Page 83 of The Tsar's Obsession
Over. Everything was over, broken, shattered. The pain in my heart was real, sharp, and overpowering. Hot tears clouded my vision; bitterness and regret stuck somewhere in my throat.
“Mia…” That gentle voice that I had grown to love called out to me, his touch so tender on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sunshine, there isn’t–” He broke off, searching for the right words. “There wasn’t a time…I kept putting off telling you.” My eyes zoned in on the man in front of me, looking like a lost puppy. “I deeply regret having done that. Please, Mia."
I finally understood who was in front of me. A ruthless killer.How could he be good if he did what he did?He was all rotten. I lived in some kind of delusion that maybe his violent actions were restricted to those I didn’t know. Restricted to the ‘bad’ people of his world. But he was bad too.
Having found real evidence of his attack on someone who was inmylife jerked me awake and screamed the truth in my face: Kirill was not a good man. And he was dragging me into his world, bit by bit, inch by inch, until it would be my turn to experience his wrath.
I wiped my tear-streaked face with trembling hands, my body recoiling from his presence. The man I loved. The man I didn’t know at all.
“Didyoudo it?”
36
It Was All Nothing
Kirill
WhenIwokeupin the morning, my eyes lingered on the sleeping beauty beside me longer than ever. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to go to work, I didn’t want to do anything, I just wanted to stay with her in the soft bed we shared every night. I should have stayed.
“Didyoudo it, or did you have someone else do the dirty work for you?" Mia's eyes were pure venom as she clarified the question. There was no way around it now; we were here, the consequences of my past actions charging at me with a vengeance.
Every second of this was excruciating.
"I had someone else..." I answered quietly after a small pause, not wanting to complete the sentence. Mia scoffed and continued her torture.
"Didn't want to get your hands bloody, huh?" Tears threatened to burst out of her eyes again, and as if lost for strength, she merely dropped her arms beside her and took a tiny step back, heartbreak written all over her face. That tiny step signified so much more. Her defeat and disappointment. Her resentment and hatred for me.
I had lived through so many difficult conversationsand events in my past, butnothinghad prepared me for the disillusion in Mia’s eyes.
"Mia, look..." Fear pulsated through me like never before. My time was running out, and if I didn’t say the right thing, she would walk out of my life, and then…well, then there would be nothing left of me.
This was so much worse than I had ever anticipated. How the hell did she find the damn chain! "I was truly a different man when all that happened. I've changed. I can feel it, and you know it too–"
“No, you’re still the same man, Kirill!” She spat back bitterly. “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! What the fuck was I thinking?!"
Every one of her words pierced me like a bullet, all my past injuries flaring up. “Mia…” But the hate in her eyes killed all the words on my tongue.
"I never want to see you again.” Mia sniffled, saying those horrible words. “You’re a liar, and a manipulator, and a killer. And you barged into my life, and like a complete lunatic, I fell in love with you!”
She was slipping away with every passing second, and I stayed silent, watching the scene as if it was an out-of-body experience. “Whatever we had, it’s over now.” She pronounced the poisonous words, and I couldn’t pull myself together to respond anything. "It’s over,” she nodded quickly and wiped her tears. “Please, just leave me alone. I never want to see you again.” Genuine shock overcame me that this whole incident descended into hell like this. “I'm disgusted at myself, and I hate myself for falling in love with you.”
As if in a movie, Mia stepped back and turned around, her heels clicking on the sidewalk with every long stride she took away from me. My brain couldn’t catch up with the events unfolding in front of my eyes. But one thing was certain: she couldn’t leave.
My hands were on hers within a second. I spun her around, speechless and fucking petrified of this situation.
“Please, please, Mia, just hear me out...please, just listen to me.” I hadn’t cried in years, decades maybe, but my hot tears were unstoppable. “I saw you leave with him after our meeting in your office, and it was so evident that he was into you.” I had to pause to fill my lungs with air, on the verge of a fucking heart attack. “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.”
It was all wrong; everything I was saying was digging a deeper grave, but I had no idea how to pick the right words. I’d never been so lost before in my whole damn life! “Look, you've changed me, Mia. You've shown me what true joy and happiness are like, and I've never had that before. 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!” Mia shouted back in pure rage. “And you sell drugs, and then people die from that too!" Her sobs ripped through me. Her pain was my pain. “No amount of church-going is ever going to clean your bloody hands!” And as if in slow motion, I witnessed Mia reach toward her neck and rip off the chain with the Orthodox cross, breaking our bond, our love, and our union, in a physical way.
This cross was so much more than a religious piece of jewelry. It was a symbol of our love. We were of the same faith and were drawn to each other before we even knew how connected we were. Between her tears and sobs, she tossed it toward me, discarding it like she was throwing away everything that happened between us. LikeIthrew it all away with my long-term lie.
The chain in my hands, tears in my eyes, and no words on my lips, I pulled at my hair, descending into a frenzied state as I felt a sob leave my chest. I hadn’t cried in so long that I wasn’t even sure how it felt; I just wanted to die.
Quickly trying to pull myself together, I pleaded again, "Mia, I can't deny that I’ve done a lot of wrong and bad in my life, but I never,everwanted to hurt you. You’re a pure ray of light, and you have changed who I am. I'm sorry I did what I did, but after– afterwaiting so long to see you, I couldn't imagine that someone would be in my way.” I swallowed my tears. “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, Mia. I will do anything.” But my words meant nothing to her.
She took another step back.
