Blood And Roses (Tainted Hearts)

by Lylah James

  “She is beautiful,” she whispered. She cried softly, holding my princess closer to her chest. “Do you want to see her?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t. I just…couldn’t. Not without Maria. We were supposed to look at our Princess together, while she breathed, lived, and cried.

  Not cold, still, and silent. “Take…her…away.”

  The realization sat heavy on my shoulders, and whatever was left of my heart crumbled. My head hung low, and I closed my eyes.

  I didn’t just lose my Angel. I also lost our princess. I would never know what the color of her eyes were. Or if she had her mother’s smile. Would she pout like Alessio if Maria and I didn’t cuddle her exactly the way she wanted?

  In that moment, I was scared to think of Alessio. If I lost him too…then what would I have left? As if Lena could tell my thoughts, she softly called out, “Alessio.”

  My eyes opened when I heard her gasp. She quickly handed my baby to Isaak, who left the room, and Lena pulled a trembling Alessio from under the bed. His face was ashen and caked with dry tears. His expression was a mask of shock and fear. His little legs were shaking so hard Lena had to hold him up. His pants were wet, and I knew it was probably piss.

  Alessio didn’t make a sound. He stared into the distance. Lena quickly placed a hand over his eyes, shielding his gaze from the horrifying scene in front of him. She ushered him out of the room and followed suit.

  I looked down at my Angel again. My fingers couldn’t stop caressing her cheek, touching her cold, velvet skin.

  I knew this would be the last time.

  “I don’t want to let you go, Angel. I…can’t. Fuck, I just can’t…I can’t…live…I can’t…breathe,” I cried into her neck. “This is all…my fault…I shouldn’t…have left you. I shouldn’t have…all…my fault. I…am sorry…so…so sorry…please…come back.”

  I only got silence in response.

  From now on, I would never hear her voice. No matter how loud I would call for Maria, I would only get silence.

  I had forced fate. And this was the outcome.

  Angels don’t belong in this world…in my world.

  Chapter 25

  Lyov

  They buried my Angel a week ago. It had been seven days. Seven. Fucking. Days since I last held my Maria.

  She now laid in the dark, cold ground, far, far away from me. I didn’t attend the funeral. I was hidden deep in the trees and then walked away when they lowered her casket to the ground. My feet took me nowhere; I just walked mindlessly around in a world that my Angel no longer breathed in.

  Our princess was buried beside her, too. I lost four people that night. I lost my friend. I lost my wife. I lost my daughter. And I lost my son.

  Alessio hadn’t a spoken a word since that night, when Lena had pulled him from under the bed. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t react to anything. He was just a living corpse. Like me. Alive yet dead inside. Breathing, yet just surviving…not living.

  I almost wished I’d died that night. Maybe the pain would be easier. Maybe then, I would be with my Angel. Maybe then, we could have our happy ending. Maybe then, our love wouldn’t be so broken and empty.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on my door. Through the darkness, I watched as Lena walked inside without waiting for my reply. She knew there would be no response. My doors had remained closed for the last seven days. Nobody was allowed in. I guessed I wallowed in self-pity and dreamed of days when my Angel was still alive. I dreamed of the days when I would wake up beside her and see those vivid blue eyes staring into me. Her beautiful smile and her infectious laughter. I dreamed of when my Angel was still alive and she would hold me in her embrace.

  Except, no matter how much I would dream of these beautiful moments, I would always wake up into this nightmare.

  Even with the light off and the room basked with darkness, Lena found her way to my bed. She sat down on the edge. I closed my eyes, refusing to acknowledge her presence.

  I didn’t want to talk. There was no point. What was there left to say?

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  “You didn’t eat,” Lena said quietly. I didn’t respond. She let out a sigh, and I could almost feel her shoulders drooping.

  “I want to be alone,” I finally said after a few minutes of silence.

