Page 41 of The Tsar’s Obsession (Bratva Sinners #1)

Who hid behind these dirty words? They had names, they had photos, and they knew details of our lives.

Kirill called me svet moy only in private.

I was sure of it. Sunshine, svet moy, baby.

He was secretive and careful, never revealing details of our life together to anyone. So how could they have known?

The tears dried, but my teeth chattered. I couldn’t just come to him and demand an explanation, could I ?

An image of Kirill raping a girl infiltrated my mind and I shut my eyes tight. “No, no, no,” I chanted to myself.

Nausea crept up my collarbone, disgust and regret mixing together to poison his image. I saw him in my mind, and he was all splashed in blood.

The Tsar. Did he tell you?

The afternoon slipped away, but I remained locked in my office. I dwelled on the words, dissected the photos, and cried enough times to push myself close to a mental breakdown.

Just as darkness settled outside my windows, the ring of my phone startled me, and I jumped, inexplicably afraid of my surroundings. Of course. It was him.

“Hi, Sunshine. I’m downstairs. Ready to go?” Kirill’s gentle voice came through the speaker while I clenched my teeth, furiously trying to push the scenes of rape out of my mind.

Thirty minutes later we sat in front of each other in a restaurant while the letter shone brightly in my mind, the words bouncing around like a ping-pong ball.

They all looked just like you.

My mouth parched, I couldn’t hold it inside anymore, and somewhere between courses I blurted out, "Kirill, tell me about your mother. What was she like?” I gulped, doing my utmost to keep it casual, as if I hadn’t been bawling the entire afternoon.

Kirill furrowed his eyebrows and crossed his arms. “My mother?" he questioned suspiciously.

"Yes.” I put every effort into toning it down and responded kindly, "We've been together for a while, and I don't really know anything about her, so…I wanted to know."

"She died when I was nine," Kirill answered and clearly wasn’t planning to continue this conversation, so I probed again. Cautiously.

"I'm sorry. How did she die?"

"Why are you suddenly asking me this?" Kirill didn’t like to discuss his past; I knew that. He had only shared snippets, and although diplomatic about it, he’d shut down all past conversations. What a trend.

"Ugh, Kirill, look.” I licked my lips, not knowing where to settle my gaze. “It's important to me.” My voice shook slightly. “I want to know more about you and your past and childhood, but you never talk about it, and we never have time to discuss it, with all the work and the sex.”

My frustration was bubbling over. Of course , he didn’t want to discuss his past! It was all fitting in like a puzzle.

"Yes...the sex is good." Kirill was lost in happy thoughts, but then his expression quickly changed, and he turned somber and serious. With a deep sigh, he began a most heartbreaking and tragic story.

"My mother’s name was Irina. She…” He paused and looked right past me, as if searching his memory.

“I loved her very much. She, ugh…one day she disappeared. Just…gone. She and my father went mushroom picking one day. He’d pick mushrooms and then sell them in the local town.

To get money for another bottle,” Kirill scoffed bitterly.

“But that one day, she didn’t come back.

He did. He ran back in a panic, saying they got separated in the forest and he lost sight of her. ”

Kirill paused and looked blankly at the table while I listened with bated breath.

"We searched for days. The whole village. Everyone loved her; they couldn’t believe she was gone.

We even got the police…dogs, everything.

” He closed into himself further, gripping his crossed arms. “I– I really believed that she was just lost. That I’d find her, right behind a tree.

” He inhaled sharply, pressing his lips together. "Waiting for me.”

The man in front of me was shedding all his commanding and dominant persona, lowering his voice with every word.

“I spent days there—in the forest. From sunrise to sunset, I walked all day, calling for her, but we never found her. Not even a trace of her, nothing. It’s like she vanished into thin air. ”

Tears settled in my eyes as I listened to this tragedy.

“A few weeks later, some older boys went swimming in the local river, and they found her.” He nodded, still keeping his eyes on one spot on the tablecloth.

“She was in the river. Her body got stuck in the…ugh…like a fallen tree. We buried her in our village that same day.” He gulped, and I fully regretted asking this over dinn er or at all.

