The Russian Roulette [The Mafia Chronicles #2]

Chapter XVI

The screams rang in her ears. She couldn't stop them. They echoed like the wind's howls on a dark eerie night. It sounded like the sky was blowing through a horn. Hands scratched her skin and clawed at her. They wanted to clutch her and bury her underground. The screams grew louder as the hands pulled her harder towards them. Before those hands could do anymore damage, guns pierced through the air, ending them.

Silence followed.

Sophie found herself missing the screams. She preferred them to this dead silence. Those screams where a sign of life while the silence was an indication of the lack of it. She was now alone; the screams no longer holding her close.

She was no longer screaming. Hands were no longer grabbing at her. Her eyes were able to find enough comfort to open slowly. Although she felt them opened, she could only see the dark; if that was even possible.

It took her a moment to realize she was back home. Home, is this what this place is? She wondered. She was laying on her bed, no longer in the Italian mansion with scratches on her arms from the explosion and the cruel hands that held her in place. She was in the arms of her husband, the one she learned to care for in her fleeting time of knowing. She was afraid of what that meant.

A pained sigh left her lips as she wiped the fallen tears on her cheek. She hasn't felt like that in a long time. Nightmares were not a common occurrence for her but when they came, they had a huge on her. However, every time they did appear in her mind, her mother's embrace was where she would escape.

This time is different. She was no longer a child and more importantly, she was no longer a room away from her mother's warmth. The only way she could reach her mother was through a phone.

And that was what she used. She took her phone and dialed the number she had engraved in the back of her mind. A few rings later and she heard the raspy voice of her mother. It was clear that calling her when the sky was pitch black at four in the morning was not ideal.

"детка? Is everything alright? You know it's extremely late." The worry was evident in her voice. She knew her daughter's habits, and calling when the moon was at its prime state was not one of them.

[Baby?]

Sophie could do nothing but breath heavily. The only thing that could describe how she felt was her tears, but she did not want to wake up the tired man that was resting beside her, although he was the source of her nightmares. He would most probably wake up with a fright and worry for the rest of the night simply because he heard her cries. So she decided to calm herself before she spoke.

"мама. I had an awful dream, мама." She felt like she returned to being five years old in her mother's arms.

[Mom.]

A sigh was heard on the other end, the same sigh her mom gave when Sophie would come and hug her when she was sad. A sigh that was reserved to vulnerable moments like this. "What was is about? Do you want to tell me? It could help to get it off of your chest." She could hear her mom getting up from her bed and walking out of her room.

Sophie tried searching for what the start of the nightmare was, but she was unable to as her eyes welled up with tears and her throat clogged because she remembered the end of the dream.

"All I can remember is the end. Is that normal?" Sophie blinked away her tears.

"Yes, baby, it is. It's the last thing you saw before you woke up so yes, it's likely that you remember that part. Do you want to tell me about it?" Sophie hummed as Katya asked. She had no way to hold her daughter and reassure her with her warm embrace. She missed her only child and it felt like a piece of her was missing; it was waiting to be reunited with the rest of her body.