Chapter 1
Author's Note: This book is coming to Galatea on the 11th August, 2025. Only the first 5 chapters are on here..
PART ONE
THE BEGINNING OF THE END..
KAIA- Five Years Ago (Eighteen Years Old)
“Kaia come quick!”
I slammed the laptop closed with a loud snap, turning around just as my sister,Irina, bounded into the small bedroom we shared, her cheeks flushed and eyes alight with excitement.
Irina was four years younger than me. At fourteen years old, she still had that lanky frame she was still growing into and her matching blonde hair was presently braided into pigtails and hung down either side of her thin shoulders and over her denim coveralls. Her blue eyes were wide and still had that childlike innocence that I’d long since lost during my own childhood.
She looked eerily like a miniature version of me at that age, or to be more specific like our mother,Yana. The three of us were at least grateful that physically, we looked nothing like the man who’d sired us.
Akim Rostov was a Vor and one of the pakhan’s most trusted men. He was, at most times, a cruel man and preferred to resolve disputes with violence instead of mediation as was the norm in our world. His favour with the pakhan gave him a seat at the High Table - a council of Russia’s most powerful men. A seat that gave him more power than he knew what to do with. But to us, he was the man who never claimed us. The one whose cold eyes would look past us as if we didn’t exist but who ensured we were still close in case he felt the need to monitor us. Using us to keep Yana in check if she ever dared disobey him.
Yana had been working in the Rostov household since she was sixteen. With her golden hair and curvy body that I’d inherited, she’d unwillingly caught Akim’s attention and when he’d summoned her to his rooms, she could not say no or risk losing her job and gaining dishonour for her family. That was how Irina and I were born. In secret and with no father to speak of. The only link we had to our father was his name on our birth certificate. It was the only thing Yana had insisted upon. She’d hoped that one day, having the Rostov name would give us some form of protection even though to the world we carried my mother’s last name of Smirnova.
Akim Rostov’s wife knew of her husband’s unfaithfulness and turned a blind eye to it all. I could tell by the way she looked at Irina and I that she knew whose children we were, but she never spoke a mean word to us. In fact, sometimes I thought I saw longing in her eyes when she looked at us. Perhaps because she couldn’t give her husband children. She eventually died in childbirth and Akim never remarried. Yana believed that the only reason he didn’t have us killed was because we were a part of him and he’d told her one time that he’d eventually find some use for us. So he’d given us a small cottage near his estate where we were kept in secret and where my mother could continue working for him. If the staff knew who we really were, they never mentioned it. Rostov’s temper was known to be lethal and any whispers of bastard children were bound to incur his wrath. So we did what we had to do to survive. Pretend that he didn’t exist to us either.
Irina grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of the chair.
“There is a party at papa’s house! Let’s go up and see!”
I jerked to a halt and gave her my best older sister glare, thankful that she didn’t ask me what I’d been doing on the laptop I’d bought a few weeks ago when I was able to save up to buy a used one.
“You know we’re not supposed to call him that,” I chastised, making her drop my arm and sulk.
“But he is.” she pouted.
I took a deep breath and sighed, watching the defiant tilt of her chin. Looking at her now, I knew she was going to grow up to be a force of nature. If only, she could keep that temper under control. She didn’t like anyone telling her what to do, especially if it wasn’t right. I’d like to think that was something she learnt from me.
I leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You will get mama in trouble if anyone overhears you calling him that,” I explained, “Is that what you want?”
She shook her head quickly, suddenly looking worried.
“Good,” I stood up straight, then lifted a brow, “How do you know there is a party up at the House? Were you sneaking around with Ilya again?”
Ilya was the son of the Rostov’s cook, Ida, and was in the same class as Irina. Ever since they were little he’d followed her around like a little puppy and that crush only got worse the older they got.
Irina’s cheeks reddened and she looked shy all of a sudden.
“We were just playing by the lake and saw the tents going up,” she confessed, “Ilya said his mother was cooking for a hundred people. That papa was getting engaged.”
My body stiffened at her words.
Growing up there had always been whispers about our father getting married again. But so far it had never happened, so this was a surprise.
