut behind her.
"I'm sorry, but please," She held her son forward for him to collect in his arms, "protect him with your life."
"Of course."
"Someone has survived. Possibly built the empire back to its original strength. They've returned for the rightful heir."
She watched his hold tighten around her son.
"Xavier, we will be fine." He was one of Mikhail's allies, one of the men that he had brought with him when he had returned to marry her.
"We can't escape the past, can we? Will it remain this never-ending cycle that just never stops? Can we ever have its claws removed from our sides?" He wondered aloud, as Alayna's mind whirled with the worst possible scenarios.
"I hope we can escape, because if we don't the past will surely consume us."
She turned to her son.
"Uncle Xavi is going to take care of you for a couple of days, ok baby? Remember, Mumma loves you, Mumma loved your dad. She loved everyone. Don't forget that please. Don't let them make you believe I was entirely evil. I love you, I really do just as every mother does."
"Don't go please." His squeaky voice stopped her from leaving.
"I have to baby, but when I'm back. From then, I won't leave you."
"Promise."
"Let God take my life if I try to run after that."
The young boy didn't understand the weight of his mother's words, nor was he likely to remember them. But she was honest when she spoke those words. There was not an ounce of a lie.
She spotted a black jacket that would help her blend into the shadows.
"I'm taking your jacket."
And that would be the last he will hear from her mouth.
She slipped out from his back door. Jumping fences and going through alleyways filled with men.
She eventually made it home. She let herself in. And walked over to him as she had rehearsed in her mind.
He looked up, looking at his distorted beloved through his teary eyes.
"Tell me we're in a dream, a nightmare in fact, cause this is a battle I don't think I can fight and definitely win."
The distress weaned off his aura.
She watched, unsure of how they were going to deal with this qayamat.
She sat beside him, he hadn't moved from that spot she first discovered him in.
Leaning her head upon his shoulder, this is what she did to tell him she was tired.
It was a different kind of tired this time. A fatigue that may never leave her body. She took the paper, this wasn't the Romanov emblem, this had a knife posing as the rose's stem.
She straightened up, overwhelmed with panic.
"Who is this?"
"I don't know. At first, I thought it to-" His voice faded as his eyes darted around the room.
He jumped up, "Where's Cihan? Where's our son?"
He was hysterical. Body trembling with fear. His eyes had widened.
She made her way over to him first, holding his hand to help him identify that it was her. And then pulling him into her arms. She held him close, letting him lean himself onto her. She slowly raked her hand through his hair.
"We're together this time. You're not alone."
"But you hate me!" He exclaimed like a child. "You hate me and you have all the right reasons to do so. You knew that I'd fuck up big time. There you are. I did just that! You'll divorce me straight after and take Cihan and then I'll be alone again. With no one to care for me. Yet again. I guess there must be a valid reason as to why God hates me. And I don't believe, no can love me I should have known. I should have listened to him and kept my distance. Look we came crashing down anyway."
"No. I'm not going anywhere. I refuse. I won't."
"But I haven't told you the truth."
"So tell me now."
He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes.
"Have you not been back to the house?"
She shook her head.
"The right side has been blown up. The day I last went to see you in jail. I go back to the house after collecting the kids from your brother's house. I had made dinner and the girls had come to eat but Cihan had refused. I went to his room to bribe him and I see a red dot focused on his head. Barely unmoving from that spot even though Cihan was basically jumping around. It was trained one, he must have gotten away. His name probably didn't appeal to me when I was in Russia. I grabbed him and threw ourselves across the room, he missed by a second. We are so lucky our son is living right now. By that much," He held his thumb and his index close with virtually no gap in between, "I was so afraid. I wasn't expecting everything to creep up on us. I know you told me to stay. I know it was wrong to dump the girls and leave. I was trying to protect my son. They have one target and it's our Cihan."
Her breath got stuck. It felt like her chest was on fire.
"As soon as night struck, I gathered everyone's stuff and left. I apologised to the girls and I know they probably don't forgive me. But I had to. I could not fight. I was unable to fight."
"So you thought let me take my son back to the home we had kept a secret for years? Besides I have an array of weapons in that house."
"How was I supposed to know?"
She curtly straightened her lips as she accepted that he was right.
"We know how dangerous Pakistan is to us. Its where everything started, it would make sense that the person behind the revival would be here. He would have started plotting right under our noses. Where's Cihan?"
