The Soldier - S.R. Jones

Prologue

I was born to fight. It is in my DNA, a natural born soldier.

I wasn’t born a monster.

Who is?

Outside of fairy tales and the reassuring stories we tell ourselves, most monsters are made … by us. By society.

The same could be said of me.

I was born a boy. An ordinary boy, but maybe one with a hidden propensity for violence.

For mayhem.

For ruthlessness.

That little boy grew, as most do, unless tragedy strikes, into a man. Once a man, the state took my violence and honed it, trained it, and I became a solider. One might say they tamed me in some ways, tamed my anger and channeled it. Violence tamed, corralled, is a powerful weapon.

The wars I fought were horrifying and bloody, and still, after all I saw and did in war, I did not become a monster.

No, the monster came later.

Unlike the monsters in our collective stories and fairy tales, I didn’t lose control of myself and change shape, a terrible warning to all and sundry to stay away.

No, my demons hide on the inside.

My outside? Wealthy. Powerful. Successful.

Names matter. Words matter. Labels matter.

Those who don’t know me label me as a soldier, warrior, hero and later, businessman. Venture capitalist. Philanthropist.

Those who know me better might use different terms. Fighter. Oligarch. Ruthless. Shark. I like that one a lot. “You’re a shark,” my rival had said as I tore his empire down and sold off the bits I didn’t want. Once a soldier, always a soldier. For what is war if not organized theft? And what is business if not war?

All these labels fit. A great deal of my business is legit; a good portion … is not. No one cares. Money is legitimacy in this fucked up world. And I wear my wealth like a suit of armor, a disguise, and one that opens so many doors.

I have residences in Moscow, London, Paris, and New York. Businessmen come to me for advice, and I once got an invite to a meeting of world leaders, which I turned down rudely enough to not get anymore. I don’t need to hear what the latest bullshit policy is on sustainable capitalism. Capitalism, too, is war.

And like any good soldier, I enjoy the spoils of battle. Supermodels party with me on the yachts I holiday on, whilst politician lurk in corners and let me line their pockets for influence in the affairs of whole nations. I own the sort of toys most men can only dream of, and I could drown myself in beautiful women every night and never run short of offers. I drink the best alcohol, smoke the best cigars, and have more gold in the vaults than a small nation.

Yet through it all, through all I do, beats one thing—my overwhelming need for revenge. Revenge on the people who breathed the monster within to life.

In this fairy tale I am not the tragic beast yearning for love to make me a man again, but I’m not the handsome prince either.

I am the motherfucking king of my fiefdom. On the one hand, a legitimate businessman, but on the other, a Bratva Pakhan, and in the Bratva, the Pakhan is king.

Yet my kingdom is too small, and kings, as soldiers, love nothing more than the spoils of war and the conquering of new lands.

It suits me that conquering new lands will hasten my revenge.

It won’t be easy. It might get bloody. But the best wars always are.

The best revenge too.

This king is on the march, this soldier is armed, and in this coming war his enemies will tremble before him.

Chapter One

The boy

Russia in the 1990s.

“Konstantin, come and eat your stew.”

Mother calls me, and I run to the door of our home.

It is simple, a country home in a vast rural landscape a hundred and thirty miles from Moscow, a fact which I learned in school last week.

I reach the wooden door, with its peeling paint, and push it open.

“Sit, sit,” Mother says, fussing over me as I enter the kitchen. I do as she says and smile at Father as I take my seat.

My grandmother is already eating, slurping away at the stew, and I look away from her as a piece of beetroot dribbles down her face. I know it’s wrong because she’s elderly and can’t help it, but sometimes she makes me feel sick with the way she slurps and dribbles.

She’s very old, only has one eye, and with her long white hair, sometimes us children used to imagine she was