AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No! Please! Please, Luca! I beg you! Do not kill my daughter! We know nothing!”
The Lombardi matriarch’s cries ring out in the ballroom. She pleads while we stare impassively.
She cries, and my mother is dead.
I give zero fucks. Kill the bitch.
Interestingly, Giada’s fiancé remains silent. I flick my gaze from him back to Niccolò. He rises to his knees. A grimace crosses his face at the pressure on the shattered joint. He clasps his hands together and lowers his gaze in supplication.
“Luca, Giada’s mother is correct. They know nothing of my plan to overtake your father. The women are innocent—”
“As was my mother.”
Niccolò flinches at the deadly tone. But he continues to beg.
“Please, Luca, let them live. You killed my sons and my soldiers involved. Kill me now. But have mercy on Giada. Please.”
Silence descends.
Giada and the other women cry softly.
Two gunshots ring out.
The body crumples to the ground.
Screams and shouts fill the air.
CHAPTER TWO
Present — Russia
Gala
“Irina.”
My stomach drops as our father Borislav rises from the table and calls to my oldest sister. The already silent and cold kitchen plunges into a soundless, frozen tomb. Even Borya and Yeva—her three-year-old son and her two-year-old daughter—know better than to speak when their father calls for Irina. No one says a word as he stalks from the kitchen and she follows him meekly without a glance at us.
Not until their bedroom door closes do we breathe.
I jump from my chair and clatter the forks as I collect them from the table. As the next oldest sister remaining at the farm, I attempt to cloak the sound of the bedsprings as he rapes his own daughter.
Tasha—my youngest sister by seven years—gathers Borya and Yeva from their chairs. She leads them to the bedroom they share to shield them from their grandfather-cum-father’s atrocious act. I nod as she glances over her shoulder at me. She returns the nod with solemn eyes.
Since our mother Nina died as she gave birth to Tasha, our father turned to Irina to warm his bed and ignored baby Tasha. But from the time she understood words, he cursed her for the death of his wife. Tasha stopped speaking at three years old. Eight years passed.
Syuzanna—two years younger than me—flinches when Irina’s muffled cry reaches the kitchen. She does her best to remain quiet through the regular assaults. But we know our father is rough with her. The bruises around her neck and on her arms and her hips prove he’s the monster we know.
I shake my head at Syuzanna.
She hurries to put on her threadbare coat. With a glance at the kitchen entry, she leaves the room to put the meager bits of remaining dinner in the cold storage shed outside. The freezing winter temperatures will keep them edible for breakfast.
I wash the dishes in the thawed block of ice in the sink. Syuzanna returns and dries them. My mind flashes back to our mother—our saving grace.
Twenty years younger than our father, she was a teacher in the village several miles away from our remote farm. Unfortunately for her, she met our father at the weekly market where he sells meat from his pigs. He charmed her with his good looks and smooth words. She married him despite her parents’ disapproval. They disowned her and never spoke to her again.
My fondest memories of our mother were of the times she taught us our lessons. She was determined to educate us despite the chances of us ever leaving this godforsaken area of Russia are nil. However, each morning she taught reading comprehension followed by the English language. The afternoons focused on math and history. When we scored high on our tests, she drew stars and smiley faces on the pages, then hung them on the special wall in the hallway.
Our father was loving and kind. He’d praise us when he returned from the market or from the fields. Sometimes he brought our mother trinkets he traded with others. She’d make a show of the handmade necklaces as though the finest diamonds adorned the chains. He beamed at her, and they disappeared into their bedroom.
