Bless Me Father

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The streets were wet and congested as I walked down a main street in Moscow that night. People scurried form one destination to another. In the side alleys prostitutes thickly lingered and under every burnt out street lamp I spotted an X-man protégé discreetly displaying what they were named for. Post-communist Russia had become nothing but a mere playground for crime and sin, where the biggest kid on the playground was at the top of the slide for no other reason than the rest of the kids didn’t dare challenge him.
The gentle clicking of my heels droned in and out while I let only one thing lurk in mind: my destination. I swerved through scattered drunks and dodged occasional gang fights while trying to keep my presence on a subtle note. The streets were disgusting. Absolute filth, but yet, It was this same filth that had made my family so strong. It is true what they say; Out of the dirt will always spawn a beautiful fruit, but sooner or later you will come across one with a worm.
I rounded the next corner just as my ears began to pick up the faint resonance of sirens approaching. Pathetic souls, I thought burying my hands deeper into my long, onyx jacket and picking up my pace. If the authorities caught me in such a place they would crucify me. For it was nothing but a competition, as it always had been and always would be. My family fighting for a capitalistic lifestyle while the government trying to suppress it. But even if we had relinquished all of the federals, there would always be Lukanovs. It was a bittersweet rivalry. The Lukanovs were notorious for drug trafficking. It was estimated that three fourths of the city’s incoming profit from Ecstasy and Heroin belonged to that particular family alone. My family, the Revskys, were known for money laundering and acquiring the difficult task of mastering the art of professional assassination. But every time we experienced a failure one could almost guarantee that a Lukanov was responsible for it. Not to say that we didn’t share a mutual respect, but nonetheless, we despised each other more than a summer flower resents winter’s first chill, slowly choking the life out of one another.
I retreated into a cramped, darker alley and started to jog. I could hear an eruption of protest behind me; apparently the Feds had arrived. Cutting through an abandoned apartment and climbing through a window I landed gracefully before looking up at the sky. The moon hung silently in night’s velvet glove, which was adorned with shimmering diamonds of far, exotic lands. It seemed as if the clouds held their breath in undisturbed reverence. But despite the cool loveliness of the night, I felt crushed by it, suffocated by its vagueness. It was mocking me, tormenting me by its silence in a tone without a sound. It knew what I had been sent to do that night. It knew how much I hated the fact that I had to follow through. But yet, it offered no condolence, just quiet malice.
By the time I had reached Club Rhapsody, I had grown anxious. I stood at the top of a low grade street looking down at the tattooed, pierced new age multitude of people, all willing to give their right arm to gain access to the fortified two-story building. The neon lights were rampant in every shade imaginable and the steady pulse of the bass echoed my own. Surprisingly, there were only two guards standing outside with assault rifles as the fanatics were searched and cautiously escorted inside. However, If I knew Aleks well enough, which I did, I knew that there would be plenty more of his minions inside.


* * *

“Who is Aleks?” the priest interrupted abruptly. I turned my head again and through my tears I could see the outline of his posture wasn’t as rigid now. I blinked a few times, which sent the liquid streaming down my face once more and I felt the pain become sharper within the jagged wound on my leg.
“Who is Aleks,” I whispered softly to myself. It was more of a statement of verbal thinking than a question. I rested my head against the wall behind me and took a deep breath or atleast as deep of a breath as I could take with my lungs crushing against my ribcage. My emotions were in a Gordian knot that even God himself could not have unravelled.. Who is Aleks, I reiterated over and over again in my mind. Who is Aleks?
Aleks was the best man I had ever known and at the same time the person I hated the most. I was Nikolai Revsky’s only daughter and he was the nephew of Viktor Lukanov. My sworn enemy even before birth. It was my birthright to detest him and how I had longed to do just that for all of those subsequent years, yet despite my innate bitterness I could never find it in myself. Instead, I found myself enthralled with him. The fact that I couldn’t have him only made me desire him more. And so it was that after a while we became paramours, forbidden lovers and up until recently we had managed the nearly impossible task of keeping our affairs in utter secrecy.
“Well, child?” the priest intruded again. “Who is he?” I stared at the ceiling and a gradual, reluctant smile started to devour my tear-streaked face.
“He was my lover, father,” the smile faded just as quickly as it had appeared. “And I was sent to kill him.”