Empress of Poisons ARC Read online

I watched him die. It took a few minutes, but I observed like a patron to a show. Still and calm, and almost entertained.

  When he stopped breathing, I broke branches off bushes and covered him. Soon his body was hidden, just another part of the forest. Animals would find him and finish him off, and then bacteria would slowly decompose him. Soon, it would be like he had never even been here, the only ones remembering him were the plants who used his leftovers as fuel for their roots.

  “You shouldn’t have tried to hurt me,” I said. “You shouldn’t have tried to hurt my son.”

  He did not reply. How could he? I killed him.

  There was a rustle behind me, but I didn’t turn around. Moments later, Babushka rubbed herself against my ankles, purring deeply. She turned her nose up at the hidden body.

  When I returned to the treetops, Nikolai had a strange look on his face. I had washed my hands in a nearby puddle, but the smell of blood and death still lurked.

  “Get some sleep, my wild boy,” I said.

  Babushka had followed me up and the two curled up together for warmth.

  Even when night fell and darkness blanketed us, I didn’t sleep. I watched our surroundings, eyes slowly growing sharper in the lack of light.

  Some part of me was fighting for sanity, for my humanity. But a more primal part of me was refusing to let go. Instead, the more time I spent living like an animal, the more I could feel myself thinking like one. Becoming like one.

  I kissed my son’s forehead as he slept, soft as a feather.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” I whispered. “I’ll be better than my mother. Then your father’s mother. I’ll keep you safe.”

  And I would.

  Even if it meant losing myself in the process.

  4

  Konstantin Tarkhanov

  The traitor died easily.

  He fell to the ground like a sack of wheat, air and life escaping his form. Blood stuck to everything it came into contact with, including my hands and cuffs. I straightened them out. Bloody cuffs were one thing, but wrinkled ones? I was a gentleman, after all.

  “Anything?”

  I turned my head. Danika was pushed up against the wall, almost like she was trying to disappear into the bricks. Sweat covered her in a shiny sheen, worked up from hours of interrogation and being trapped beneath the banya. All the men had abandoned me to my interrogation, but Dani had, surprisingly, stayed.

  “No.” I recalled her question. “Tatiana’s whereabouts remain unknown.”

  Danika bit her lip. “Titus,” she corrected. “Her name is Titus. Tatiana is a woman we loved; Titus is the woman who killed innocents.”

  “They are the same person.” I did make an effort to soften my voice. Danika was having a hard time coping with the loss of her surrogate mother and her dearest friend. “Sometimes the ones we love the most are the ones who hurt us the most.”

  Something flickered behind her eyes. She knew I wasn’t talking about Tatiana.

  Some raw part of me wanted to poke at Danika, to try and push her buttons. I wanted her to get irritated enough that she said her name. Enough dancing around the subject, enough sly looks and unfinished sentences.

  But I wouldn’t do that to Danika.

  I would save that wrath for my enemies–even if the only time they ever used her name was to mock me or summon my fury. Where is she now? Titus wants her dead; who’s to say her bones don’t already line my master’s crown?

  To my enemies’ credit, this tactic usually worked. Saying her name did infuriate me, summoning the reaction they wanted. But they could never enjoy it long. Their deaths came quickly.

  It was my family who avoided the topic like the plague. Not a single one of them had said her name for three years.

  Sometimes I mouthed the syllables silently, reminding my tongue how to pronounce it.

  “Olezka said he is following another trail. We should go and speak with him.” Danika’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I suspected that was why she had followed me down into the darkness, so she could be my way back up to the light.

  If only she knew it was too late for me. The Heavens would burn before they saw me walk through their pearly gates. My soul was now a collection of violence and hatred, blood and madness. There would be no relief–except when I finally took my last breath.

  Some days I contemplated it. A bullet to the head, a fall off the roof.

  But then who would make the world safe for my family? For my niece and nephew? I was the only one capable of doing so. The only one who had nothing left to lose.

  “Leave him until he brings someone to us,” I told her. “That is his job.”

  “His job is to assassinate.” Not deliver prey to your dungeon, she didn’t add.

  I stepped away from the body and exited the room. When I held the door open for her, Danika made a concerted effort to look everywhere but at the mutilated corpse we were leaving behind. She would never admit it, but she had kept her eyes closed for most of it, even covering her ears at some parts.

  When we reached the hallway, she slowed down.

  There was loaded silence for a few moments.

  “Is everything okay, Danika?”

  She glanced up at me, honey-brown eyes shiny with tears. “Do you...do you believe what he said?”

  “What part?”

  Danika looked down at her hands. “About her being...gone?”

  A swirl of emotions grew inside of me but I kept my expression clear. “Tatiana had her chance to kill her and didn’t.”

  “She had her chance to kill all of us,” Dani noted. “For years. Yet she didn’t.”

  “Snakes are patient.”

  She looked up and met my eyes head on.

  One of the reasons Danika was such a good interrogator is that when she turned her full attention to you, you felt like the only person in the entire world. She has gripping eyes, Roksana had said when she had first come into the family. With just one look, you’re under her spell.

  Per usual, Roksana was right.

