Page 1 of Sins and Virtue

Prologue

Konstantin

Somewhere off the coast of Italy…

It was dark and cold, and there was nothing left to hope for.

There was only certain death.

Cold empty abyss of nothing hidden and locked beneath these four walls and silver bars that kept me imprisoned for the last few years.

Rotting away in this hell wasn’t a part of my plan.

Not that any of my planning had gone the way I wanted. All because of those fucking traitors— Adrian, the Brotherhood, the Familiga, and all those fucking cowards that called themselves Made men. They were nothing but pigs to the slaughter. Ones I should have killed myself.

Don’t know why you didn’t.

The voice inside my head said. Annoyed. Hurt.Infuriated.

If you had listened when I told you to end them, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Eedeeot!

The constant cycle of blame was something I had grown accustomed to, asheconstantly liked to remind me.

After all, technically, it was me who wanted to turn the other cheek and ignore the signs. It was my last inkling of humanity and morality that kept me linked to emotions.

Emotions were a liability.

Unstable.Insignificant. Blindsiding the mind's perception and leading to error and miscalculation.

It was the only reason I was caught and dragged to this hellhole while the ones who I trusted and called brothers watched me do so. They relied on my downfall to enact their treacherous plans. Not even after our Pakhan had “died” or when we resisted the domination of the Romanovs did I fall before our enemies.

“Fuck,” I gritted, lamenting for the thousandth time as I laid back on my bunk, staring at the gray-ash, moldy cemented ceilings— the same ones that been there for the last few years, the last thousand days. Daydreaming of the times when I stood in the most luxurious hotels, the best restaurants, and the finest mansions, and I never took the time to admire the simplicity or complexity of the ceilings. Something I took for granted. Many do.

But when you’re behind these bars, you learn to never take anything for granted.

Shit, how did I go from the kid on the street with nothing to the mobster behind bars with still nothing?

The saying was true: the higher the rise, the harder the fall.

Planning to escape wasn’t viable since this was a high maximum security prison off the Mediterranean coast where the only place you could leave was into the town or the ocean. So it didn’t make sense to go down that route.

There was no one who could infiltrate and help me escape. After all, I didn’t have any allies left. Being abandoned and forgotten in this place was a worse fate than death.

Mostly because there was no one left to remember me.

No Mother. No Father. No brothers. No wife.

Ah, how pitiful. Shut up, before I slice your neck and let us both die out here.He heaved in annoyance.

He was more restless than usual, especially because I kept him chained up, prohibited from leaving his chambers.

But wallowing in guilt and sitting here like a whiny bitch wasn’t going to do me any favors.

The scent of fresh sea salt and sand settled against my nostrils and wrestled into my system. Nightfall had settled, the full moon was at its peak, the silver haze cracked in between the slits of the window, and the grey stormy clouds foreshadowed a storm on the horizon.

This was my whole life, full of obscure, bleak grays. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Yet that little pop of yellow bloomed when I closed my eyes, and all I saw was that sweet little nun who tried to lead me to repentance. With the face of an angel and body of a temptress, she was the first woman I had seen in years to forge fire in my blood.