Page 48 of The Tsar’s Obsession (Bratva Sinners #1)

It Was All Nothing

Kirill

When I woke up in 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.

“Did you do 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 conversations and events in my past, but nothing had 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.

Like I threw 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, ever wanted 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– after waiting 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.

“No one needs your fucking coke money.” She laughed bitterly and ripped her hands out of mine, once and for all.

"Do not follow me, Kirill. Do not contact me, do not look for me, do not stalk me. I don't want anything to do with you and I never want to see you again.” This must have been just a nightmare; nothing was making sense. “You’ve really hurt me, and I can't forgive you. I won’t forgive you. No matter what you say or do. I don’t believe anything you say anyway.

” Her tears never ceased, such pain and disappointment reflecting in her eyes. “Because you’re a liar."

I wasn’t; I wasn’t a liar!

“Mia, Mia, please, please, wait!” My knees hit the ground, and I gripped her hips, refusing to let her go.

She cried silently into her hands, both of us knowing that my fuck-up was irreparable in her eyes.

“Baby, we can work this out. I promise. Just give me a chance to make it right, Mia; don’t walk away,” I begged, the sound so foreign to my ears.

“I love you so much, Mia. I will do anything to fix this.”

Oh God, my cheek pressed into her stomach, my fingers buried into her, I held on like she was a life raft and I was about to go down into the freezing water with the Titanic. This was turning into the biggest tragedy of my life.

“I can’t.” Mia’s quiet voice crushed all hope after the fragile pause.

“There’s nothing to say. I have to go. I can’t be with you, in your world, knowing what you’ve done.

” Her gentle fingers pushed on my shoulders, but I refused to let go.

On my knees, my own tears poured down my face, knowing that this was it.

She’d made the decision, and I knew I could never keep her against her will. “Let go…let me go. It’s all over.”

Mia stumbled out of my grasp, her footsteps echoing away from me with every beat of my heart. Like a zombie, I followed her down the street, my head empty and my heart ripped out of me.

"I can't let you go like that into nothing, Mia...” A cab pulled up, and I watched, as if handcuffed, how she opened the door, about to disappear from my life, and I was powerless to stop her.

All the power in the world that I possessed, all my influence, all my money, respect, and authority—I would have thrown it all away if that had stopped her.

“Ilya will drive you where you need to go; please remember that you’re not safe.

This can’t be the end.” My feeble attempt was a last-ditch effort to merely stop her actions, but she never paused.

"I'm no longer a part of your world, so my safety is not your concern anymore. Goodbye...Kirill." The cab door shut behind her, and the car left, taking my heart and soul and reason for being along with it.

I didn’t know what happened after that.

There was no more purpose. What was I doing with my life? What was I working for? What was I living for? I was here, thousands of miles away from home, my world precarious, my life on the line, and my heart no longer intact.

No pain I’d ever endured—not a bullet, not a blade, not a prison cell—came close to this heartbreak.

She was gone, and so was my will to exist.

Time blurred. Days bled into nights; it was all pointless. Dark thoughts settled inside my mind, her words repeating on a loop. You’re a liar. You lied to me. You will never touch me again. Everything between us is over.

No sleep, no food, just nicotine. I smoked nonstop, waiting for my body to shut off. My mind would spiral into never-ending doom, where I would question every single choice I’d made in my life .

I never cried. Men don’t cry. It was drilled into me as a child. My life, my culture, and my surroundings all reinforced that paradigm, but every day, every night without her, I cried. I bawled; I sobbed like the pathetic shell of a human being that I’d become.

I didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t want to be at the top. I only wanted Mia. But if I wasn’t The Tsar, then who was I?

It had been a week of agony when a call from a blocked number interrupted my ruminations. Viv. She showed up at the door to collect some of Mia’s things, beating my battered heart into a pulp. Mia was sticking with this decision.