“I can’t stay,” I tell him, slipping on my coat.
“Can you read me to sleep?”
“Your mother can do that.”
Alexei pouted and stomped his foot. “But I want you!”
“Alexei, stop this nonsense. Your mother will read to you. I will be back later. You will see me tomorrow.”
“Please,” he begged, tugging on my sleeve.
“Enough!” I shouted, making him gasp and scramble away from me. He ran to the couch and crouched down, eyeing me with fear. All the anger instantly left me.
But I didn’t walk over and comfort him. Work was more important.
So, I left, and that would be the biggest regret of my life.
The moment I returned from work, I knew something was wrong. The air was too quiet. Too tense.
I pushed the door open and stepped into something wet. Glancing down, I saw it was blood. I grabbed my gun without thinking and walked into the house.
It didn’t take long for me to find him.
Alexei.
The body of my little boy.
He was lying on the living room floor, his teddy bear next to his body, covered in blood. He’d been stabbed.
I quickly looked away, inhaling deeply. The sight of my boy dead was unbearable. How? Why? How?
A sound by the stairs made me turn. It was Natasha. She was alive but covered in blood from the stab wounds to her body.
“Mikhail,” she whispered.
I ran to her. “What happened?”
“He’s dead,” she sobbed, clutching her hands around the wounds in her stomach. “Alexei is dead.”
“How?”
“Men came in and attacked us. They hurt me.”
I didn’t need to ask how. I already knew. It wasn’t just the stab wounds she was talking about.
“There was one man who did it. Who killed Alexei and made me watch.”
“Who? Natasha, who?”
“Ivan Petrov,” she whispered. “It was Ivan Petrov.”
I stood up and called for the doctor I always used in emergencies. Natasha would be fine. They would save her.
But my little boy was dead. And the last thing he ever experienced from me was anger. I’d shouted at him. That was what I’d left him with.
I couldn’t stand to look at his body as I left the house. Ivan Petrov was my father’s enemy and now mine. The Petrovs and the Ivanovs have been at war for years, and Ivan had just announced war by killing my son.
I would have to wait to attack him. Ivan Petrov was a powerful, well-guarded man. I made a vow I would do to his son to what he did to me. His son, Damien Petrov, was ten. I would come for him and get my revenge.
But there was nothing I could do right then and there except sit in my car, not going anywhere, and sob until my lungs hurt.
Present Day
Watching Sofiya leave me in tears brings back all the memories I tried so hard to keep down. Natasha later died from suicide after the incident. She couldn’t handle losing our baby and the trauma she’d experienced at the hands of Ivan’s men.
I never did get my revenge. Ivan had died of a heart attack not soon after, and his son, Damien, was taken into hiding. I haven’t seen him since he was ten and I was twenty-five.
I’m not sure I ever will.
I had to learn to move on from my past. I was ready to start anew with Sofiya, but now, she’s asking questions. I don’t know how to be honest with her about it. I’m not a man who’s ever vulnerable. The last time was the day of Alexei’s death.
I shut my heart off after that day, but Sofiya has reawakened something inside me. I don’t want to be alone anymore.
With a sigh, I sit on the bench and bury my head in my hands.
