10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 23

My sleep that night is broken. Studded with dreams I can’t shake away.

“Mommy!” A child runs up to a woman in a sweater dress, hugging her knees.

The woman laughs joyfully. “There’s my little boy!” She lifts him up, groaning at the weight. “How was school?”

“Boring. I hate it.”

“How about your classmates? Did you make friends today?”

“No.” The child pouts, unhappy. And why wouldn’t he? He’s eight years old and thinks he knows what unhappiness looks like: a bad day at school, no one to play with. What could possibly be worse? “They all hate me. They say I’m dangerous.”

The mother pauses. Despite knowing unhappiness far more intimately than her child, she still takes his feelings seriously. Always has, always will.

She sets him down and looks him in the eye. Her hand moves across his hair in a caress, so slow and sweet that no hug could ever compare. In time, the child will grow, but no one will ever touch him like this again. With kindness. Without expecting anything in return.

“You’re my sweet boy. You could never hurt your friends.”

“Easy for you to say. I don’t have any.”

She chuckles. “One day, you’ll make so many friends. You’ll replace people who care about you, who love you for who you are.”

“Will they want to play with me?”

She boops his nose three times, once for every word. “All. The. Time.”

“Mom! That tickles!”

She scoops her child up again. “How about we go get some ice cream?”

“Really?!”

“Why not? We can call Tetya Zoya⁠—”

“Not a fucking chance.”

The mother freezes. The child in her arms does, too. “Yakov. You’re home early.”

“Clearly not a moment too soon.” The man who spoke—a big, burly beast with a shaved head and an undertaker’s black suit—strides up to the pair, temperatures plummeting in his wake. “What did I say about turning my son into a pussy? Into a ssyklo? Huh?”

“It’s just ice cream.” The mother’s voice, so happy moments before, now trembles. “If you don’t want him to have it, then fine, but⁠—”

SLAP.

“MOMMY!”

The woman holds her cheek. Redness spreads, but she catches herself from falling. The child isn’t mature enough to realize why—that his mother can’t afford to fall. Not with him in her arms.

The man sneers. “‘Mommy’ this, ‘Mommy’ that. Did I sire a fucking daughter? Are you going to start wearing skirts now, boy?”

“Leave him alone. He’s done nothing wrong.”

“No, you’re right. You have.”

Another slap, this time across the other cheek. The woman’s head snaps to the side.

“STOP!” the boy screams, his face tear-streaked now. “STOP HURTING HER!”

“So weak,” the man spits in disgust. “Look at you. You’re no son of mine.”

Staggering, the woman sets her child down.

“Honey,” she whispers, trying to keep her voice steady, “can you go play in your room for me?”

“No! I’m not leaving!”

“You have to.” The boy stomps again, but the mother reaches out to soothe him. She strokes his hair, slow and sweet, and that finally seems to work. “Trust your mommy, okay? I won’t be long. I’ll join you.”

“But—”

“Please.” Her eyes are shining now. “For me.”

The boy can’t say no to that.

Slowly, he trudges away, sparing a single glare for the man who dared raise a hand to his mother.

Right now, he is too weak to do anything about it.

One day, he will make him pay.

At the age of nine, the child hasn’t become strong yet.

But his father is impatient. He is cold, and rage, and everything his mother isn’t. He claims he wants an heir worth his salt, and the boy is trying, he swears he is, but it’s so hard when he doesn’t even know what that means.

“You can’t leave him here!” his mother is screaming. “He’s a child! He’ll freeze to death!”

“He won’t if he’s my heir.”

“You’re insane.” She spits those words out like venom, like a scorpion desperately trying to sting for the first time in its life. But her target’s too far, and the arms of the men holding her back are too strong.

Strength, weakness, who has it, who does not—it always comes down to that, doesn’t it?

“Don’t you have a heart? Don’t you care about your son?”

