LEV
It was in the middle of the night, and I watched as Rose slept in our bed, she took calm breathes through her nose while her chest gently fell and lifted.
I stood in the dark and watched her in front of the bed because I didn't want to stain the bed with blood stains from my suit, since I had been out all day, haunting and killing a person.
Twenty-four hours ago, someone had tried to kill Rose, but I felt at ease once I saw her blissfully curled up in our bed, it toned down all of my concerns and fears.
Rose had her hands placed on her large belly as she was carrying our children. I had noticed the little detail how much she was fond of rubbing her belly and talking to the twins.
I could look at her for hours without ever getting sick of it.
There was always something new I found out about her, a tiny little detail about her that I couldn't get out of my mind.
It all began with her love to drink through straws, it was a must for her or else the drink didn't taste the same, her words.
After that, I noticed her love for dresses, she had an insane obsession with dresses, specifically summer dresses, and they had to be short to her knees.
But my favorite newly discovered detail about her was whenever she laughed, two dimples appeared on her cheeks, and I couldn't help myself but kiss her.
Not only was the sound of her laughter a drug to me, just her very existence became a cure to my wounded inner self.
I watched her sleeping on the bed for a few more moments, before I took my leave out of the master bedroom because even with a lack of sleep these past twenty-four hours since I had been out killing a person, I still had important things to do down the basement.
I strode down the staircase, checking on the watch on my wrist, because I wanted to show up at the perfect time in the basement.
When I was hallway through the dark living room, I felt a presence behind me from a distance, the presence of Rose because I knew her gaze, it was something I had gradually grown used to.
Another detail about her, she loved watching me from afar, it could be when I worked in my office or made us breakfast in the kitchen, she loved to watch me.
I walked out of the living room, and made my way through the dark halls, but I still felt her presence because she followed me as I could make out faint footsteps.
A few guards on the night shift greeted me, and I ordered them not to stop Rose from following me down the basement.
If she wished to follow me, she had every right because this was also her house, and I wasn't going to keep any secrets from her.
I stopped in front of a bookcase, taking out the red book, and pressed a very small button on the side of the book that was barely visible to the naked eye.
The entire bookcase moved because behind the bookcase was a secret elevator that was already open for me to step inside.
I entered the elevator that took me four levels down. I stepped out of the elevator when it reached the basement, and I walked through the halls covered in cement.
The basement was larger than the mansion, that had prison cells, torture chambers, interrogation rooms, and training grounds for my men that were in the Bratva.
It had a high level of security as nobody could get inside, and if the police ever found this place, the entire basement would collapse.
But Cordelia Mikhaylov, my step-mother and the second wife of my late-father, had made her way past my strictly high security, and tried to kill Rose.
I was never going to forgive somebody for a crime like hers.
I entered a dark room at the end of the hall where the main torture chambers lay. I turned on the dim lights and I took in the room that consisted of four cement walls.
The woman herself, Cordelia, was tied to a metal chair in the middle of the room, her ankles were tied to the metal chair as well as her hands.
But she had struggled, I could see it because of her bruised wrists and purple ankles.
She hadn't been touched or tortured yet, instead she had been locked inside the dark basement room for exactly twenty-four hours, to break her mind, to tear her emotions into shreds.
There was a record player next to the door with a few vinyl records inside a box.
I chose a vinyl disc and put it on the record player, as Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 / Act 1 - Dance Of The Knights began to play.
Some classical music doesn't hurt when torturing somebody.
I went on to take a seat in the corner of the dimly lit room, on a black leather chair. I crossed my legs while I took out one of my cigars and a lighter as I lit the cigar.
I began to draw in long, slow smokes, because I was aware I would be in here for a long while.
"Do you wish to confess to your sins?" I began to ask Cordelia, the woman who was never a mother to me, instead she always had a weird infatuation with me.
After my mother died of childbirth, Cordelia married my father when I was only a few months old because she was a daughter of a consigliere from the Italian mafia.
But whoever her father had been did not matter inside my torture chambers.
I did not care about a person's power, wealth or fame when I tortured them, I only cared about torturing them.
I never spared anybody, all the people who ended up in the torture chambers died, and the woman tied in the chair would soon die too.
"I won't repeat myself again. Do you wish to confess to your sins?" I asked her one last time, while I drew in another smoke, the nicotine spreading throughout my lungs.
Her face went pale when she looked up at me, her lips dry from dehydration, and her gaze was that of a helpless woman.
She was utterly helpless because nobody would have rescued her, or I was going to kill that person too.
"Lev... I'm your mother." The woman answered, but not the kind of answer I would have liked.
