Page 1 of Anastasia

Prologue

VALENTINO

As I held my weeping baby brother in my arms, I could only stare out at the mess. The blood and dead bodies were littered in front of me, breaking my heart. The faces of my pregnant mother and my stepfather would be burned into my memory forever. I was going to have a sister—our family was going to be complete. Then, in just a blink of an eye, they were gone, leaving me with my younger half-brother, Vincenzo.

I could still remember sitting there at the kitchen table eating my favorite soup. My mother had the most beautiful smile on her face as she talked about the weather outside. She loved the rain, she loved everything it represented. As she went on and on about the old times when she would go outside and play in the rain all on her own, I rolled my eyes. Her words were strange, but I wished I could take it all back now. I wished I would have paid more attention and asked more questions to keep that smile on my mother’s face, but I didn’t. I ignored her.

Everything happened way too fast. My mother let out this loud piercing scream as the doors slammed open. Men charged in with guns and Mama ran over to me, trying to do everything in her power to protect me. Roberto always told me that women come first. We were to always protect the women in our family, but I didn’t protect the woman who meant the most to me. I didn’t protect her as they shot her right between the eyes as she raced over to me. I didn’t protect her as they fired bullets into her pregnant belly. I didn’t protect her.

Vincenzo finally cried himself to sleep, the stress on his three-year-old mind finally getting to him. I had to hold him tightly as I walked up the stairs and laid him down in our mother’s bed. There was a splatter of blood kissing his cheek. It pained me that the blood on my brother’s cheek was probably from the gunshot that killed his father as he tried to rush Vincenzo to safety.

I would never forget the look on Roberto’s face when he saw my dying mother sprawled upon the ground. His heartbreak and defeat were obvious on every feature.

I wanted to shout and find some way to help my family make it out alive, but I couldn’t move. Everything played out from afar as I remained sealed in a box, screaming for some way out.

I could only watch in defeat as the men fired their weapons into my stepfather, who shielded Vincenzo from it all. Even as his last breath was taken, he protected my brother just like I should have done for Mama.

Mama saw the world as beautiful. Even the most depressing things like rain found a way to melt her heart. She died only a few feet in front of me. I could have helped her, but I didn’t. I was a punk of a man and Roberto would agree.

Heading into the bathroom, I wet a small towel. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I noticed pieces of my mother all over me. She was the only person I truly loved.

I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror any longer as I walked back into the bedroom to my sleeping baby brother. Pressing the towel against his face, I wiped away every trace of blood. He looked so much like my mother as he slept that it pained me. I was the cause for the loss of the most amazing woman in the world. There would be no other soul as pure as hers, and for that, I deserve to never love again because that is the consequence of being a coward.

“I’m sorry, Enzo, but I promise…I promise I will get him back for everything he took from us, even if it is the last thing I do,” I cooed as I ran my hand through his hair.

It was a promise that I meant. I craved to reach into that man’s chest and squeeze his heart. Just like me, I wanted his pain to reach a level so high, he would wish I had simply taken his life.

Dmitri Ivanov messed with thewrongfamily.

Anastasia

Iwas prepared to become a woman when I was just a little girl. Childhood vanished before my eyes. That’s what happens when you rid someone of love. You open the doors to darkness without letting them realize there could ever be color. I want to say that I blamed my mother, but the only way I could do that was to also blame her mother, and then the mother of her mother.

The heat that escalated through my body only seemed to grow as I tried to ignore it. The longer I tossed and turned, the more the temperature pricked my skin. A sigh escaped my lips as I just laid there in a pit of my sweat, hoping it wasn’t affecting my sister as much as it was affecting me.

“Nana,” Alex called out from the other side of the room. “Mum didn’t pay the electricity bill again, did she?”

“Stay here, I’ll figure it out,” I whispered before getting up from the mattress.

We weren’t fortunate enough to own anything to lift our bed off the ground. We were lucky enough to simply have a mattress.

I walked out of my room and straight to my mother’s. Softly knocking on the door, I waited for a response. It seemed as if long moments passed before the door finally opened to reveal some half naked stranger. He had a small towel to cover up hisarea, but other than that, he was naked. The stench in the room assaulted my nostrils. It didn’t help that there was no electricity to help ventilate the area.

“Uh, your Ma’s pretty occupied, sweetie,” the man said, with a hint of a New York accent. His cornrow braids went down the back of his head, and the cigarette that sat perched at the corner of his mouth added to his whole appeal. What irritated me most was the fact that he talked to me as if I were twelve.

I narrowed my eyes at him before propping my hand on my hip. “I need to speak to my mum.”

He let out a groan of annoyance right before closing the door. Seconds later, my mum appeared in all her glory. She was wearing a scowl on her face as she looked at me.

My mum began tying the strings of her robe as she narrowed her eyes at me.

“What the hell do you want, Nana?” she asked, closing the door behind her. Based on the slur of her words, I knew she was high. It was almost as if she couldn’t survive a day without a high pushing her to live. I just couldn’t identifywhatshe could’ve gotten high from this time.Was it meth, crack, weed?

“It’s hot. Did you forget to pay the electricity again?” I asked.

“What do you think I’m doing right now? I didn’t have the money, okay? He’s going to pay me for a good time. That way, I can feed you and your sister. Then, I will get our electricity back on once I have the money,” she said, her words coming off almost unrecognizable.

Shaking my head, I grabbed her hand. “You didn’t have the money? I made sure I gave you my whole check. Don’t tell me you spent it all just to get high!” I seethed. “You are a grown woman; you need to get your priorities straight!”

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