Page 3 of Kings & Queen

PS: There is a letter for Sebastian’s eyes only in my diary. Please give it to him.

Anger, confusion, and bitterness rose within me, choking me with the emotions as I balled my fists. I went to wake my mother and father. The news that she’d run away hit us all like a ton of bricks.

Conflicting emotions swirled inside all of us, none of us knowing how to process the anger and fear. Needing answers, I tore through her diary, flinging Sebastian’s letter to the side for later. In doing so, I’d find out all the things I never wanted to know. She was right. I should have listened to her.

Days turned to weeks with no answers and no Vanya. Weeks turned to months, and months to years. The devastation within our family almost destroyed it. I could hardly stand to look at my mother, trying to stay composed when I knew her heart had been ripped out of her chest and replaced with an aching hole of the unknown.

A piece of her soul had been irrevocably removed, and I understood that feeling, for I had it too. She and I would never be complete again.

Chapter 2

Ivan

My Brother's Keeper

June One Year Later—London,England

“Ivan, there was nothing you could have done. She was very determined,” Sebastian said, trying to console me.

His eyes flashed with such intense ferocity that it startled me. I knew that if I checked his wallet, he’d have Vanya’s note to him tucked inside.

“Easy for you to say. She was my twin. Mytwin. I should have seen it coming. She tried to tell me how upset she was. I should have stayed with her.” Saying those words aloud to my best mates only intensified my emotions. Guilt ate at every part of me. Leaving a carcass of self-loathing, shame, and failure.

“Don’t do this to yourself,” Marcel pleaded in a hushed tone.

Our eyes met—our bond was already solidified by this point in our lives, and I knew he spoke the truth, but it still hurt. The what-ifs were killing me. If I’d stayed with her that night, talked to my parents for her, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now.

I glanced over at my brothers standing by our parents. Alek’s jaw was clenched. He was fulfilling the dutiful big-brother job and hating every minute. Anger radiated from him in waves, and I knew he was as conflicted as me.

We were doing another press conference, hoping she’d see it and come to her senses. Friends of my parents were there in support, as well as families from my father’s connections.

Nikolai leaned in and whispered something in Alek’s ear, and he took a deep breath and relaxed his facial features. We were each carrying burdens, and Nik’s was to keep Alek calm, cool, and collected.

Got to love Nik and his ability to keep his emotions in check. Compartmentalized in neat little books on an imaginary shelf in his head. He’d pull them down and flick through them when he was alone. I envied him in so many ways. Nikhad taken our sister’s words to heart and had changed overnight. He was probably hoping that when she came home, she’d be pleased to see he had listened.

I should have been more compassionate. The girl who filled our home with laughter, who challenged me every day of my life, struggled until she couldn’t take it anymore. The resulting loss of her in our lives was crippling.

She was my everything, the other half of me that made me who I was. Unlike Alek and Nik, Vanya and I were fiercely competitive growing up. My mother used to say we fought even in the womb. She was older by five minutes and lorded it over me every single day.

My mother had documented all of her children’s lives in journal entries. Last night, I snuck one from our toddler days and pored over the entries as I tried to cope.

“These two will fight over just about anything. Vanya wants the red train. Ivan gives it to her and plays with the blue one, and now she wants the blue one instead, and he isn’t having it.”

Vanya was a mastermind. The mischief she would get me into when we were little wore my mother out. She would send me on missions to search the kitchen for cookies and have me steal sweets from the fridge. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her.

Nik and Alek used to place bets on us. Anything from racing down the sidewalk to who would win intense rounds of cards or board games. Who could swing the highest, who could learn to ride a bike first, and who could get a better grade on the weekly spelling test. The list went on and on—you name it, we competed over it.

But for as much competition as we had, there was also a closeness that I knew with no one else. Like many twins, we had our own language as babies. By the time we were older, we could have full conversations composed of nothing but inside jokes.

As the only girl sibling, she was as tomboyish as could be. She climbed trees better than most boys, and she reveled in puddle jumping and slinging mud. She was braver than me in so many ways.

I’d slept with a night-light until I was almost eleven. She’d be the one to double-check under my bed for me to ensure the monsters weren’t waiting to take me to hell. Never afraid of anything, she’d catch snakes and jump off the high-dive board. She was our little daredevil. We never saw her as fragile, not until it was too late.

Right before she turned twelve, she started doing her own things. Making friends with girls her own age, she went about trying to figure out her femininity. As her body changed, so did she. But underneath it all was the free-spirited, tough, sassy, and wild girl who owned our hearts.

Then it all went to hell.

The guys and I stood off to the side of the stage, waiting for the conference to end, when suddenly, we overheard someone say, “Such a pity. She was a sweet girl. How long has it been now? A year?”