No answer by her was good enough even if she did confess to her sins, she would have died by my hands either way.
I would not let a person go who dared to hurt Rose Spencer, anybody who had the audacity to lay their hands on my woman would end up dying by my hands, it was simple as that.
"You're crazy for that woman... and she's a Spencer too." Cordelia hysterically laughed, but her laughter was empty, as she had no more emotions within her.
I had broken Cordelia, she tried to act tough, but it never worked, she was too weak.
"She's a whore..." Cordelia says, as she soon will wish that she had never uttered those words.
I laid the cigar between my lips while standing up from the armchair, and taking off my black coat, throwing it on the leather chair.
My gaze was glued to Cordelia the entire time as she shivered because there was no kindness or mercy in my eyes.
I rolled up the sleeves of my white shirt, exposing the tattoos on my forearm that each had a meaning of their own.
"L-Lev... D-Don't..." Cordelia's sobs had turned quiet, and she understood the graveness of her situation.
I took the cigar between my fingers again, drawing in slow smokes as I walked behind her, because behind the chair Cordelia was sitting on was a table filled with sharp objects, as well as closed boxes and inside those boxes were horrific things.
"Why d-do you like h-her so m-much?" Cordelia asks through her sobs, while struggling on the chair to get herself free.
At that moment, Rose stepped inside the room because she had decided to follow me down the basement.
Her eyes turned wide at the sight in front of her, but she wasn't afraid, instead she took a seat on the armchair, wrapping her hands around herself since it was cold in the basement, especially during the colder seasons.
I put out the cigar because Rose was pregnant and the smoke wasn't good for her, then I made my way towards her.
I took my coat that I had thrown on the chair, and put it around her shoulders because she wore nothing but her thin pajamas.
My coat was slightly covered in blood stains, but they were barely visible, as I did not want Rose to freeze in the basement
"Are you sure you want to be here?" I questioned her, gently lifting her chin up with my fingers, and our eyes met.
Her amber eyes evoked a resemblance to a daffodil, as they were almost golden, yet the golden shade harmoniously blended with the brown color in her eyes.
Her eyes were beautiful as they were filled with raw emotions.
"I want to see." She responded in confidence, wrapping herself deeper into my coat, and the sight of her in my coat sent shudders down my spine.
"Remember that you can leave at any moment." I told her, and she nodded.
"But Lev..." She whispers gently my name. "Tell me the truth, what will you do with her?"
"That's a surprise." I placed a kiss on the top of her head before I walked away from her, and back to the table behind Cordelia, who had been silent the entire time.
I picked up the short dark gloves on the table, and put them on my hands for protection.
"Let the game." My words were directed to Cordelia, who tried to look behind her at me, but she couldn't, she was tied tightly around her ankles and wrists.
"Which box should I pick first?" My voice was grim, there were no emotions or any amusement to my voice.
"The box in the middle." Rose spoke up from the armchair, and my gaze drifted to hers as I couldn't believe that she was mine, all mine.
"As my love wishes." I said to her, my gaze drifting back to the five boxes on the table.
I opened the closed box in the middle as per my Rose's request, because I wasn't going to use any sharp tools on Cordelia, that would be too generous of me.
Inside the box there were many ice cubes, but underneath all the ice cubes was the heart of a human that I had personally killed and taken their heart out.
I hadn't gotten an ounce of sleep because I had been on a haunt, killing the person, and carving out their most important organ.
Cordelia wanted to kill the woman I love, the woman who had become the epitome of my existence, so I killed the person she loved.
I would force Cordelia to eat the heart of the person she loved, a person she adored, and who she would die without having them on her side.
I took the heart in my hands and placed it on a white polished plate.
My eyes followed Rose's reaction, as she was shocked to see the heart of a human on the plate, but she made no move to run away or leave the basement.
"Is that a human heart?" Rose asks, her voice almost like a mere whisper.
"Yes." I replied, returning my focus on the human heart of the person Cordelia loved the most.
Cordelia was obsessed with me, but this person was her reason for existence.
"W-What?" Cordelia's voice cracked through her sobs, because of Rose's words about the human heart.
"You must be hungry?" I questioned Cordelia, who let out a horrific shriek.
"After all, you have been locked inside the basement for the past twenty-four hours."
There was not an ounce of mercy in my voice, as I was not somebody who showed mercy on other people who crossed me.
I had called for one of my men to bring a table inside the room. One of them brought a small coffee table and put it in front of Cordelia, then left the room.
I walked over in front of her with the plate in my hand, and placed the plate on the coffee table as she screamed, but I clasped my hand over Cordelia's mouth, to shut her up.
