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THEY SAY WHEN YOUR heart breaks it feels as if it has shattered into a million pieces. But that isn’t what I felt. I have known so much heartache in my short life and every time it’s as if a little piece of my heart turns black and dies.
This time I wasn’t sure if there were any pieces left. This time it felt as if there were nothing more than a cold, hard rock sitting inside my chest.
Watching Spade walk away from me after everything we had been through together was the last straw. My poor heart couldn’t take not being enough anymore, my love not being enough. Almost every person who came into my life has used me for their own selfish purposes and discarded me as if I were nothing.
Well, not anymore.
It’s time for me to take back my life and find my own purpose. It’s time for me to live for myself and to stop waiting around for someone to swoop in and use me. This broken person, this person I have become wasn’t me. At this point, I don’t even have a clue who I am. It’s time I figured that out and deep down, I could never be happy with a normal life.
Niko waited just inside the doors for me. When I came to a stop at his side, he gave me a quick look over, but didn’t say a word. His glance held no sympathy nor pity for me. I was grateful. Those things were the last thing I needed right now. I was glad I had been stuck with someone who only was capable of cold indifference.
He led me toward the TSA checkpoint, handing me a plane ticket, and a few necessary documents as we waited in the long line.
Glancing over my ticket, my eyes landed on the destination. I let out a humorless laugh.
“Russia? Are you missing home?” I asked, looking up at him.
“My home is there. It will give us a place to stay while I arrange your new normal life.” He said normal like it left a dirty taste in his mouth.
Once upon a time, I dreamed of normal. It had been everything to me. Everything I had ever wanted. But now, I wasn’t sure if I could ever live a normal life. There wasn’t anything normal about me. There never had been and as much as I had wished I could, I couldn’t pretend there was now. It was time to let that fairy tale go and move on.
The fifteen plus hour flight to St. Petersburg gave me plenty of time to think about what I wanted out of this life. And after the flight and drive to Niko’s home, I had a pretty good idea of what kind of life I wanted.
Deep down, I knew it was the life I was destined to live. Helping Shade take down my father and his operation, that was the life I needed to live. It was a life helping people who needed it while taking down horrible people that didn’t deserve to live. As it turns out, I may have been meant for the world I grew up in after all, but I wouldn’t be like the monster that fathered me.
When the car stopped outside of Niko’s, I turned to face the man beside me.
“I can’t have a normal life. I don’t want one,” I announced, preparing to argue my case, but Niko looked me over cooly.
“Tell me, Kisa, what kind of life do you want?”
“I want a life like yours. I want to end the lives of those who hurt others. People like my father. I want you to make me a hitman.”