Chapter Four

MILO

As children, we are led to believe monsters don’t exist and that our parents and elders only said those things to scare us but trapped in my room with George, I know monsters are real. 

My head spins about everything, wanting answers now that escaping doesn’t seem likely. The door swings open after what seems like forever, but the person that walks in isn’t who I expected. 

Never in a thousand years did I believe that when the door opened the first person I would see would be Peteri staring back at me, his blue eyes gazing back at me. 

It takes all of five seconds for those eyes to undo me and bring tears to my eyes. In those five seconds I believe Peteri has come to rescue me, charged into the lion’s den to save me and I rush into his arms, pulling him close until the sweet scent fills my nostrils but behind him stands the monster that trapped me here in the first place and despite George’s first stiffening, nothing shows he’s about to attack.  

“I see I spared the right one then,” Father says. I pull away from Peteri, taking a more careful look at him now. 

His eyes are red and swollen as though he’s been crying himself. He stood in a way that said he was hurting.  

“Dad,” I murmur, turning my gaze to my father. Father carelessly strolls into the room, his hand inside his pocket. He’d changed into a different white shirt, but it’s no doubt that the stain on the collar, almost invisible to one who has no ideas on how to take in the details of this monster, was definitely blood. 

“Now honey, what I’m about to say to you is very important. I would prefer if little Peteri here did not hear any of it but his presence is the only certainty that you will listen to me.”

I try to put up a brave front, my eyes darting between Peteri and father. Peteri’s scared look tells me he has no idea what is going on and has a lot to say but has either been told in a not so friendly way to shut up and now, all he can do is watch as father clears his throat and makes himself comfortable in my bed, tapping the space beside him for me.

“I will not participate in your games,” I say.

“Boy, you do not even know what games I’m playing yet you’re eager to say you will not be a part of it?” My father smirks, evil spreading across his features. “Have I not allowed you to roam and fool around with this boy all for it?” 

Now that I think about it, he’d created the illusion that so long I told him before any of his goons, I was in the clear meanwhile, all along, he let me feed him information, evaluating the things I kept to the minimum else how would he know to search for Peteri.

“Milo, what’s going on?” Peteri finally asks.

“George, get Peteri a glass of water, will you?” Father orders George with a dismissive tone. George stares at Peteri, weighing him down. Where Peteri is all skins and tall, George is broad with muscles and tattoos covering his whole body. 

“Take Peteri with you, I think the little prince here gets the point.”

George ushers Peteri out of the room and I reach for him, grabbing hold of his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I will explain everything,” I say. 

The urge to kiss him is so strong, so I do it. His lips are everything I dreamt it would be, but he doesn’t kiss back. He’s too stunned to kiss me back. I watch as George drags him away, his fingers lingering on mine before he follows. 

For a few seconds, time seems to stop. It’s the second time in a night and yet, it doesn’t allow me the time to put on my armor and mask this mess of tears that threatens to reduce me into a messy mascara. 

I clench my fist, my grip tight enough that I start feeling my sharp nails dig into my palms as I whirl to Father, sitting coolly as though he’s not about to say something that would rip the world right from under me. 

It is just like the news of Mother's death. He just rises, walks towards me and with a firm hand, guides me to my seat, combing my hair with his hand.

Other fathers would come into their son’s rooms and this conversation would be “The Talk” they always give their teenage sons but with my father, little to the normal is expected.

 In fact, I expect something completely outrageous, but I can see that same calm fatherly look in his eyes. I know what it is. It’s the secret tic he has that says he’s made a decision and I’m not going to like it.

“What is he doing here, Papa?” I ask instead of voicing the thoughts in my head.

“I believe you might need a little motivation for the conversation we are about to have.” 

He clears his throat, picks up the green comb from my vanity mirror and jerks his chin to me. I grab hold of his hand, pulling the comb from his grasp and replacing it with the brown one. My hair is a lot bigger now for the green comb to handle. 

He pushes that reassuring smile to his face again and I can’t help the pounding that resumes in my chest.

“As you inevitably heard, there’s a lot going to shit right now. We’ve suffered a blow and one of our inner men didn’t make it.” 

There is a beat of silence as I process what he said. I furrow my brows as I realize that earlier today, all the inner men had been in the gathering, all except… No. 

I only realize I blurted the world out when he gives a grim nod, “I’m afraid so.”