She tried to bite into my hand, but it was useless because the dark gloves I had on protected me from her teeth.
"Does her screams hurt your ears?" My question was directed to Rose because Cordelia's screams were very loud, even over the music.
"No, they don't." I released my hand from Cordelia's mouth once I knew that Rose's ears didn't hurt from all the screaming.
I went behind the chair, taking a sharp kitchen knife along with a fork from the table. I stepped in front of Cordelia again, as her bloodshot eyes glared at me.
"I hope you have a big appetite because the heart is only the beginning." I told her, kneeling by the coffee table, and cutting right through the raw heart as blood splattered on the plate.
Cordelia struggled, kicking, screaming, crying, trying to break her wrists and ankles, because she didn't want to eat the heart.
I cut the heart into ten large pieces, and began to feed her the largest piece, but she shut her mouth, shaking her head while the tears couldn't stop streaming down her cheeks.
The fork with the piece of a raw heart was right in front of her closed lips, because she didn't want to eat it.
"Have it your way." I said, then called for one of my men to help me.
One of them came inside the room as I ordered them to keep her mouth open. He did what I ordered, as he used his hands to open her closed mouth, showing off her white teeth.
"Now that's better."
I put the piece of raw heart inside her mouth, and she was forced to chew the meat even through her gags with the help of the man who was holding by her mouth.
It took awhile for her to chew the meat, but at the end she swallowed the heart.
"Nine more to go." I informed Cordelia, who couldn't stop crying once she swallowed the heart.
The ninth, eight and seventh piece was also tough to get her to chew, but she ended up consuming it, there was no other way out for her, she was paying the price.
The sixth, fifth and fourth piece of heart was easier to get her to eat, but still a struggle because she yelled for everything to stop, for us to stop.
The third, second, and last piece she began to motionless chew the meat, as nobody needed to hold into her jaw and force her to eat the heart.
Once she ate all the pieces, she looked at the floor with an emotionless gaze, while I told the man to leave the room because I had broken her mind beyond repair.
I took a step back from her, taking a napkin from my pocket and cleaning the blood from the fork while I questioned her, "How did the heart of your father taste?"
Her eyes widened as she started to vomit all over herself, puking out all the pieces of the heart she had chewed and consumed.
I ignored the puking woman for now, and focused my attention on Rose who was still here in the basement with me, she hadn't left yet, as she did not seem scared or terrified.
Her intense gaze was fixed on Cordelia who was suffering, but she didn't reveal an ounce of guilt, pity or regret.
"Is it too much for you?" I ask her, as the music from the record player had stopped.
Her eyes drifted to mine, as she seemed tense because of my cold eyes, but I softened them.
"Was the owner of the heart really her father?" Rose lowered her eyes to her lap.
"Yes, the owner of the heart was Cordelia's father who I killed because she was her papà's girl, she really loved her father." I explained, as she looked up at me.
"But Cordelia made a grave mistake by trying to kill the person I love, she's now paying the price."
Rose slowly nodded, but then she asked the unexpected, "Can you teach me?"
"Teach you?" I was surprised, because I didn't think she would ask me this, out of all the things she could have asked.
"Teach me, Lev. I want to learn how to defend myself." She stood up from the armchair, and I placed my arms around her, pulling her close to me.
Rose Spencer was full of surprises, in my eyes she looked innocent, somebody I needed to protect and shield because a man from the Mikhaylov family always protected his woman.
I sounded old-fashioned, but that tradition had always passed down the generations. I had heard the stories about my father and mother, as he was madly obsessed with his wife.
But Rose wanted to defend herself and expand beyond the person she's right now.
"Why do you want to learn?" I asked because being taught violent torturing methods took away a lot of a person's sanity.
"I want to learn how to stand on my own two feet, instead of always depending on other people, because one day that might get me killed." She confessed.
"What if Perry or you weren't at the mansion when Cordelia chased me with a knife? The guards were at home, but they weren't there when she tried to kill me. I could have died, Lev."
She was right, she could have died, she could have died in our home when I was in a meeting, because Cordelia knew her way around the mansion and tried to kill Rose.
"I also want to learn how I should torture Marco Spencer. I know that you can do it for me, Lev, but I want to hurt Marco the way he had hurt me and my friends, make him feel the same pain." She expressed her feelings about how helpless she felt.
I rubbed a hand on her back because she had no idea how much of my feelings I held back from her, how much of the feelings I had for her were locked deep away, because I was mad for her, obsessed with her, and would do anything for her.
It took me a few moments before I could say the phrase, "I will teach you. I will teach you everything you need to know."
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
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