Chapter Two

MILO

If time really stops, then maybe it should stretch as far as rewinding. It should take me back to when I stood at the door listening in on the conversation, not now. Definitely not when my father’s gaze tells me everything is about to go wrong. 

My heart pounds in my chest, the sight of my father and his goons staring at me causing it to fight against its cage in a desperate attempt to find an escape. Maybe if it does, then I will be free, but right now, the only thought that comes to my mind is to flee this god’s forsaken sight of sadistic men. 

I whirl around without a second thought, racing out of the room onto the corridor and past the guards stationed at the living room. No one stops me, not yet but I know it’s only a matter of time. 

There’s nowhere to run to. 

My father’s connection spreads across the whole of Russia, and just as his connection, so does his enemies. Wherever I hide, if he doesn’t find me, his enemies will. But first, I need to get out of this house. 

I make my way out the compound, ignoring the cold wind that caresses my skin. I’ve never been the sporty type but I trust my legs to carry me without falling, except today, it seems that trust has been sorely misplaced. 

Every step is laborious. Each one is a reminder that two grown men tail behind me, eager to catch hold of me. They have their guns somewhere in their pockets but they dare not pull it on me. 

I’m their prince in a sort of way, my father their king. To pull their weapons out on me would be to ask for their own deaths. So, even as I race towards the gates with the two guards watching me with cat-like intensity, I know exactly what I want to do.

The air in my lungs grew thinner with each step I took. The gate I always sat in the car driving past every day seems even further away now, like it was miles from where it used to be. 

Every step I take feels wasted, like I was getting nowhere. 

The men are getting closer, and I can hear my father’s voice booming behind me, calling my name but I don’t stop. I have to get out of here. I have to leave the house.

“Stop him! Milo, stop this nonsense now!” He shouts over the pounding of my chest but I continue running. I’m not sure if it’s logic that propels me to run or the adrenaline pumping through every part of my body now. Even if I wanted to stop, I would not know how. 

The only thing I know right now is that both the sight and the things I heard all chase behind me, metaphorically and the real people running after me too. With guns.

 I’ve seen guns my whole life. 

When Mother was alive, she’d tried to shield us from Father’s life but when your father is one of the most notorious mafia Dons in the country, there’s no hiding it. When men trail you with guns as a child, your life is restricted to that reality and the freedom people think you have becomes your own prison. 

So, as I run today, I free myself from every single shackle that came with being an Andrei. 

I want nothing to do with them. 

It’s easy running from all the troubles and the chaos following behind me. The difficult one is the one inside me, fighting against my own heartbeat, wanting to devour me. Father did not say a word, but that look when his eyes connected with mine was all I needed to brand me with a haunting memory that will drill a hole through my chest, the kind of holes not even a bullet can make. 

My thighs burn with the kind of pain as though a hot iron has been smeared into it. I can no longer ignore the pain and even though I thrive on pain, just like the many nights I hurt, my body gives in eventually sending me tumbling to the ground into the muddy street, my face burying into the sticky ground, saved only by my hand. 

There was not a single ounce of strength left inside of me anymore, all I could do was lay there, staring into the night sky, wondering how the beautiful night changed so quickly. 

Only about an hour ago, my life was peaceful. I had finally gotten the boy; he had not kissed me but we’d held hands. My fantasies were coming through and just like that, with a snap of a hand, I was pulled back to the reality I fought to escape. 

The men must have given up the chase a while back, because they are nowhere in sight now. All I can see is the darkness stretched out for miles. I had no idea I had run this far already. 

I clenched my fist tight, feeling my fingers digging into the flesh of my palms, the pain stinging, burying the hole inside of me but it would not go away.

Father is the kind of man who will do anything, give anything, so long as it gives him power and from that look I saw on his face, I’d seen it before. 

It was the same look he had leading up to the days before Mother’s death and after Mother’s death. I know Ivan had told me Father would not hurt Mother. Ivan had told me that he loved her, but where’s Ivan now? 

Where is he? 

I push myself up, I just have to find a way to survive until Ivan finds me and when he does, he will see Father for who he is.

With shaking legs, I push myself from the muddy ground and continue to walk in the direction that feels further from the monster’s house. I don’t know where I am. I’ve always found myself inside the car to school, or at best, the gates, nothing more. 

I take another turn, continuing my walk blindly, my stomach grumbles from the emptiness, the squeeze on the side of my stomach reminding me just how little I have had to eat today. I had spent the whole morning picking on my food, trying not to eat too much so I wouldn't look too fat when Peteri came over, but now, Peteri is farthest from my thoughts. 

