Anton Viktorovich Reznikov was born into wealth, but not softness.
The Reznikov family was old blood in Saint Petersburg underworld — ruthless, respected, feared. His father, Viktor Reznikov, is the kind of man people whispered about and never questioned. But Anton's world, at first, belonged to his mother.
Irina Reznikov was a painter. Educated, fluent in French and everything Viktor wasn't. She carved out a world of light within their cold, guarded estate —bookshelves,music, a rooftop garden with wild violets and basil. She loved Anton fiercely and quietly, in a way that never made him doubt that he was worth something.
Their estate was stone and silence , wrapped in fences and guards— but Irina made a secret place.
A rooftop garden.
Hidden above the second wing of the house, it was a patch of earth where she grew violets, rosemary, small white tulips and even a few strawberries in summer. She taught Anton how to water them, how to whisper to the plants like they were old friends.
"Everything grows better when it feels loved," she told him, kneeling in the soil.
Anton was five when he planted his first flower —a crooked sunflower that never stood straight, but she framed a photo of it anyway.
He kept the dried petal pressed in a book under his mattress until the day Vikto ordered the entire garden destroyed after her death.
He never forgave him for it.
Irina painted in the mornings. She kept her studio sunlit, with long white curtains that danced in the wind. Anton would sneak in barefoot, holding a slice of bread, and sit on the floor while she worked.
Sometimes she painted saints. Sometimes strangers. Once she painted Anton asleep in the garden, curled beside a cat he didn't remember having.
She told him stories while she worked — of cities she'd visited before Viktor, of French summer and German winters. Of Paris, where once saw Monet's lilies.
"Beauty isn't weakness." She told him. "It's what makes power bearable."
Anton didn't understand it then but the world's stuck.
When there were raised voices downstairs —or men with blood on their sleeves came to speak with his father —Anton would slip inside Irina's room and hide beneath her shawl.
She never told him not to be afraid. She only held him and hummed a moldy he never found again, no matter how many songs he listened to later in life.
Once, after a particularly loud argument between his father and a rival, Anton asked her:
"Is papa a bad man?"
She didn't answer right away. Just stroked his hair and said;
"He's a man who forgot how to feel."
Anton never forgot that either.
When the illness came, Irina hid it at first. She still painted, still cooked his favorite buckwheat porridge with caramelized onion. But her hands began to tremble. She started to forget things —small things, then whole days.
Anton was nine when he realized she was dying. Ten when started helping her walk down the stairs. Eleven when he stayed up at night to make sure she was still breathing.
They talked more in whispers then. She told him about her regrets. Her dreams. About the sea.
"If I could go anywhere," she told him once, "I'd go to the Black Sea. Not for the water —just the sky. It's the only place where the clouds feel like they are flying."
Anton Neva saw the sea with her.
But he still visits Odessa's coast on business —and every time, he stands alone for a few minutes looking up.
Just Incase the sky remembers her.
She passed away when he was twelve, a brittle winter morning. Anton was the one who found her.
No one cried. Not even him.
After Irina's death, Viktor closed the door on all softness. He ordered the garden removed. Her paintings hidden or destroyed. Her name was never spoke in the house again.
Anton was given no time to mourn.
His childhood ended in silence and schedules: weapons training, economic strategies, languages, smuggling logistics. He was drilled by Viktor's inner circle like a soldier. Private tutors replaced friends. Compassion was punished.
"Men don't grieve," Victor once told him. "They lead."
By the time he turned sixteen, Anton had witnessed violence firsthand. He knew what betrayal looked like up close. He knew how to keep his mouth shut, how to make someone disappear, how to carry fear like a tailored suit.
He kept one photograph of his mother —hidden behind a false drawer panel. In it, she smiled a red scarf. Her eyes were soft. Hopeful.
He never showed it to anyone.
Anton earned his name fast. Cold. Calculating. Efficient. Reznikov heir
He cleaned up the Odessa routes, took over the money laundering rings in Prague, and negotiated with arms dealers in Georgia like a chess master. He was Viktor's greatest weapon —because he'd never asked why.
But he also never belonged.
He refused arranged marriages. He refused anything that smelled like control. His nights were filled with steel, whiskey and silence. He trusted no one fully —not even his inner circle. Only his mother's ghost.
At twenty-five, he bought a penthouse with floor to ceiling windows and not a single photograph.
And he still had that dream sometimes: the one Irina described. A cliff. Someone waiting. His feet frozen in place
Now, Anton is the quiet face of Reznikov empire. The name people fear. He signs off on shipments, settles disputes with merely a nod, and sit in Viktor's chair more than Viktor himself does.
But Viktor still pulls the strings —and still wants his son to marry for power.
Anton is tired —not weak, never that. But exhausted. Numb.