Bound to the Don and His Guard

MILO

Peteri and I walk in silence back home.

He is unaware of the two guards across the streets trailing us — one on each side of the road. Growing up with them simply means I am not, and I cast a side glance at them. They changed often, but their job title remained the same. They were my personal guards who answered to my father. 

I had just turned 21, yet Father still deemed their presence necessary. Acid courses through my veins, and I bite back my irritation as I turn my gaze away, reaching for Peteri’s hand. He smiles at me and I give him one of mine.

The first time the guards had caught me with Peteri, they had rushed straight to Father and fed him every single detail of the encounter, ignoring the part that I was the one who had approached Peteri that particular day. 

Peteri is the most handsome guy in my school and part of the debate team. The first day he smiled at me, it felt like my whole world melted all at once. It was the first time he’d seen me and acknowledged me, even though I’ve had a huge crush on him since I could remember. 

Yet, the moment we sat in the field talking about things and the school bell rang, I did not want to leave, despite knowing that father’s goons would charge in any moment, searching for me. 

If Father had his way, sending them into school grounds during learning hours, he would have, but I managed to convince him that it would be terrible for my social status, and it wouldn’t help in making me less hidden.

If I had armed men trailing me every second of the day, it would just only draw attention to me, and Lord knows that attention was the one thing I hated.

I already got them enough from my looks alone.

I have no idea how I won that battle, only that I did and Father stopped his guards from coming into school afterwards. 

We reach the front of my pretend house, a small suburban house off the street, a few blocks from my veritable house. A nice family sat at the dining table, eating what I imagine to be a delicious dinner with their little boy. 

I know the family. 

I always greet them on my way to school and every time Peteri follows me just outside their house, I feel guilty for using them like this, but I’m doing this for Peteri. Bringing him near my father is not exactly something I’m ready for. 

“This is me,” I say, dipping my hand into the ass pockets of my blue jeans, swaying in steps. I bite down my lower lips in anticipation. This is where the kiss comes in. I hope he sees the clue and finally kisses me but instead, he smiles shyly, caressing my hand. 

Go for it. 

Go for it, Peteri.

I hold my breath in anticipation, but it doesn’t come. He reaches in to hug me and I wrap my hand around him enjoying the sweet floral scent from his perfume. I close my eyes, taking in every breath of the cologne as it hits me, pulling away only when his fingers dropped to the side and he stared at me for a long moment. 

Momentarily, I wait with bated breath, counting each second as it passes by for his lips to connect with mine. I’ve always fantasized about what the taste of his lips would feel like on mine. The softness of that pinkish flesh against mine. I’ve imagined more than that but we’re both too shy and young to go that way. 

Not to mention, father would kill him. 

“Alright now. Bye.” He waves at me with that same smile before turning away. 

I stand there, downcasted that the date did not end as I hoped, but also the euphoria of having gone on a date with Peteri. 

Jamel would want to hear every single detail on it. 

“Master Milo,” a husky voice pulls me from my thoughts. 

I snatch my attention back to the tall man staring down at me with that crude look as though I am a child making their lives miserable. In a way, I supposed I was.

“What?” I scowled, before turning away. The black sedan pulls over and another of the men steps out, opening the door to give me access. I breeze past him into the car, leaning back with a sigh. 

Back to the normal boring life, I guess. 

If there’s one good thing about this, it’s the silence they afford me. They do not speak to me beyond the occasional requests from Father, otherwise they pretend like they are not there and even when I tell them to get lost, they do their best to, even though I still notice them lurking around the corners. 

The wheels to a stop outside the mansion, waiting for the gates to slide open before driving in. I step out of it before it reels to a complete stop, rushing inside of the house and making my way straight into the empty living room up towards my father's chambers. 

It’s always best if I complain about their lack of proprieties before they fill him  in on the details. We’ve been doing this dance since I was fifteen. I like a boy or girl,  choose to go out with them and then I have to basically report myself to my father before the goons come in or he would deal with them. 

As I move closer to the door, the harsh tone of Father makes me jerk, because I hadn’t expected him to come from behind me.

“Damn those assholes!” he curses, tugging on his tie until it snaps off his neck. It must have hurt, but he shows no physical response to it.

I immediately go still from the shock, being as still as furniture as Father breeze past me without a second glance at me, his face a mask of fury, each step purposeful. My eyes pop wide open at the crimson blood that stains him. It is everywhere; from sprinkles on his face, to the thick pool on his white shirt and on his hair and every other part of him. 

He looked like he had simply stepped into a bucket of red dye. 

And I know the blood isn’t his.

“Father, what happened?” I say, recovering enough to run after him.

“Not now, Milo,” he says, still not looking at me as he raises his hand. George, Stephan and four others, all part of his inner circle, trails behind him, their gazes fixed in front of them as though they cannot see me standing there. 

Father pushes the large door to his office open, letting them in. With one final glance at me, a warning that I should not dare eavesdrop on them, he shuts the door. 