  “Yes,” Danika said, voice quieter but no less demanding. “They are, aren’t they?”

  A weaker man would’ve answered Danika’s question in a rushed breath. The primal and hormonal part of their brain overriding their rational thought.

  But I knew better than to fall under Dani’s spell. After all, who do you think had trained her? Had nurtured her abilities? It certainly hadn’t been charmless Artyom, rude Roman or dreamer Roksana. Not even Tatiana and Dmitri, though the two of them had doted on her in her youth.

  It was that affection I had for her that stopped me from seeing her words as a challenge. If one of my men had spoken to me like that, I would’ve sprayed the walls with his blood.

  “All done?”

  Roman stepped out from the end of the hallway, his eyes immediately going to Danika. He had argued when she insisted on joining me and I knew he was checking her for any signs of hurt.

  “We are. He told us nothing,” I said.

  His eyes fluttered momentarily to the blood staining my hands. “Nothing at all?”

  “Except that she was dead.”

  Pain and denial warred together in his expression. A feeling I understood well. “That’s bullshit. Those fuckers are just saying that to piss you off.”

  Danika interrupted, “It worked.”

  “It’s bullshit,” he reiterated.

  “That doesn’t make it any less effective,” she replied.

  I stepped past Danika, sensing a fight about to happen. Both of them held back their comments when they saw me moving. Most likely, they would start up again when we got home.

  The word dead hung in my mind. There was nothing to say she was; but there was also nothing to say she wasn’t.

  But I knew, if Titus’s men were right, and she really was dead, that I was terrified to find out what would she would say to me when we met on the other side.

  Maybe that’
s why I didn’t think too much about leaving this earth. The fear of seeing her, the fear of her reaction when she saw what I had become, would be too much for me. I couldn’t bear to see the disgust and disappointment in her beautiful green eyes.

  It would tear my heart from my chest–for a second time.

  My men didn’t look at me the way they once had.

  Even as I stepped onto my private estate, their eyes casted downwards. I had known these men for years, trusted them enough to protect my sanctuary, but sometimes I doubted that would stop me from tearing out their throats.

  They respected me, were still loyal to death. But whereas before they had feared me, now they were terrified. Now when meetings were held, cups were shattered, and palms were slick with sweat. My decisions went unchallenged, even by Artyom, who I had always counted on to keep me in check.

  The only person who told me ‘no’ these days was my niece.

  The two-year old greeted me by the door. Evva Fattakhov was dressed in a green pinafore with cream stockings and fluffy unicorn-patterned socks. Her hair was in two little pigtails, ribbons holding them together.

  “’Ello, Uncle Kostya.”

  “Evva,” I greeted. I had made sure to clean my hands at the banya before returning home. My niece deserved a few more years of innocence. “You look very cute today. Going somewhere special?”

  She shook her head. “Nooo.”

  There were few reasons I continued my existence, continued to behave and take part in society. My niece was one of them.

  The night she had been born, the entire estate had shaken with Roksana’s screams. I remembered feeling fear for the first time in months, my grief suspended for long enough that I could tend to the woman I considered family. All the men, besides Artyom, had waited in the hall, ears pressed to the walls.

  Then at 6:16 am, just as the sun had begun to color the world, Evva Fattakhov had decided to join us. She had been tiny, delicate, but her grip had been ferocious. She had the soul of a warrior–just like her parents. But more importantly, beside her mother and father, I was the only one she would let hold her.

  Even now, Evva stretched her arms up, bending her knees. “Up?”

  “Where are your manners, my darling?” Roksana swept into the foyer, dressing gown fluttering around her.

  “Pleaseeee.” Evva made sure to enunciate the entire word for her mother. That girl had mischief in her blood.

  Never one to deny her, I swept Evva into my arms. She giggled in delight.

  “How has your day been?” I asked her.

  “Good,” Evva babbled. She told me at length about how she had pancakes for breakfast, played with Anton, and hung out with her mother. Her words were awkward and mostly gibberish, but well-placed ‘oh, really?’s satisfied her that I was listening.

  “Are Danika and Roman with you?” Roksana asked the second Evva stopped to take a breath.

  “They’re in the car, fighting,” I mused.

  I had left them sitting in silence. But as soon as I had closed the car door, the raised voices had begun.

  Evva lifted her head. “Auntie Dani? Uncle Rom?”

  “Yes, my darling,” Roksana replied. To me she said, “Artyom wants to see the entire family in the study. He didn't say why.”

  Study? I racked my brain over what Artyom would want with all of us. Perhaps an intervention was in my future.

  It could be about anything. From the drugs, to the interrogations, to the fact that Danika had decided to join me when talking to Titus’s men.

  Some part of me looked forward to my meetings with Artyom. Each day I woke up wondering if today was the day my brother was going to kill me and take my crown. Perhaps if it hadn’t been for Roksana and Evva, he would’ve already.

  A shadow stepped up from the top of the stairs, interrupting the conversation. Dmitri's blue eyes scanned in the foyer, glowing like currents of electricity. He didn't say anything some days. He went the entire day without making a single noise like his lips were frozen together and his tongue was a heavy ice block between his teeth.