  “I want to be alone too, but we can’t always have what we want, right?” Her voice sounded so empty, so unlike the old Lena I once knew. She was broken too. But I chose to ignore the fact that she lost her love too. I couldn’t handle thinking about her hurting while I was so deep in pain.

  My eyes snapped open, and I glared at her through the darkness. “What the fuck do you want?” I barely even recognized my voice. It was rough and gravelly after days of not speaking. It sounded…raw and pained.

  “I don’t want anything, Lyov. I am just here to give you something.”

  I waited, but finally she moved. My fist tightened when she touched my hand. Gently, she opened my clenched fingers and then laid something cold in the middle of my palm. She closed my fingers around it again. “This belongs to you.”

  With that, Lena got up and left the room.

  Silence fell upon me again. I shifted around in the bed and turned on the lamp. I opened my palm, and in the middle, I found a ring.

  Maria’s wedding band.

  Lena must have kept it when…

  I shook my head, refusing to think of it. My eyes burned with unshed tears as I stared at my Angel’s ring, the same one that she never took off. The same one that had my name engraved on the inside of it.

  I looked down at my left hand, where my wedding band was still present. The word Angel was engraved on the inside of it. Matching rings for my wife and me. She had my name, and I had hers…Angel.

  I choked back a sob and fisted her wedding band, so tight that my knuckles turned white and my fingers started to hurt. Closing my eyes, I laid against the headboard. My head hurt. And my heart…the ache never disappeared, not since the night I found Maria in a pool of her blood.

  Darkness swallowed me, and I fell into another bottomless pit. The next time I woke up, the ring was still held tightly in my fist. I opened my fingers and found it hard to breathe. Fuck. I hated this. I hated being weak. I hated this…this feeling of helplessness and emptiness.

  I leaned forward, over the edge of my mattress, and opened the drawer of my nightstand. I found the silver chain that I kept in there. Placing Maria’s ring onto the chain, I lifted it in front of my face and watched the ring dangle perfectly in the middle.

  Forever, Angel. I promised you forever.

  I placed the chain around my neck, and the cold ring laid in the middle of my chest. My beating heart thundered, and a painful, silent tear fell down.

  I wished I could go back and change the past. I wished I could go back and protect my Maria just like I had promised. But I couldn’t. What a fucking failure I was. The King, yet now…I was nothing but a stupid, broken soul.

  My gaze went to the open drawer, and the pain turned into fury. Seven days. I lived seven days without my wife with only two emotions. Anger. And pain.

  I took out the crumpled note from the drawer and stared at the words. My blood roared in my ears, and my veins thundered in my neck. Every pore of me vibrated with the need to shed the blood of those who had destroyed my life.

  The note I found on Maria’s body had sealed their fate.

  Let that be a lesson for you.

  Fucking Italians.

  The Abandonato.

  The men who were captured revealed the truth. Alfredo was behind the attack. Alfredo killed my Angel.

  Oh, he would pay.

  His death would be slow and painful. I would end him, and with him, I would bring his empire down.

  Eight years ago, I made wedding vows.

  Now, I made a vow to end this.

  The Italians started a war.

  The Russians would end it.

  And a bloodbath was the only
answer.

  Chapter 26

  Lyov

  22 years later

  It took Alessio three years before he started speaking again after witnessing his mother’s death. Since that night, my boy was never the same. Not the innocent, sweet boy Maria used to love, coddle, and cherish. He changed the night he watched his mother’s blood flow, saturating our lives with its painful meaning.

  Three years after Maria took her last breath, Alessio made his first kill at only eleven years old. I wished I was a better father. Maybe stopped him when I could have. I wished I had kept him away from this fucked-up life. But I didn’t. Life had fucked me up so I could only see my pain and revenge. I didn’t understand Alessio. I didn’t understand his fear, his sorrow…and his emptiness. Only because I was too blinded by my own.

  Life had hardened Alessio Ivanshov into a ruthless, merciless King. He built the Empire I turned into ash with his own bare hands.

