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Chapter Two
RHYS
I look out the window, my large hands stretching out across the windowsill, spreading the curtains that I had imported; black velvet. Yes, it was a bit much. Everything I was doing here was a bit much, but I knew if I was ever going to win any respect after what I had done that it had to be all about appearances. That was my plan, though it was a shitty one.
I had gotten off the plane and bought this old mansion, and at first I felt so confident, because I had to be. Years ago, when I fucked up and lost so much for the Clans and found out the motherfucker I was trusting to be able to control had been torturing Mariana, our queen, all that damn time right under my nose, I thought I was done for. It was by the skin of my damn teeth, as they say, that I was allowed to keep on breathing, and I knew I didn’t deserve it. But I begged and pleaded like a fucking weasel and then went quiet. I only did what I was told when I was needed and stayed out of shit. I never thought I was going to get a chance to redeem myself, and now I was getting that chance. So, I just knew it had to work out.
But once I started doling out dumb fucking tasks like redoing this place and things like not bringing a huge security detail with me when I went out and about so I could earn some clout...I retreated.
I am a shitty little coward, and I know that now more than ever. Being out on the streets of the Ukraine scares me just a little. Not that I am afraid of some woman who has the country pussy whipped and whoever her followers are. I am part of the Romanian Clan and know how to handle myself. I am afraid that I will get nothing but hate no matter what I do. This is not Russia, but it's close enough that they know me; they know what I did. I am afraid of letting Mariana and Ion down.
Now, I am finding ways to make progress without truly making any progress. I am getting intel and giving this old place a makeover made for a king, the king I intend on being even though I have only left the mansion just a few times in the last two weeks.
What I can see of the city from here, on the outskirts in my high window, reminds me of home, and yet not. Ukraine has much of this meeting of the old and new, much like a lot of the area, a few are dirty, low down places for all the nobodies of the world where they crawl in holes and wait to freeze to death. But it seems almost worse here, and I have learned enough things to know that I am right about that.
This Vera may think she owns this place, but truly the drugs are king here, and it is damn hard to compete with that, and now I am here to give it a run for its money.
My phone begins to ring in my pocket, and I curse it, knowing there is a good chance the king and queen want an update, and even if it is just one of their lackeys calling for them, I know I will get judgement for having no progress yet. But I am doing things slow. At least, that is what I will say; playing it smart. And then I will get off the fucking phone and actually live up to that because soon I will run out of renovations and have to actually get up off my ass and find this Vera before she finds me. I am sure the rumors of the Romanian in the mansion will be circulating already.
As I try to be gracious and not argue with their disappointment through the receiver, my mind is elsewhere. I can see that prick’s face in my head now, the one who forced Mariana to have his child and kept her locked away for years...YEARS. I remember sitting and shooting the shit with him, doing shots in the same place where he had her and that kid, probably told to keep quiet or he would slit their throats or some shit.
He used to call me hisfrate, like we were family, and I believed he meant it. I thought I had caught the snake and was molding him into something not just useful to me but maybe worth someone’s time. Maybe all the Clan leaders wouldn’t hate him so damn much, but the whole time he was an insane asshole bent on torture, revenge, and random killing that benefited no one. The worst had to be killing the daughter of the Russian prime minister.
How fucked up and stupid does somebody have o be to commit that kind of crime?
When I got the news, I knew I had to run, had to leave for a while. For a year, I wandered Europe with no home, hoping things would calm down enough for me to go back. And they did, but we never got to have allies like that again. They hated us, and the Clan had all but been forgotten in the Ukraine as well, as a result. It just made Valentin more powerful in the area, and there was no way I or anyone else was up for challenging him. It was suicide.