“Strangely, her body wasn’t decomposed…even though she’d died weeks ago.

She had bruises all over her neck, but she looked as beautiful as ever.

Like she was asleep.” Kirill stopped again and sighed.

His words were becoming more broken up, like he was trying to find the strength to explain the calamity.

“My father, he– ” Kirill shifted in his seat, the tension sharp between us.

“He drank. A lot. He was an alcoholic. One day he let it slip. Said that he was free now. That she wasn’t there to hold him back anymore,” Kirill spoke coldly.

“I was just a kid, but I wasn’t stupid. I understood.

He killed her. So I left home that day.”

Finally, Kirill’s beautiful green eyes met mine in a genuine plea for understanding.

“My mom loved me, and I loved her too. Very much. She was beautiful and caring. She was kind and soft and warm. She had a wonderful smile, and she always helped everyone. She was like a ray of sunshine; being in her presence made everything all right.” The details poured out of him, and he leaned in closer to me.

“She protected me and stood up for me. She tried her best to keep our family normal, even if it was anything but. She would take me on walks around the village, barefoot, and tell me about the earth and how much it gave us and loved us. She’d tell me how much she loved me.

She always told me she loved me. Maybe she thought that if she drilled it into my head, it would overpower the nightmare of living with my father.

I loved her so much. With all my heart.”

My heart. My heart could barely handle this story.

Slow, silent tears crawled down his cheeks, his eyes pure, his story terrifying.

“She never should’ve married my dad. He made her life hell, but all she ever was…

was a light in the darkness.” He sniffled, willing his tears away.

“There’s only so much you can do when your partner has an addiction.

It takes first place. Your wife and child will always come after,” Kirill mused, a dark chuckle breaking through the tears.

“She pleaded with him to stop, and he pr omised, but…he always relapsed within a few days. She was young when she died. Only twenty-eight.”

Kirill sighed and took a sip of his water. He was done. He wouldn’t say another word on the topic; that much was obvious.

I was certain I was running a high fever from this story and the information that appeared on my desk today. My body was hot, and I wanted to break down into sobs right there at the table.

What the fuck kind of childhood was that?! Why hadn’t he ever told me any of this?! I felt like my forehead was about to explode from the pressure of trying to hold in my tears and from all the rotten thoughts running through my brain.

I thought asking about his relationship with his mother would give me some sort of understanding. Maybe he held a grudge against all women? It was such a stupid thought. I was grasping at straws, but my mind was in disarray.

But after the absolutely devastating story, it was clear that Kirill held his mother in very high regard. Would a man like that hold a grudge against women, using and raping them?

No, but…maybe his painful childhood drove him to hold a grudge against the world and ruin many on his path.

"I'm so sorry, Kirill; that’s a very sad story and childhood." I looked down at the table too, almost whispering. The waiter came to top up our waters, and once he was gone, Kirill leaned over and quietly asked, "Why are you suddenly asking me about my mom?"

Not sure how to formulate my lie, I stuttered, "I don't know...I– I was just curious. What happened to your dad?" At this point I was just genuinely curious to hear how this catastrophe concluded.

"I don't know," Kirill responded, but this time with no pain in his voice. He sounded like he didn’t care. "I never went back. Never. He probably died from alcohol poisoning or burned the house down or something,” he ended, lifting up his hands as if to signify he really had no clue.

The rest of the dinner was excruciating. Not having any idea how to move past this revelation, Kirill’s words and the photos of those supposedly dead women flashed in my eyes, distracting me from reality.

I looked across the table at the man I loved and had the hardest time believing all those things about him.

Yet, in a second, it all seemed real again.

Kirill’s personality was certainly multifaceted.

He was brutal. He was merciless. He was a killer.

But he was also the most caring, gentle, and considerate man that I had ever been with.

His love and passion for me, for us , obliterated everything.

In silence, he drove us home, no doubt suspecting that something big, huge, monumental was on my mind.

I took a step inside our home, shaking and unable to hold back. As he was taking off his coat, I turned to him and asked the question,

“Kirill, have you ever raped a woman before?”