  I wished I could have done a lot of things differently. But now, as I watched my son wrap his arms about his woman, his Ayla, his Angel…I wouldn’t change anything.

  Some would say it was fate. Destiny.

  Maybe this was meant all along.

  Maybe I was meant to lose my Angel.

  So Alessio could find his.

  I had given them both a hard time. I believed that Angels didn’t belong in our world, and by pushing my anger and sorrow at losing my wife on Alessio, he almost lost his Ayla.

  But now they were happy. They were together, with a baby on the way.

  A princess, Ayla said.

  It hurt to think about it, to think about their happiness because mine had just been an incomplete, broken story. Even after twenty-two years, the realization that I would never hold my daughter…the ache in my heart only worsened.

  I watched as Alessio laced his fingers with Ayla’s and they walked toward the woods that led to the streams and a field of flowers. A sanctuary, a piece of heaven in this hell.

  I watched as my son leaned down and kissed his woman on her lips. Ayla threw her head back and laughed. Even from far away, I saw Alessio’s lips tilted up in a smile. The way he looked at her, it reminded me of the times when I would look at my Maria. I was sure I had the same look in my eyes, on my face. That look of love and absolute adoration. A look of protectiveness. A look that said this woman…she was mine.

  They walked further into the woods together. My hand came up, and I touched my silver chain from under my shirt. My fingers rubbed over Maria’s wedding band. I could almost feel her presence, as if she was right next to me. I could feel her smile…her warmth.

  I imagined she was here right now, standing beside me, watching over our son and his Angel.

  I gripped the ring tighter. “They are happy, Maria. Alessio found her. And I think…I think they are going to live happily ever after. Just like you always wanted for him.”

  Alessio and Ayla disappeared into the trees, and I couldn’t help but smile. They were beautiful together.

  Leaning against my window, I stared outside at the back garden where my Angel had spent most of her time. I would always find her, hands buried into the soil as she planted more and more flowers.

  The thought came to a screeching halt when something else caught my eyes. Silence filled my ears, and I forgot about Maria. I forgot about the flowers.

  I only saw the shadow following behind Alessio. Someone who shouldn’t have been there.

  Shock coursed through me. My heart kick-started, and every instinct in me told me something was wrong.

  Just like that night…twenty-two years ago.

  My instincts were never wrong. Without thinking, I turned away from the windows. My legs were shaking almost, but I ran out of my room. A deep sense of fear was instilled in me.

  I ran down the hall and the stairs. I heard Isaak yelling. I heard other men running behind me, following me as I ran toward the woods. But I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop once because something was wrong.

  They were in danger. Alessio. Ayla. Their baby.

  Something deep within screamed and urged me to run faster, to save them.

  Finally, I broke through the trees. From a distance, I saw Alessio first. He was only a few feet from Ayla. She had her hands over her stomach and tears running down her cheeks. She looked scared. Alessio looked scared.

  And then I saw him. The Devil of their story.

  His gun was pointed at Ayla’s stomach. And I heard his words. Loud and chilling. Hurtful to my ears. He was going to hurt their Princess.

  NO!

  I didn’t think. I didn’t stop. I had to save them.

  Never again. This family wouldn’t lose another Angel…another Princess.

  In a flash, I saw Alessio running to Ayla. I saw him standing in front of her. I knew he would take the bullet.

  But this…this couldn’t be the end of their story. This couldn’t be another broken love story.

  And I couldn’t lose my son.

  My feet took me forward. Time slowed. The chirping birds…and the flowing water…everything disappeared into silence.

  In my head, I saw a brief flash of black hair and blue eyes standing in the distance. It happened fast. I was far away from them, and then I was in front of the gun.

  Even the gunshot was silent.

  Everything…was…empty. Silence.

  I was falling…falling…and falling.

  I saved them.

  I saved his Angel. I saved their princess. I saved my son.