No, not exactly true. 

I want to rush into his arms, hug him and plant a kiss on his lips but I cannot try to find him. Father's men will search for me with every single person I’ve made contact with. I just hope to walk and hope they never find me. 

My plan is short lived when a bright light shines on my path and my gaze darts back to the car just there, watching me.

They found me. 

I know those lights. 

I know it’s crazy to know the lights of a car when every single make of that car has the same light but I know that light, every part of me tells me it’s the same car that had picked me up earlier. Foolish of me to think I will be able to escape Father that easily. 

I turn around, a new purpose branded in my heart. I need to outrun the car.

Picking up the speed, again, I race, ignoring the protest from my body. My stomach clenches tighter, biting onto me. My thighs burn with a new ferocity. Every part of me wants to quit but I will not let myself be used in one of Father’s schemes like Mother’s death has benefited him. 

I’m losing pace with each second that passes, it's a hopeless adventure yet I do not quit. Always the stubborn boy that I am, I continue to push myself, even when my breaths are beyond haggard and my chest will not pound freely anymore, even when all the muscles in my legs give in, I continue. 

Damn me for not taking all those gymnastic classes, for thinking reading and having good grades enough to finish my high school and vanish to the United States, far away from father would save me and not some high school sports. 

The car reels to a stop in front of me, George pushes out of the car. I change direction again but that voice that once held my childish fantasies slice through the air in an unforgiving tone.

“Stop this nonsense now, Milo,” he shouts. Something in the tone roots me to the spot. My arms instinctively rise in surrender and I internally curse myself for being weak. 

I turn to him, acid pouring through every part of my being. Those eyes, I cannot believe they were the eyes I once dreamed of, once learnt to touch myself imagining. They now stare at me, the barrel of a gun between them, facing me.

“Please, George,” I choke, but George doesn’t flinch. He walks towards me, tucking the gun behind him and in an easy move, swings me over his shoulder and walks back to the car. 

He tosses me inside, pulling out a strap and binds my hand behind me. All without uttering a single word. 

I don’t speak. I just play the scenes over my head. Something terrible has happened, Father’s drug and cartel empire is at the brink of extinction and once again, we will be pawns to be sacrificed. I don’t need to know what awaits me beyond the gates but I just know whatever it is, I will not like it. 

It will probably lead to my death. 

George takes the seat beside me, but I do not feel the butterflies that once plagued my belly. Instead, inside me is silent. It is the kind of silence that only the dead can exhibit. It’s as though my mind is preparing for the inevitable. I want to scream, want to thrash everything around me, but I can’t find the strength. 

My legs press against warm skin, my face is pressed against the leather of the sedan, the car drives back, taking away the freedom I had put between myself and this house. Yet, there’s this few seconds my brain takes to register it all, these few seconds where even my mind waits with bated breath for the explosion to come.

The familiar chime echoes through my ears as the estate’s gate slides open. 

“You have him?” Father’s voice booms through the intercom.

“Yes, he’s secured,” George says back as the car jerks to motion again, sliding into the long road and parking beside the other cars.

On my own accord, I step out. 

Father strides towards me, each step purposeful. I brace myself for what’s to come, but nothing prepares me for the sting that burns my left cheek, then my right. I can feel my own black hairs fall over my lowered face. 

“You insolent boy,” Father spits out and a voice inside of me whispers for me to fight. That I should plead with his voice of reason but there is no reasoning with Father, not when he has set his mind on it. 

All he sees now is a means to accomplish a goal, whatever that is.

“You have always been good for nothing and now when you should actually make yourself useful, you decide it is best to run away?”

“Father…” I yield to the tiny voice inside my head but I’m greeted only by another slap, silencing me. 

“Take him out of my sight,” Father’s voice is hoarse, his chest heaving as though he has been the one running all along.

George nudges me away from him, and I keep my head still bowed low in defeat as he leads me away.  I know without looking up that he is taking me upstairs to my room and I look up only when George pushes open the door and steps in. 

He eases me gently to my bed, scans the room before taking position on my reading table, his gaze not leaving me the whole time. I held his eyes in defiance, not knowing what I was defying against, only desperate to show that I was not some little boy they could defile and command easily.

Only I know that behind the hard exterior I put, lies a terrified little boy who wants nothing more than for his elder brother to save him from this mess.