That night changed everything.
He wasn’t falling. He was remembering.
As the noose tightened around his throat, his world didn’t go black—it flared with light. Blinding, searing memories erupted behind his eyes. Not the corridor. Not Franz. Not the blood soaking the marble floor.
He was back in the study, Smoke in the air. His mother’s lifeless body slumped on the Persian rug. Her white blouse soaked in red. Her eyes—still open. And his father—Henry Ardent—stood frozen beside her, the pistol shaking in his hand.
He hadn’t meant to pull the trigger. He hadn’t even realized the safety was off. They had been arguing—screaming—and she lunged, slapped him, grabbed the barrel—and it went off.
Henry collapsed to his knees beside her.
"God... no, no, no. Margaret—"
He held her, sobbing. Blood stained his hands. His screams tore through the mansion. Elliot had run in moments later. Frozen in the doorway.
Then the guards arrived.
But they weren’t there for help. Not really.
They were loyal to Henry. Paid well. Conditioned to obey.
Henry stood, his eyes wild. And when he saw Elliot, still staring at the body—something snapped in him.
"You saw him," Henry said to the guards, voice strained, trembling. "He killed her. He... he lost control."
Elliot’s mouth opened. No words came.
The guards didn’t question. Didn’t hesitate.
He shouted. Screamed. Pleaded. But it didn’t matter. They dragged him from the room, past his mother’s corpse, down the hallway as Henry turned his back.
He stood in the doorway. Watching. Silent. Eyes cold.
Not a flicker of empathy.
He said nothing as Elliot vanished into the arms of strangers.
The world spun. And then—darkness.
Chains. Screams. A distant, slurred Russian lullaby echoing through the vents.
Volgograd Psychiatric Correctional Institute. A place where people vanished. A hellhole where human rights didn’t exist. Where the floors smelled like antiseptic and urine, and the walls never echoed back your voice.
They made his life a crucible.
He remembered the freezing baths, how the cold bit into bone until he forgot his name. Electroshock therapy administered for "emotional instability." Solitary in the black room—no lights, no windows, no food for days. Just screaming. Distant, constant screaming. He remembered being strapped to a metal gurney, staring up at the rotating ceiling fan as doctors debated if he was real or delusional.
A fellow patient tried to gnaw his ear off in the dark. A guard pissed on his food tray. A nurse smiled sweetly while jabbing a needle into the sole of his foot.
They tried to erase him.
But they couldn’t take her smile.
Victoria a hope to see her again. The crinkle near her eyes when she laughed. It kept him human.
And desire for revenge.
It was cold, but it burned bright inside him.
He studied routines. Watched schedules. Memorized guard changes. He feigned compliance, learned Russian, mimicked their speech. Every detail mattered.
Until one night, during a power outage, he snapped the wire frame off a gurney and sliced through a nurse’s throat. He changed clothes with her, stole her access card, and ghosted through the corridors.
Through a snowstorm. Barefoot. The alarm screamed behind him like hell’s siren. Dogs howled. Floodlights carved the trees. He didn’t look back.
He survived on rats and rainwater for weeks, hiding in burned-out buildings and abandoned farms, becoming feral. He walked from Volgograd to Moscow, barefoot, bleeding, invisible.
Three men in alley jackets circled him beneath a bridge. One of them pulled a knife.
Elliot had nothing. No wallet. No shoes.
The first thug went down with a shattered nose. The second stabbed him in the side. He kept going. Broke fingers, cracked ribs, dislocated a jaw. But they overwhelmed him.
They beat him bloody.
But they noticed he didn’t scream.
"Chert, he’s like an animal," one said, wiping blood off his knuckles.
Instead of killing him, they dragged him to a warehouse on the outskirts.
That’s where he met Kazimir.
The boss of the Bratva cell. Broad-shouldered, scarred, always chewing clove cigarettes. He had a gold tooth, a bear tattoo, and eyes that looked through people. He needed fighters. Elliot needed protection.
He started as a runner. Then an enforcer. Then an interrogator. Then a captain. He bled for power. Killed without hesitation. Earned respect through pain. He learned the rules of the underworld: loyalty is currency, cruelty is credit.
He never smiled. Not once.
Until the day he was summoned.
The real power behind the curtain. The syndicate with ties to governments, intelligence, warlords. He walked into the dark marble hall where everything reeked of blood and mahogany. Carvings of saints and demons lined the walls.
At the head of the table, a man with white hair like bone, a clean blue suit, and eyes the color of a glacier. The head of Kafka family. Lean, almost regal, like a dead king left on ice. Fingers steepled. Motionless.
He sat still as a sculpture.
"Come closer," the man said.
And there—among the circle of lieutenants—stood a teenage boy.
He was standing atop a pile of corpses, grown men with broken limbs and twisted necks. One still twitched. Another gurgled.
The boy’s chest heaved. His knuckles raw. A cut split his eyebrow, dripping red down his cheek. But he was smiling.
Then he shouted something in Russian—wild, laughing.
The white-haired man clapped.
He walked up and embraced the bloodied teen like a conquering hero.
Then he turned to Elliot.
"You’re Henry’s son, aren’t you?"
Elliot’s jaw clenched.
"No. I’m not his. I don’t know my father."
Laughter. Cold and sharp.
"That dumb fucker. You are his son. The other one—he’s not. He’s my brother’s. Your precious sibling got more of my brother’s genes than you ever did."
Then his smile faded, and his voice dropped.
"He betrayed you, like My brother betrayed me. Snake blood. Runs in the line."
The ground split beneath him.
Franz hadn’t taken everything from him.
He’d stolen the family. The inheritance. Victoria. The future.
And Elliot had blamed only his father for years.
His brother had planned everything.
He swayed, knees buckling.
The white-haired man smiled.
"Don’t worry, boy," he whispered. "Let’s make a deal."
Then Franz walked forward.
His blood-soaked hand gripped Elliot’s head, smearing it red.
He leaned close, breath hot with iron and smoke.
"krɐvˈnaɪ̯ə mʲesʲtʲ."