I stand there, unsure of what to make of it. Something bad must have happened, else why is father summoning the whole inner circle? Whose blood is he covered in? 

It’s not my business however, so why should I care? 

Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I make my way out of the corridor onto the stairs leading to my room, halting only when curiosity gets the best of me. I’ve never seen Father that way before. 

Something has to have happened to have him stained with so much blood that isn’t his and had not let him clean up the blood before coming home. And to summon the whole inner circle? Not all though. 

Ivan was not with him. 

I turn back, making my way to the door. I know Father made it clear I shouldn’t be here, but there’s only one way to find the answers I need and that was through my special skill of eavesdropping.

I could make myself a ghost if I needed to.

Father’s voice is loud like he has a microphone inside his throat, making it easier for me as I don’t have to press up against the door. I still check the hallways to make sure they are empty before I press up against it, wanting to hear every detail I can.

“This is a fucking disaster. All of it!” Something shatters to the ground, and I know from the sound alone that it is the glass vase that used to be placed on top of the fireplace. I strain my ears to listen with rapt attention, never mind that the door can open any moment and anyone would see me listening in.

“We have to think of a way out of this,” A gruff, almost incoherent voice says. It is a distinct voice. I recognize the voice to be George’s. 

I once had a crush on George. 

I want to consider it a childish crush even though his presence still makes my toes curl, and unlike Peteri, my crush for George had been entirely sexual. It was just a wild childish fantasy of a boy newly exposed to teenage hormones.

 It was short-lived, and had lasted only for as long as I knew him before I watched him shoot a man without flinching. Of course, he did not know I saw him, the same way he had no clue I had a crush on him. It was just my young mind and I, navigating the labyrinth of killers. 

Occasionally with Ivan for company. 

Ivan is my elder brother by a few years, and he joined Father’s business the minute he became eighteen, although Father had been brewing for him long before then. Like the rest of Father’s men, Ivan has killed before, but it’s different. 

He’s told me so. 

He never enjoys it when he has to kill, but to show strength, and to protect that which is his duty, he must. It’s a duty I will never understand. 

Many times, I wonder why we are not like the normal families out there. Why these men walk into our house and leave every day, why there are places in this house Father keeps locked up to me, his family, but open to these other men he calls business partners.

“We have enemies closing in on us from every angle. This could not have happened at the wrongest of time,” Father says. His voice is calmer now, more collected. I imagine him cracking his knuckles for comfort as he always does. Chair scrapes from inside and he leans back. “We have to think of something.”

“We can seek alliance from Isaak,” Stephan says. His voice is the most high pitched out of all the other men, and I get the impression it is something he hates.

“The man hates us. I will be surprised if he’s not the first to march in here with his men to wipe us off the map.” Father sounds offended Stephan brought it up, and I hear the sound of a whiskey tumbler opening.

“But he’s the most reasonable of all our enemies right now,” Stephan counters.

“He’s got a point,” George adds. “And if we align ourselves with Isaak right now, no one will mess with us. Not when we have his protection.”

“But what can we offer him? As it is now, we have nothing to give. Nothing he needs. The man is a sadist. He just wants to see us suffer,” Father’s voice hasn’t dropped in pitch, still in that same collected voice.

“Damnit!” he curses again. 

Something terrible must have happened to rile them all up like this. Father is currently cursing after every sentence. He’s in a mood now and it would be worse time to provoke him. 

A voice inside my head chimes at me to turn away, return to my room and pretend none of it is happening. But it is happening, I am listening and I’m not the kind of person to just turn away and pretend to not want to know. 

Besides, how else will I know if I don’t listen?

Father will tell me keeping it away from me is for my own good, but we all know that’s a lie now. He doesn’t trust that I will not tell someone, believes I’m stuck in the fantasy of wanting to be like the other children in school and anyone could easily trick me into giving up all I’ve learned from these meetings. 

He’s not entirely wrong. 

I mean, no of course, there’s no way to tell someone that my father returned home covered in blood and they are thinking of ways to please an Isaak guy without having to lead back to why my father was covered in blood which will then lead to my father not being the upright citizen of the community they always think him to be but rather one of the many things wrong with the country.

I am so lost in my thoughts that I don’t hear the footsteps in time, and the door swings open. I stumble inside before I can even react, and I am left with silence rippling through the room. Without thinking, I immediately rise to my feet, terror racing through every nerve of my being as I stare at Father.

Fuck.

“Milo. What are you doing?” Father barks at me, and his face is laced with the kind of anger I have only seen him wear once. It’s the face he had on when Ivan had dared say he wanted out of the family business.

Fear crawls up my spine as I step back, wishing I had listened to my head and returned to my room now as the full force of Father’s gaze causes my skin to recoil. His face shifts into something I cannot understand. Every trace of the fury that once laced them, disappeared into a cocky smile.

“Brothers, I think I found a way to please Isaak.”

I do not like the way he looks at me at all, and I blurt before I can hold the words out. “What?”

The whole room turns to me, their gazes sharing that same understanding that I finally come to the loop about. 

Fuck.