Hel & Veritas

The Tzar’s Wrath

The sleek, black Rolls Royce La Rose Noire Droptail purred as Xenia left the hospital, heading towards his secluded mansion nestled somewhere in the vastness of New York. He had a penchant for collecting the latest luxury cars, each chosen for a specific purpose or whim. When in New York for his surgical duties, he preferred the anonymity and control of driving himself.

The double life had become a strange sort of routine since his mid-twenties, a constant commute between the opulent world of international medicine and the shadowy, brutal realm he commanded. The initial years had been a tightrope walk, a delicate balancing act, but the relentless expansion of the Volga Group, its tendrils reaching across the globe, had inadvertently provided a sophisticated network that aided in managing his… extracurricular activities. Now, he limited his surgical schedule to a mere five operations a month, the locations rotating to avoid any predictable patterns. To the world, he was the revered Xenia Mikhailov, a beacon of hope in the sterile halls of medicine, an angel in scrubs. And in a way, he was. An angel of death. They lauded his dedication to saving lives, but only he knew the twisted satisfaction he derived from holding that power, the ability to ignite or extinguish a life with a surgeon's precision or a Tsar's decree. He was their savior, their god, the ultimate arbiter of life and death.

Nine years ago, when he had operated on and miraculously saved the newly elected Russian President Armenid Kovatsky, the media had crowned him the messiah of the medical world. They marveled at his skill, his ten-hour battle against seemingly insurmountable odds to mend a body ravaged by a fiery car crash: twenty-two broken ribs, shattered knees, grotesquely bent elbows, lungs swollen with smoke. The world had braced itself for mourning, but Xenia had snatched the president back from the brink.

What they didn't know, what they couldn't possibly fathom, was that the very man who had wielded the scalpel with such divine skill was the architect of that near-fatal accident. Armenid had been a fool, refusing to cooperate with the Bratva on the same terms as his predecessors, demanding triple the usual price. The arrogant bastard had even dared to threaten Xenia, vowing to see him rot in Butyrka for insulting the President of Russia.

That very night, three trucks had collided with Armenid's motorcade, a meticulously orchestrated chaos that left a trail of mangled metal and lifeless bodies. Armenid, however, had survived, left whimpering in a pool of his own blood on the cold asphalt, gasping for his next breath. While the president recuperated in the closely guarded Russian branch of the Volga Group, his savior had paid him a visit. Wraith, his covered face, had relieved himself on the president's pristine hospital bed before extracting a new, significantly reduced agreement. But some lessons are never learned.

Three years later, Armenid had attempted to double-cross Xenia again, a fatal miscalculation that resulted in his swift and brutal downfall. He was framed as the ringleader of a s*x trafficking operation and the murderer of his own wife and daughter – women who had endured years of physical abuse at Armenid's hands and those of his associates. Officially, the records showed a life sentence in the infamous Butyrka prison, with no possibility of parole. Unofficially, not even their bones remained on this earth. Xenia, in a rare act of twisted mercy, had provided Armenid's wife and daughter with new identities, helping them fake their deaths and escape their living nightmare, relocating them to a quiet town in England to begin the arduous process of healing.

As for Armenid and his cronies, their end had been a spectacle of brutal irony. They were repeatedly r***d by bulls injected with potent aphrodisiacs until they were near death, their bodies then unceremoniously dumped into a pit teeming with thirty ravenous wolves, leaving not even a sliver of bone for DNA identification.

Now that his surgical workload was lighter, his numerous mansions scattered across the globe mostly stood silent, gathering dust, with the exception of his primary residence in Russia. He had intended to fly back tonight, the familiar rhythm of his two lives pulling him back to Moscow. But the unexpected encounter with his tsvetok, his little flower, had irrevocably altered his plans.

He instructed his car's AI system to contact Vladlen. His second-in-command answered on the second ring, his gruff voice echoing through the luxurious interior, thick with the ingrained respect he held for his leader. “Tzar!” “Vladlen,” Xenia replied, his voice smooth as he expertly navigated the New York traffic, now turning onto a more secluded route towards his mansion. He often used this less-traveled road to commute to and from the hospital, but for his trips back to Russia, he preferred the swift ascent of his private helicopter from his estate's helipad, a necessary precaution against the ever-present, prying eyes of the paparazzi who constantly lurked around his heavily secured property. “I won’t be using the jet tonight. Something… requires my attention here. If there’s anything urgent, bring it here tomorrow evening. We can discuss it at the mansion.” Vladlen cleared his throat. “Understood, Tzar. I will inform the pilot immediately. I will be there tomorrow evening as instructed.” Xenia hummed in acknowledgment. A ghost of a cruel smile played on his lips. “Any… developments with our Mexican friends?” Vladlen chuckled, a dark, humorless sound. “Nothing, Tzar. Last I heard, the remaining vermin are too terrified to even consider regrouping.” The shared history of loss, the burning desire for vengeance, resonated in his voice. Vladlen’s parents, his father the loyal second-in-command to Xenia’s father, had also been murdered that day, shielding the Tsar and Tsarina with their own bodies. Twenty-two years had passed since that horrific anniversary, and Xenia’s vow to eradicate the Mexican cartel every time it dared to rise from the ashes had been fulfilled five times over, each resurgence met with swift and brutal annihilation, their families included in the cleansing fire.

