Chapter 1
Alena
Most of my childhood memories were lost among the midst of growing up because I was always in survival mode, filtering off the bad ones. Nobody knew how hard it was to sneak around when my parents weren’t looking just to catch a glimpse of what was happening.
Blood. Guns and knives.
Those things were common in this family. Papa-my father tried to keep me away from the life he was born into because he said it was too dangerous. Imagine the look on my face when I turned fifteen and he immediately started teaching me on how to hold a gun to someone’s head.
The damn irony.
What was he even thinking? Shielding me from harm’s way but as soon as I was fifteen, he showed me everything. The things he was hiding me from, the business talks at night and his men who somehow ended up disappearing.
Only they didn’t disappear. They were just six feet under.
“In this world, there is only survival.” His words were loud and clear, tattooed in my mind.
Now, don’t get me wrong. He was the perfect father to his three children and a loving husband to Mama but to the Bratva, he was a merciless leader. They feared him but the most important thing of all, they respected him.
Papa did everything to make us happy. He taught us the things any father would, like to ride a bike, setting up camp and how to drive. He was there, he was present in our lives, and he gave us everything he had.
It was just, sometimes, I had to remove the uneasiness of knowing he was a killer.
A cold-blooded killer.
Alexei, my brother, was three years older than me. The minute he turned eighteen, every single responsibility was given to -him whether he liked it or not, but I think, he enjoyed the power he had and the women who threw themselves at him.
