Page 1 of Beautiful Trauma (The Irish Rogues #5)

T welve years old

Someone was shaking me.

Hard .

As my eyelids fluttered, a familiar lavender bedspread came into my view. At the realization I was in the safety of my own bed, I had an idea of who the culprit was.

“Stop it, Kira,” I grumbled.

My six-year-old sister loved to sneak into my bed. Some nights I went so far as to lock my door to keep her out, but somehow she still found a way in my room. I swore our older brother, Dima, had taught her how to pick locks.

When the shaking continued, I shoved the offender away. “Go back to your own bed before you piss mine again.”

“Mila, wake up!”

My mother’s urgent voice cut through my drowsy stupor. Rubbing my eyes, I asked, “What time is it?”

“Just after midnight.”

Squinting in the dark, I peered up at my mother. “But why are you waking me now?”

“We have to go,” she replied frantically. Spinning from my bedside, she raced over to my closet and threw open the door.

When she flicked on the light, I grimaced. With a yawn, I pulled myself up in bed. “Where are we going at this time of night?”

“Away,” she replied as she began manically snatching clothes off of hangers and stuffing them into a duffel bag.

Since I didn’t know of any holiday plans that we had, I asked, “But where?”

Whirling around to face me, Mama held up her hand in warning like she always did when one of my siblings or I had pushed her to the edge of exasperation. Considering she was incredibly patient and kind, it usually took a lot to get her to that point.

Mama pinched her eyes shut. “Please, Mila. Don’t ask me any more questions. Just help me.”

Although I knew it was another question, I couldn’t help asking, “Help you do what, Mama?”

“I need you to get Kira’s things together for me while Dima is getting his and Lev’s.” After grabbing another bag out of the closet, she shoved it at me. “Put as many clothes as you can into a bag. Make sure Kira doesn’t forget her bunny. You know she can’t sleep without it.”

Icy fear prickled over me. Shaking my head, I said, “But I don't understand.”

Grabbing me by the shoulders, Mama stared into my eyes. My stomach churned at the panic radiating in her expression. “Your father has passed over Maksim as his heir.”

Most kids my age would never hear the words father and heir in the same sentence unless they were royalty. In my case, my father didn’t rule a country.

But he was a king.

He was the king of the underworld in our city.

More specifically, the Bratva underworld.

In our world, heirs were named at eighteen, which was how old my brother, Maksim was.

But he had been passed over.

I didn’t bother questioning why. I knew the loathing my father had for his firstborn son. Although he was strong and brutal enough to command the Korolova men, he was defective in my father’s eyes.

Maksim had a debilitating stutter.

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.

The distinctive sound of my father’s boots on the hardwood floor sent a shudder of fear echoing through me. When he appeared in the kitchen doorway, Dima stepped in front of me and Kira.

Cocking his brows, Father asked, “Going somewhere?”

Without replying, my mother tucked her head to her chest. Father closed the distance between the two of them. Shaking his head at Mama, Father said, “Irina, I’m disappointed in you.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Placing his finger under her chin, Father tipped her gaze to his. “Have I not been good to you?”

“Yes, Danill.”

“Have I not given you more than you could have ever hoped for?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you leaving me?”

A surprisingly defiant look flashed on my mother’s face. “You know why.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You should be proud that your son will lead the family one day.”

“You know I don’t want that for him. I never have, and I never will.”

He tsked. “How ungrateful you are. The world that so evidently disgusts you has provided well for you and your children.”

Mama reached out to grab Father’s arm. “Please, Danill. Don’t do this. I already live in fear of losing you. Don’t make me fear losing my son.”

With a sneer, he slung her away. “Once I would’ve believed you. But not now. Not when you were trying to sneak away and take my heir.”

Dima stepped up. “Father, it isn’t right to choose me. It should be Maksim.”

When the back of Father’s hand cracked against Dima’s cheek, Kira and I both jumped. Jabbing his finger at Dima, Father said, “Don’t ever speak against my choices!”

Dima swiped the blood from his lip before obediently nodding his head. “Sorry, Father.”

Jerking his chin at him, Father commanded, “Get your things. You’re coming with me.”

A wail of agony erupted from Mama’s lips. “No, please, no!”

Father’s expression sent icy cold fear shooting down my spine. “You have betrayed me, and there is no coming back from betrayal!”

None of us had time to react before a gleaming silver gun was pressed against her forehead. The deafening crack of the gun echoed through the room, assaulting my ears. The expression of terror frozen on my mother’s face would haunt me for years to come.

The world around me slowed to a crawl. There was no noise. Just muffled horror enveloping me as Mama’s body dropped to the floor. Abandoning Kira, I dove over to collapse beside her.

“No, no, no!” I cried as I cradled my mother in my arms. Blood gushed like a geyser from the gaping wound in her forehead, soaking me in the warm, sticky rush.

Lev and Kira dropped down beside me. Each of them held one of Mama’s hands. As they wailed beside me, I pleaded, “Don’t leave us, Mama!”

But even as the plea left my lips, I knew she was gone. She’d been gone since the instant the bullet hit her. It was the only merciful thing in this entire situation.

When I glanced up, Dima stood toe to toe with my father. “How could you?” he choked out.

Sneering, Father replied, “She betrayed me. But worst of all, she betrayed the Bratva.”

His words twisted the knife of agony in my chest. But in that moment, it turned from mourning to loathing.

After easing Mama’s head out of my lap, I shot to my feet. One glance at the kitchen table showed me a leftover steak knife from dinner. I snatched it up before I could think twice.

“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, Mama would 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.