Whenever some foolhardy individual attempted to piece together the burned and scattered remnants of the cartel, Xenia would strike again, each time delivering a new, horrifyingly creative example of the consequences of defiance. Twenty-two years ago, the cartel leader, Mendoza, had orchestrated the assassination of Xenia’s parents on their seventeenth wedding anniversary because his father had vehemently refused to involve the Bratva in their lucrative child trafficking ring. Xenia, a naive fourteen-year-old, had been upstairs, carefully wrapping the gifts he had painstakingly chosen for his parents.

Xenia's parents had always shielded him from the violent side of their world, wanting to wait until he was at least sixteen to introduce him to that harsh reality. So, at public events like this anniversary celebration, he always wore a black and gold mask. That day was no different. He was dressed as usual, looking forward to taking the mask off later, when the three of them – him, his mom, and his dad – would sit together, open the gifts, and playfully rate them out of ten, sharing laughter over the silly ones. It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of his life, a day filled with love and joy. Instead, it twisted into something that forever felt like a sharp piece of glass lodged in his heart, a constant, painful reminder of what was lost.

The scene remained etched in his memory with brutal clarity: his mother and father lying lifeless, matching bullet holes marring their foreheads, their hands still clasped together, a silent promise of eternal togetherness. Vladlen’s parents lay beside them, their sacrifice a testament to their loyalty. That was the day when he decided to wear the red stitched neon mask forever. He remembered the eerie stillness within him, the absence of tears as he held his weeping, trembling Babushkas in his arms, his gaze fixed on the large, single casket that held his world. Once the funeral arrangements were concluded, his first act had been to make an unforgettable example of the enforcer who had sold the layout of the Tsar’s mansion for a paltry five million dollars. The man had been forced to swallow pennies until he choked to death, his wide, terror-stricken eyes fixed on the young Tsar as he slit the throats of the enforcer’s family, one by one, ear to ear.

Then, he and Vladlen, accompanied by a hundred elite snipers and shooters, had descended upon Mexico. While Mendoza celebrated his perceived victory, Xenia had systematically wiped out the entire cartel, burning their warehouses to the ground, saving the architect of his pain for last. After painting the streets with the blood of his enemies, the Bratva had stormed Mendoza’s opulent mansion, slaughtering every guard who dared to stand in their way. Mendoza, his face a mask of disbelief and dawning horror, had watched a fourteen-year-old boy with death dancing in his eyes, blood splattered across his face and clothes, staring at him with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. He had witnessed his family die one by one, their screams for mercy met only with the sickening thud of their severed heads being placed before him, their eyes wide with terror, their mouths frozen in silent screams. In that moment, Mendoza had finally grasped the magnitude of his mistake, the folly of underestimating the Bratva, of believing he could get away with murdering the Tsar and Tsarina. Only three days had passed since their deaths, and here he was, witnessing unimaginable horrors at the hands of a boy consumed by grief and a burning desire for retribution. Xenia had methodically tortured Mendoza, filling his body with stabs, tearing out his fingernails, slicing off his n*****s, but deliberately leaving his face untouched. Finally, he had severed Mendoza’s head, carrying it back to Russia as a grim offering to his Babushkas, who had finally found a sliver of peace in their broken hearts, the killer of their children dead at their feet. It was then, and only then, that the carefully constructed dam of Xenia’s grief had finally broken. He had collapsed in front of them, sobbing uncontrollably for the last time, mourning the loss of his mother’s gentle touch and loving kisses, his father’s playful teasing and the shared camaraderie of their training sessions, mourning the part of himself that had died with them.

Xenia ended his call with Vladlen, a new urgency propelling him. He needed to get to his mansion, to the quiet solitude of his study, to finally open the file and devour every detail about his intriguing tsvetok.