I dragged myself out of bed, still clothed in the shit I had on yesterday. I didn’t bother to shower. There was no point. No one was coming by the house, Michelle wasn’t there, and I sure as hell wasn’t going into town for anything. I burped, cringing at the taste. What I did need to do was rinse my damn mouth out and brush my damn teeth.
So, I pushed on into the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out a little bit.
I splashed some water in my face before cupping some handfuls of water and chugging them down. Each time I brought the water to my face, I felt the stubble growing across my jawline. Up my cheeks. On my chin. But I didn’t have any reason to reach for my razor. What the hell was the point of giving a shit when my entire life had been a lie?
Staring at the mirror, I didn’t recognize the man who was staring back at me. Bloodshot eyes with bags underneath them so heavy
the corners of my eyes turned down. My cheeks were puffy and red. My hair, disheveled. I looked like the corpse of the man I’d turned myself into.
Well, the man Anton’s money turned me into.
Holy shit, the photo album.
I stumbled out into the hallway and made my way for the kitchen. I picked the album up from the table and went back to my room, then fumbled around with my laptop. I needed some water, but first I needed to do some research. My tongue still stuck to the roof of my mouth, despite the water I’d drank from the sink. I slowly paged through the pictures until I came to the ones of Anton. The ones from Russia when he was younger and had his shirt off.
I ran my fingers over the pictures again before taking to the internet.
Immediately, I started doing research into what those symbols meant. And once I found a spreadsheet online that enabled me to piece some of the words together, I researched their translations. And what I found shouldn’t have shocked me nearly as much as it did. Not with how big and broad and intimidating Anton could be to people sometimes. His smile was the only thing that softened his face, but without it, he looked positively maniacal.
The words and symbols across his chest were indicative of the Russian mafia.
I shook my head in disbelief as I flipped over another page of the album. The more symbols I researched, the more I found out about his former life. Judging by the harsh lettering on his back, he was pretty up there in the ranks. High placed in one of the Russian syndicates before he came over to the United States.
No wonder he’d been able to afford the properties he had underneath his belt. Especially without a visible source of income.
His entire life was tattooed onto his body. The number of people he had killed. The places he had visited. The rank he held within the mafia. All of it, tattooed in Russian symbols and lettering. His entire body told his life’s story. Insinuated some of the things he did. Peddling drugs. Running guns. Dealing in illegal, black market historical artifacts.
No wonder he knew so much about art.
How absurd had my bullshit excuse for a life become? An ex-Russian mobster paid my way into college sports by bribing the damn scout and the school to go along with it. I shut my laptop and shook my head as I tossed everything off to the side. Why the hell had the old man cared enough to do it anyway? Surely he had better things to do, like look over his shoulder. I was nothing but an angry kid with a drunk father and a mother who abandoned me. I didn’t matter.
So, why did the old man stick his neck out for me?
It didn’t make sense, and that only pissed me off more. The more answers I got, the more questions I had. Why the hell did Anton fucking Volk give enough of a damn to care about what happened to me? I grew into a man that had more money than good sense; and unlike Anton, I was busy fighting off people who wanted my money and were willing to lie, cheat, and screw me over for it.
Talk about a damn existential crisis.
My initial determination to never go into town again was put aside, and suddenly a trip to town was the only thing I thought to do once I figured out I’d downed the last of the alcohol the night before. I threw a coat over my shoulders and grabbed my keys, heading straight for the damn liquor store. Another bottle of amber liquid would chase all this shit away and maybe I could get another night’s sleep without Michelle, Anton and the damn Russian mob rolling around in my head.
I wanted to drown out all thoughts of her. All the memories. All the questions swimming around in my conscious mind. I wanted to rid myself of all of it. I wanted to get back to the days before Anton died. Before I was saddled with his estate. Before his entire life was laid out on a platter and before Michelle had tumbled her naked ass into my bed at two in the morning. Before I’d lost my mind and my soul to that dastardly woman.
She was nothing but yet another lie within the web of lies that was my world. And I wanted to forget about her.
Parking my convertible, I hopped out, heading straight for the back wall of the liquor store. How absolutely poetic. I stared at the fresh batch of wine from my own damn vineyard, complete with the label I had put my stamp of approval on just a couple of weeks ago. Poetic justice, that’s was what all this was. Getting piss-ass drunk on my own vineyard’s wine in a town that hated every single thing to do with me.
Turns out I hated every single thing to do with me, too.
Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. Turning my head, I found my father standing there, hunched over on a cane and picking up another bottle of cheap liquor. Immediately, I forgot about my need for alcohol and headed after him, watching him as he limped down the side of the store. He didn’t even bother to stop at the cash register, and just tossed some money onto the counter before walking out the damn door.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, as I followed my father out the door.
He paused on the sidewalk, then slowly turned to meet my gaze. He looked like shit. His eyes were glassy and a spot of drool hung off his bottom lip. Only a few strands of hair stuck up from his bald head and his teeth were practically rotted out of his mouth. But those eyes.
Angry as ever and filled with a fire I recognized all too well.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
My father’s eyes dropped down my body before he cleared his throat. But he didn’t give me any sort of a reaction other than that.