“I care about the next pakhan.” He slowly turns to the child, paying no heed to his small breaths misting the air. The woods, the wilderness—it’s all just a test. And Yakov Ozerov will not accept failure. “If he can’t even do this, then he wasn’t fit to begin with.”

“He’ll die, you asshole!”

“Then I’ll just make another one.”

More screaming. His father’s men are struggling to hold her in place now. She’s a wisp of a woman, Nataliya is, but a force of nature when it comes to protecting what’s hers.

“You’re delusional,” she snarls. “I will never give you another child. Never.”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, he orders his men to drag Nataliya away.

“Sasha!” she howls as they cart her off into the shadows. “SASHA!”

“Stop calling him that,” the man barks after her. “His name’s Aleksandr. Like the conqueror.”

For a second, a deranged light shines in the pits of his cruel eyes as he stares down at the shuddering, terrified boy. Something that could almost be called pride.

Then he, too, turns and leaves.

That night, the boy named Sasha curls up at the foot of a tree. There’s no fire—he doesn’t know how to make one. Nobody taught him.

The leaves rustle behind him. The boy holds still, holds his breath, holds his fears right at the center of his chest. At this time of night, anything could be coming for him: a wolf, a bear, a monster.

Then, suddenly, warmth seeps into his back, a familiar smell hitting his nostrils like cookies on Christmas morning. “Mom?”

“I’m here, Sasha. I’m here.”

The child turns. It’s her—it’s really her. “Mommy!” He hugs her fiercely. “How did you get away?”

His mother smiles. It’s a little sad, a little broken, but a smile nonetheless. In the dark, her bruises look like shadows. “Mommy has her ways.”

Only the next morning will the boy replace out that she knocked out a guard, stole a car, and drove right back here in the night. Without a break, without rest.

But he doesn’t know that yet.

“Mommy, I’m tired.”

“I know. Let’s get some sleep, shall we?” She cuddles her son close to her chest, a bubble of warmth against the cold, dark world around them.

The last thing he remembers is looking up at the sky: big, bright, beautiful, a quilt of stars overhead.

At that moment, he was happy.

In the morning, his father comes to get them.

He doesn’t say anything. His mother doesn’t, either.

But when the boy climbs into the car, right before his parents follow, he swears he hears his father hiss, close to his mother’s ear, “You went too far.”

“No, you went too far,” she hisses back. “You abandoned your son to die.”

“If you don’t stop interfering with his training right fucking now⁠—”

“What?” Her head snaps to the side, glaring daggers in her husband’s eyes. “You’ll kill me?”

For an endless moment, Yakov says nothing. “I’ll protect my legacy,” he answers in the end, cold, clipped. A block of ice shaped into a man. “Whatever it takes.”

I thrash in my bed, trapped between sleep and wakefulness. The dreams won’t end, no matter how much I want them to.

The boy runs out of his bedroom. “Mom!” he cries out. “Mom!” He calls and calls, but no one answers. “Mom! Mo⁠—”

“Your mother is gone, Aleksandr. She isn’t coming back.”

The scene morphs. The home becomes a warehouse. The boy becomes a young man. Taller, stronger—but still not strong enough.

“Fight it,” Yakov grits, the barbed wire in his hands tearing into his gloves as he tightens it around my throat. “For fuck’s sake, fight it! What kind of heir are you?!”

Still not strong enough.

“Fight it! Fight it, goddammit!”

At seventeen, I finally am.

CRACK. Yakov’s body falls to the ground. His neck skewed in the wrong direction. His heart slowing, slowing, stopped.

“Am I strong enough yet, Otets?” I kick the body. “Am I strong enough yet?” Then I kick it again, and again, and again. “Am I strong enough yet, you fucking piece of shit?!”

CRASH!

I wake up with a start. My head snaps towards the sound—it’s the glass on my nightstand, shattered on the floor.

Water spreads everywhere. It fills the cracks in the hardwood floor, pooling like tears.

Belatedly, I realize my face is wet, too.

I wipe at it like it’s filthy. “Blyat’. Fucking ssyklo.”