She lowered her voice.
"On the next flight to England with Xavier. They'll live in the flat I purchased through Syed. They've got fake passports. They'll be fine."
"No. Not England that's where they all are. They'll find Cihan. They'll find both of them. Alayna bring them back!" He wailed, ready to get on his knees and beg.
She was uncovering a different version of him.
He was the one who she leaned on all these years. It was her time to do the same for him.
His disappearance was justified and he was right. She was fine. She is fine. Everything went smoothly. While he was living in fear.
"Why did you come here Mikhail?"
"Then where else? Russia? You wouldn't have even found our remains."
She sighed, taking a seat on the sofa she had slept on.
"Are you pregnant?" His question shocked her.
"I don't think we need to be thinking about other children, when our only one is in danger."
He simply shrugged.
They sat in silence for a good while.
"Who told you to come back?"
She looked away in shame, he knew she had no intent of coming back.
"Salman."
Again, silence reigned. It seemed like he had sobered up, so it was time to ask him.
"Mikhail."
"Hmm?"
"What happened to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
He didn't reply; he refused to do so.
She held his face in her hands, silently telling him to look at her. And just as they locked eyes, tears ran.
She never truly knew what this man had been through.
"You've been strong for too long my love. Lean on me." His shoulders sagged, as soon as her words registered with himself. It seemed the few words had taken years of burden off of his shoulders.
He let his body lighten and drop. Laying his head on her lap, his heart had slowed, he truly felt safe. He was in the arms of the woman whom he loved and whom loved him.
"I was at the ripe age of 11. After school, I came home to my ruined home. The garden trashed, windows smashed, nothing the same as I had left it. I rushed into the house to be welcomed with the retched sight of both my parents lying in their own blood. Their faces unrecognisable, but I knew. My mother's uniquely moulded wedding band adorned her hand. My father had a pendant around his neck that had our pictures inside. Stood close by were their murderers. They had blood on their hands yet they still carried along with their usual lives." He stopped, raising his hands to his face.
"Just like us." He whispered examining Alayna's hand, alongside his own.
"I know." She shed a tear, she never thought she would become a killer. On that 18th Birthday, she knew she was helpless, she knew she was pathetic. She never knew she could have blood on her hands.
"And then?"
"They took me in of course. Taught me their ways, but they knew deep down I could never be one of them. They knew that I had a beating heart within. They forced me to kill a man who had no crime, they had taken a man from the roads, had men beaten him up and I- I was forced to end him. " His voice cracked up with guilt.
"He-he took my hand and wrapped it around the gun. I couldn't fight against a fully grown man. He pulled the trigger, and I watched that man's accusing gaze target me. It has never left me. broke down. I had panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, I couldn't sleep, cause all I could see was that man's face. From there I was bullied, my uncle looked down at me, constantly taunting me, when caught by my grandfather he claimed he was 'toughening' me up. And since then, I was sucked in. Nothing had any worth. Until I found...you."
His eyes locked onto hers, a thousand declarations of love lived in that gaze.
"I don't know you did to me. Maybe it was the fire of determination in your eyes or the confidence in your stride that you pulled me in. You made me want to own myself. To live. To avenge myself. To break free from the shackles that they tied to my feet." He took a moment to breathe.
"I owe you my life, my Yana. Everything I have now is in debt to you."
"Mikhail," she whispered, his words heavy with showering love. "You owe me nothing. I owe you everything. You don't know how many times you saved me."
The two had been through the depths of hell on earth to get where they were stood today. They stood stronger together, with their chins up higher up. They knew they could rely on each other. They would get through this.
They would get through this and live the life they once did.
They are Alayna and Mikhail, the couple that never gave up.
"Mikahil?"
"Yes?"
"My mother's alive."
"What?" He jumped up.
"She's alive, Mikhail." She hiccuped.
He looked at her in disbelief.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded, unable to speak.
He look at her, unable to speak, unable to understand how this was possible.
"I think the answer to what happened lies in Russia."
He nodded.
"We're going to have to face them now."
He nodded again.
"If we leave it too late, we'll regret it."
"I think we ought to leave now." He looked at waiting for her reaction, but she only nodded.
So the two set out to Russia to recover fragments of the past and face the unknown enemy.
Life was taking a sharp turn.