  “Boss,” he greeted. “We're meeting in the study.”

  “Very well. Roksana, can you go please and fetch our troublesome duo.”

  Roksana disappeared outside while I met Dmitri at the top of the stairs. His lips were pressed into a tight line, his apathetic mask strangely emotive.

  I rose my eyebrows at him. “Something you want to say?”

  “No.” Dmitri rubbed his mouth, a show of anxiety. “I think Artyom better be the one to tell you.”

  My patience was dwindling quickly. “Is that so?”

  I had known Dmitri since he was a young man and it wasn’t difficult for me to spot his sudden uncomfortableness.

  Maybe, I remarked, I had been right about this being an intervention.

  Artyom wasn’t in the study, instead he was waiting outside in the hallway. His eyes went straight to Evva, who smiled at her father.

  “Put my daughter down, Kostya,” he stated calmly.

  I didn’t move. Evva seemed content in my arms. “What is the meaning of this. I have things to do, brother.”

  Artyom didn’t react. “Put Evva down.”

  Voices came up behind us, but they quietened once they saw the three of us in the hallway.

  “Is everything okay?” Roksana asked.

  “Evva needs to leave.” Artyom didn’t sound like a husband when he spoke to Roksana, or even a father. He sounded like the man I had slaughtered my way to the top with.

  I pressed a delicate kiss to the top of Evva’s head and passed her to her mother. Roksana stepped back immediately with her baby in her arms, her eyes dancing between Artyom and I with blinding speed.

  I wasn’t so quick in my movements. I turned back to him, each action deliberate and slow. Like a snake peering out of its hiding spot, prey in sight and fangs at the ready.

  “What is the meaning of this, Artyom? Have you finally gotten a penchant for the dramatics?”

  “We need to have this discussion privately,” he ventured. “It is...it is a delicate matter.”

  Dmitri muttered something under his breath. It sounded like no shit.

  I gestured to the study. “Lead the way.”

  The tension in the room was palpable as we filled it. All the residents of the estate joined Artyom and I, besides Roksana and the children. Everyone quickly scattered to various seats as I leaned back in my office chair.

  Artyom stood before me, as still and unmovable as a great statue.

  “Care to explain the reason for your dramatics, brother?" I crooned.

  He did not reply.

  “What the fuck is going on, Artyom?” Roman asked from the wall where he leaned. Danika was cross-legged by his feet, eyes wide. “Why are you being so coy?”

  Dmitri glared at Roman to shut up.

  Dmitri knew what Artyom was trying to tell me, I understood immediately. Artyom and Dmitri have banded together. Will they take turns trying to kill me or will it be an act of camaraderie?

  The second shared look between them began to grate on my nerves. I was growing tired of this game.

  “What has happened, Artyom?” The order in my tone was clear. He may be planning on usurping me but I was still his Pakhan and he would hear my command.

  Artyom looked at the door, like he could see his wife and daughter through the mahogany.

  “Just say it.” Came Dmitri’s icy voice.

  “Yes, Artyom,” I repeated. “Just say it.”

  I had known Artyom since we were children. I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t at my side, when he didn’t have my back. We had always been thick as thieves, even when our family slowly grew larger and larger. The truth and honesty were something we had always valued between each other.

  Artyom being so secretive didn't fill me with a sense of delight. Instead, I felt my hands nearing towards my weapon...just in case...

  �
�She called me.”

  The three words dropped like stones.

  She called me.

  Roman started forward first. “Why? Is she okay? Where is she–?”

  “She is in danger and needs our help. I said we could help her.” Artyom didn’t take his eyes off me. “I intend to.”

  There were too many thoughts in my mind. Too many emotions filling my mind like fog.

  If I spoke, I feared I might reveal the darkest crevices of my heart.

  “It seems you have already made up your mind,” I said, not letting my exterior reveal the storm of anger and madness that was stirring inside of me. I barely heard my own voice, all I could hear she called me, she called me, she called me. “Why does this concern me?”

  All three of them shared a look. Danika was staring at me.

  “Tell him the rest,” Dmitri hissed.

  “There’s more?” Roman demanded.

  Before anyone could say anything, Danika’s sweet voice rang out. “If Elena is in danger, shouldn’t we help her?”

  There it was. Her name.

  Elena.

  Three syllables, five letters, the title of a formidable woman.

  Some part of me howled at the thought of her in danger. Who would dare to threaten a hair on her head? Who would endanger which belonged to me?

  But Elena did not belong to me. She had made that very clear.

  I don’t love you.

  I, like most men, was a creature of ego and pride. The arrogance came with the territory; you wouldn’t very well want a nervous self-conscious leader, would you? No. You wanted someone who made the decisions, who held their shoulders high.

  But Elena had kneed my ego in the balls.

  “We are currently tracking the chip in her phone,” Artyom said carefully. “Once we nail down her location, we will go.”

  “Chip in her phone?” This came from Roman. “What the fuck are you going on about? When did you get the chance to chip her?”

  Dmitri scoffed.

  “Nearly a year after she left.”

  I lifted my gaze to Artyom. But it was Roman and Danika who did the talking for me.

  “You’ve seen her–”

  “–how did she look?–”