“You’ve finally killed him. He never wanted anything to do with your business but you forced him. You’re a fucking monster.”

 I don’t know who owns that feral voice but it comes from inside me, wailing and clawing at my father with animal-like ferocity. Every part of me hated him now. 

No. 

I actually always hated him, only this time, there’s something inside of me that seems to have snapped almost instantly. The words dance in my head. 

Ivan is dead. 

Dead. 

Dead.

Father grabs both my hands.

“Calm yourself child, you’ve acted much like a child for far too long, it’s time you grow up,” he barks back.

The words silence me, the pounding of my heart beat, ricocheting throughout the entire space.

Father guides me back to my seat as though I’m child who merely had a tantrum and now it’s over. “Your brother is dead and the position he held would be open, it would bring in the flies and insects from every corner and when they do, they would want a piece of us. Now, there’s only one way to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

I don’t ask what. I hold my breath, as though merely breathing would make everything around me all too real. I cannot afford that. I always craved his look as a child, the attention he bestowed on Ivan the male child until Ivan had been forced into father’s wheel of deceit and cruelty. 

The brother I knew slowly changed and shaped into the man father wanted him to be, except for the few nights when he would come into my room and cry himself to sleep on my bed like a child. 

Then, I would find myself feeling pity rather than the usual jealousy that always clouded my mind. 

“I’ve arranged to make alliance with a group on the other side of town to provide a front that tells the world we might have lost a good number of our fronts but we are not to be messed with.” 

“I know nothing about the business, Papa,” I say.

“Of course!” he responds, “The alliance I propose is the oldest form of alliance, marriage.”

“Marriage?” I blink, “I’m only twenty-one, Papa. I’m not even done with school.”

“You don't need school, boy. You just have to be a good husband to Isaak, and everything will be okay again, you will have everything you need…” 

I stop listening at the mention of Isaak. I might not know much about the business but Isaak is not a name strange to me. He’s the son of who father would describe to be his arch enemy yet I am to marry this guy? 

“Sweet boy,” he says, pulling me out of my thoughts. I blink, snapping back to reality. “Think about it child, the marriage will be arranged today.”

“No!” I blurt before realizing the implication of my words. Father turns to me, his gaze holding the kind of finality that says I have no say in this matter, but I will be damned if I let it be the end of it. 

This is my life, my body. 

I had dreams to travel as far away from this godforsaken country as possible until I am sure my father cannot reach me but instead, I’m to be married to a mafia boss. I stand my ground; I have always been a hypocrite telling Ivan to stand against father when I have succumbed to his every will but not today. 

“Milo,” he turns to me. “Don’t fight me on this. I have made the necessary arrangements and set things in motion, for everything to play out well. Isaak and his father will arrive here tomorrow and when they do, you will be ready to meet him.”

“I cannot marry him. Papa, I don’t love him. I… Papa. I have plans for my life too.”

He turns to me. “You mean those fairytales you wrote in your diary? You think I will let you run away with a boy to America under my watch?” 

I bristle at the words. The lower drawer still looks the way it was when I left it, though I suppose if someone had opened it, I wouldn’t know.

“It doesn’t matter what you say papa, I’m not marrying Isaak.”

Father whirls towards me, the full force of his gaze making me want to take back everything I said but I clench my fist tighter in that same defiant stance, waiting for the blow that never comes. 

Instead, what I get is a soft tap on my shoulder. If I didn’t know whose hand it was, I would think it was to reassure me. “You’re going to marry him because if you don’t, I will send your boy lover to meet his parents in the afterlife and I will do it so slowly his screams will shake the foundations of this earth. Do you hear me?” 

My face goes blanche. 

For a few seconds, I felt the oxygen supply to my lungs seize. 

“Did. You. Hear. Me?” He bites out every single word in irritation. 

I force a nod, pushing back every sign of weakness that threatens to escape.

“Good,” he says even as the numbness takes over every part of my body and I’m forced to seat on the marbles trying to process the implications of the words. 

No wonder Peteri had looked so pale like a blood starved vampire when he came into the room. 

Oh, God, what have I done? 

By merely going near that boy, I’ve ruined him, taken away any chance he has at a normal life. Father is not to be blamed alone for the death of his parents; I am too. 

I put him in Father’s line of sight. If anything, then, I owe him to go through whatever hel

l Father has designed now, if that means he gets to keep his life.