Page 2 of Beautiful Trauma

Although I wasn’t born then, I’d heard rumors of how my father had tried beating it out of him. There was hope he would grow out of it. But at eighteen, Maksim still had a speech impediment.

And now my father stripped him of his birthright because of it. In our world, imperfections were considered weaknesses.

“Did he name Aleksander?”

A myriad of emotions swirled in my mother’s eyes at the mention of my half brother. “He chose Dima,” she replied in a choked whisper.

My heart shuddered to a stop. “But he can’t.”

“He did.”

“But Dima is–”

I bit my tongue on the hateful word that was so often slung at me and my siblings.

Illegitimate.

Of course, it was the classier version of our position. Most often we were called bastards. Danill Korolova’s bastards.

In a mansion across town, my father lived with his wife and his legitimate children: Maksim, Annika, and Aleksandr. As the head of the Bratva in Philadelphia, his marriage had been arranged. There was no love lost between him and his wife, Faina, who came from one of the most powerful Bratva families on the East Coast.

My mother was the daughter of a lowly soldier in the Korolova family. But she caught my father’s eye during a ballet recital he attended for his sister. She was a stunning seventeen-year-old who commanded attention wherever she went.

She never stood a chance.

Eighteen years and four children later, she was unofficially my father’s second wife. That meant we lived in a luxurious five bedroom apartment, wore the nicest clothes, and went to the finest prep schools.

Although she had never voiced it, I knew my mother had banked on my older brother’s illegitimacy keeping him out of the Bratva. But now my father had not only pulled him in, he’d elevated him to the highest position of the brotherhood.

As she shook her head, tears streamed down my mother’s cheeks. “I won’t let him take my boy. I won’t give him up to that world.”

“But where will we go, Mama?”

Even at twelve, I wasn’t ignorant of the power my father had. It was obvious we couldn’t stay in the state, least of all the city. “Chelyabinsk.”

My eyes bulged. “You’re taking us to Russia?”

“Just for a little while.”

I opened my mouth to argue we’d only been to Russia once for Father to show us where his grandparents had lived in St.Petersburg, but I decided it was best to close it. In her present state, there was no point in arguing with Mama.

Instead, I dutifully sprinted out of my bedroom and down the hall to Kira’s room. Unlike Mama, I didn’t wake Kira until I was finished packing her things.

Just like me, she had a million questions as I pulled her from the bed. “Ask Mama,” I snapped.

She furrowed her dark brows at me. “Why are you so grumpy?”

“Because it’s the middle of the night,” I lied.

But the truth was that I was so scared I was shaking. I didn’t know anyone who had ever left the Bratva. I didn’t know what it would mean for us to do it. Not to mention, I hated Russia. I wanted to stay here with my friends and aunts, uncles, and cousins.

When I hurried out of Kira’s room, I ran into Dima and Lev. The same worry that churned within me was written all over Dima’s face. We were identical in so many ways with our platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. While we had mother’s features, Kira and Lev took after our father with their dark hair and brown eyes.

Dima and I didn’t say a word to each other. Instead, we hurried up the hallway. We found Mama in the kitchen throwing some items from the pantry into a bag. She was already thinking ahead that we might become hungry on the plane. She had always been the kind of mother to put her children first.

The front door burst open off its hinges, causing me to jump. At Kira’s scream. I clamped my hand over her mouth.

“No, no, no!” Mama cried as the bag dropped from her hands.