Page 1 of The Last Hope

Prologue

“Start over from zero.”

A trembling breath escaped from between my bloodstained lips. Standing on a chair, I clutched my skirt, gathered between my fingers.

My gaze drifted away from the reflection of myself—distorted by tears in the large mirror of the room—and settled on the photograph of a little boy.Mylittle boy.

The chill of the iron rod struck my shins once again, and yet another sigh of pain escaped me.

My baby slept, silent; my baby slept, silent…

The same words looped endlessly in my head as I felt the blood flow steadily toward my feet.

“One,” I whispered in a weak voice.

The taste of blood, the smell of blood, the sensation of it trickling down my skin made me want to vomit.

My wounds, my scars, my tears, my cries—they all made me want to vomit.

The cold bit into my burning skin once again.

“Two.”

His scent, his touch, his voice made me want to die.

His apologies, his gestures, his gifts—offered in a bid for forgiveness after striking me—made me want to die.

“Three.”

But my baby slept, and I had promised him that we would play together tomorrow—I could not die.

“Four.”

I could not abandon my baby to these monsters; I had to fight. I had to keep fighting, just as I had for the past eight years.

“Five.”

For my baby. For my son.

I would not give up—

Not until my last breath.

Chapter one

Nikolai

“Six !” Ivan shouted as he dashed across the lawn, arms spread wide. Dimitri and Emre chased after him, their cries echoing his.

“Moy bednyy paren’(my poor fellow), it’s high time you teach your cubs to run,” laughed Grigori—my eldest brother—as he patted my back and trotted off to join his sons.

I grumbled and sank onto the bench, reaching for my water bottle. Six to two—I’d seen some shitty scores, but this time we truly outdid ourselves with my boys. I muttered another Russian curse before taking a deep gulp, just as my sons approached, dragging their feet.

Mikhail, my twelve-year-old eldest, grabbed his own bottle before slumping beside me, his face dark and breath ragged. He unleashed a string of Russian insults before sipping again. I couldn’t help but smirk behind the towel I retrieved from my bag as I watched my nine-year-old twins follow in turn.

Alexei immediately buried himself in the book tucked in his sports bag, while Andrei pulled out his tablet from under the bench and launched a cartoon about horses.

Teach them to run ? First, they’d have to understand the very purpose of sport—and why we organized these matches every year, I thought, draping my towel over my shoulder. Grigori snickered at the sight of me but fell silent when his sons, Ivan and Dimitri, leapt onto his back and flipped him onto the damp grass. He shoved them off, then toppled them in turn, tickling them mercilessly.