  Darkness engulfed me, and I sunk deeper into it, waiting for the pain. But nothing hurt. I felt…peaceful.

  I love you, Master.

  I love you, Angel.

  Epilogue

  Lyov

  I used to think I was unbeatable…indestructible. But every man has a weakness.

  Sometimes, I wanted to curse the day I met Maria. The day I gave myself to her, the very soul of me—I placed it in her hands. I wanted to hate the day I gave her my heart and felt her body under mine. I wanted to forget her warmth, her shivering skin underneath my wandering touch. I wanted to forget to laugh. Her smiles. Her love.

  I wanted to go back to the beginning and wished I hadn’t laid eyes on her…hadn’t looked into the blue eyes of a tempting siren. Because then, I wouldn’t be here—utterly broken and weak.

  She was the light that shone during my darkest hour. My Angel became my Queen, who stood by me as I built a stronger empire. And now…everything was burning into ashes. I was powerless to stop it.

  But even though I wanted to curse the day I laid eyes on my Angel, I really couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to hate it all…I really couldn’t.

  Our memories were all I had left. They kept me alive, even when I was dead.

  You are in my arms right now, and I don’t need anything else. I can feel your love in the way you touch me. The way you look at me.

  You are mine, Maria. And I will always be forever yours. I. Love. You. Fuck, those words aren’t enough.

  Then show me. Show me how much you love me. Don’t let me forget, Lyov.

  I knew she wasn’t coming back. I knew I would never catch a glimpse of my Angel again, would never hear her laugh or drown in her eyes…or feel her touch on my skin. But there was a hole inside my stupid heart. It made me hope…that for the briefest moment, if I closed my eyes and opened them again, she would be here. My Angel, in front of me, opening her arms for me so I could sink into her embrace.

  It was a hopeless dream, yet I couldn’t help but close my eyes.

  I remembered when she would look at me, my heart would beat wildly. When she would smile at me, there was something that deep within me, feeling that smile all the way down to my toes. I didn’t want this moment to ever end. A fragment of imagination was what kept me going. I held on to those moments even when they hurt and left me even more pain afterward.

  So I closed my eyes and hopelessly dreamed that when I opened them again, my Angel would be here. That our fairy tale wasn’
t bloodily tainted.

  My eyes opened.

  Silence.

  Emptiness.

  Nothing.

  Just…empty. Alone yet again. It fucking hurt, and I clenched my eyes closed again, choking back a horrible sob. The droplets of tears slid down my cheek, almost burning in realization.

  My Maria was never coming back. No matter how many times I closed my eyes and dreamed of her…it was all broken.

  Her blood had flowed…red as roses.

  My palm laid over my bandaged chest, feeling my heartbeat. The bullet I took to save my family, it didn’t kill me. It almost hit my heart, but it missed.

  I thought I had died. I remembered seeing my Maria, but then she disappeared, and I was thrust back into the present, alive, breathing.

  It wasn’t my time to go yet. It wasn’t my time to reunite with my Angel yet…but one day soon. Maybe I was kept alive all this time for this. A purpose. Maybe I was meant to be here, to save Alessio and his family.

  So many years ago, I failed mine.

  This was my second chance.

  I hadn’t had a chance to save my Angel, but I saved my son’s Angel.

  I couldn’t save my Princess, but I saved Alessio’s,

  A full circle of life. I found my redemption, and it felt like I could finally breathe a little.

  My gaze found our portrait on the wall. My Angel was smiling down at me.

  I miss you in ways that nobody could comprehend. No even words can understand.

  I wanted to beg her to come back. Come back, Angel. Stay just a little longer. Let me kiss you one more time. Let me feel your arms around me. Let me love you. One last time.

  But I knew she was somewhere so far, far away, way beyond my reach.

  What a funny way to live our vows…till death do us part.

  No. Not even death could separate us.

  Maria was mine. Always would be. And I was hers. Till my last fucking breath.

  There would be no other. For my Angel was the only one.