Page 4 of Beautiful Trauma

“You bastard!” I shouted as I lunged for my father.

He easily disarmed me by knocking the knife from my hands. But I still managed to get in two harsh slaps to his face before he grabbed me by the throat. “You little cunt. How dare you raise a hand to me?”

“Fuck…you!” I gritted out.

Father’s hand twisted tighter around my throat. “You want to join your traitor mother?”

At the lack of oxygen, panic overtook my body. I began to struggle against my father, my nails scraping down the hand around my throat. A desperate gurgle for air echoed deep in my chest.

“Let her go!” Dima shouted.

Lev and Kira tugged and jerked at the lapels of my father’s suit to try to get him off of me. Despite their actions, he continued staring venomously at me and pressing his fingers into my throat. As my vision started to blur, a ringing set off in my ears.

Although there was a part of me that wanted to stop struggling so I could join my mother, a greater part of me continued to fight for my siblings' sake, especially Lev and Kira.

And just when I thought I could see a bright light past my father’s brutal face, he jerked his hand away. A groan shuddered through me as I collapsed to the floor. My chest heaved as I desperately gasped and wheezed for air.

I don’t know how long I lay there like that. It was like I was unconscious and conscious all at the same time. My arms and legs were too heavy to move, and I still couldn’t see or hear well.

Lev and Kira were ripped away from me by some of my father’s men. Through my cloudy vision, I watched as Dima was also forcibly removed from my side. And then I was truly alone.

Except for my mother’s body.

But then two men came in and put her into a body bag. I did manage to raise my head and grunt a few unintelligible curses at them, but it zapped me of all my strength.

I’d barely closed my eyes when I was jerked to my feet. When my eyelids fluttered, my father’s face was once again before me. “For your insolence, you’ll scrub every speck of your mother’s traitor blood off the floor. Only when it has been inspected and cleared by one of my men will you be allowed to join your brothers and sisters at my home.”

A desperate sob tore through my chest at the thought of not only the task that lay before me, but of the thoughts of where I was going to live. My stepmother was truly wicked. She loathed me and my siblings. I’m sure when she heard the news, she would be celebrating the death of my mother.

When I didn’t respond, Father shook me so hard that my teeth clattered. “Did you hear me?”

“Y-Yes, s-sir.”

“Good.”

When he released me, I staggered on my feet before crashing into the kitchen table. As I held on to steady myself, two of my father’s men sat cleaning materials before me. My stomach lurched at the biohazard symbol on two big bottles.

And then they all left the apartment.

With silence echoing around me, I reached a shaky hand across the table to grab one of the bottles of cleaner. As I tried jerking the bottle across to me, my strength gave way, and I dropped to the floor.

Tears clouded my vision as I gazed up at the ceiling. Whenever she wanted to say something important to us, Mamawould speak Russian. As I gazed up at the crown molding on the ceiling, I said, “Bozhe, day mne sil, ibo ya dolzhen eto sdelat.”

I certainly needed God’s strength for the task before me. After swiping the tears from my cheeks with a blood stained hand, a cruel smile curved on my lips. “Podari mne vozmozhnost' ubit' moyego ottsa.”

Give me the gift of one day ending my father’s life.

And with that promise in my heart, I got to work.

CHAPTER ONE: KELLAN

The present

The musclesin my arms stretched in tortuous agony as I pushed against the heavy weight on my chest. An anguished groan escaped my lips as the bar came into my line of vision. Pinching my eyes shut, I forced myself to continue straining despite the pain.

When my arms were fully extended, triumph echoed through me. Six months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to bench even half of what I did today. But after losing myself in the gym after a breakup, I’d been exceeding my expectations.

As he stood behind me at the weight bench, my bodyguard helped ease the bar onto the rack. As I glanced up at him, he gave me a beaming smile. “Nice work, sir.”