“So what if he is,” I retorted, “It doesn’t matter to us, now does it?”
Irina twirled the end of a braid between her fingers as she chewed on her lower lip.
“What if she has babies? What if we have brothers and sisters-”
I yanked her hand from her braid and watched her wince when my fingers tightened around hers.
“Stop it,” I ordered, my voice hard, “If you call him papa again, I’m telling mama.”
Irina’s eyes widened. She hated getting mama angry or sad, so she just nodded quickly. Irina longed for mama’s attention, but part of me thought mama couldn’t bear to look at us. So I spent most of my childhood taking care of Irina myself, while our mother spent her time up at the Rostov estate.
“Okay, okay.” she finally mumbled.
My shoulders slumped in relief, and a small smile curved my lips as I thought of a way to make her smile.
“Come on, let’s go see if Ilya can sneak us some Medovik before it’s all gone.”
Just as I predicted, she grinned as she took my outstretched hand and together we left the cottage to head up the short distance up the hill towards the estate where we could indeed see a flurry of activity.
The guards knew all the children of the household staff and so no one paid us any attention as we snuck through the servant’s entrance in the back kitchen towards a small room where Ilya usually hid reading. The other kids liked to tease him about it, so he hid there most times and usually I could find Irina there with him while he told her about the books he’d read.
I noticed two of the guards casting both of us lascivious looks as we walked past them trying our best not to let our eyes meet.
This is why I hated coming up here and had been doing it less frequently. For the last few years, I’d felt the lingering gazes of the men and worried that one day I won’t be able to get past them. Luckily, the men feared what Akim might do if they so much as touched any one of us. They all knew Yara used to be Akim’s favourite bed mate and that meant there was speculation about whose children we were, even if no one dared voice it out loud. It was the only thing that protected us.
“I don’t want you coming up here without me or Ilya, okay?” I whispered to Irina and watched her roll her eyes. I tugged on her hand to get her to pay attention, “Promise me Irina.”
“Okay okay,” she muttered just as we reached the small room where Ilya was sitting cross legged on a small cot, his head tilted down as he read making his hair, as dark as a raven, fall into his eyes. For a fourteen year old boy, he was already very tall and his shoulders seemed to be getting wider and wider every day. I had no doubt he was going to have the girls hounding his every move when he got a little older. Perhaps even Irina, with the way she was looking at him.
He looked up when we walked into the room.
“Hello mishka,” Ilya’s green eyes warmed when Irina bumped his hip as she sat next to him on the bed.
“Can you sneak us some medovik?” Irina batted her thick lashes at him and I rolled my eyes when Ilya’s cheeks reddened.
“Sure,” Ilya replied easily, already getting to his feet.
BOOM!
All of a sudden there was a loud explosion followed by rapid gunfire.
Ilya slapped his hand over Irina’s mouth when she made to scream and shook his head at her letting her know to be quiet.
“Get down under the bed now!” he whispered harshly and without hesitation, I grabbed Irina’s arm and yanked her down to the floor with me.
When Ilya moved to the door, Irina called after him.
“Don’t go out there Ilya!”
He turned to look back at her and gave her a reassuring smile.
“I’ll be right back mishka.”
Then he went out the door shutting it firmly behind him.
The gunfire sounded closer this time and I jumped with every shot, covering Irina’s head as if somehow that could protect her.
“We can’t stay here.” I told her, knowing we were trapped in here if we did, “We have to find mama!”
Before I could get to my feet, Ilya was back in the room, his arm out as he beckoned us forward.
“Come on!”
We didn’t hesitate and followed him out.
“Where’s mama?” Irina asked Ilya.
He just shook his head as we crept along the wall.
Footsteps thundered through the house as guards rushed outside, armed to the teeth.
Ilya shoved us into a broom closet until the guards disappeared and then pushed us towards the cellar where Akim kept his prized wine and cured meats.
“Down here,” Ilya whispered, “There is a door at the back that opens into a tunnel. Follow the tunnel for half an hour and you will reach the village.”
Irina grabbed the sleeve of his shirt when his meaning sunk in.
“You’re not coming with us?”
Ilya’s eyes softened and his smile was sad. He brushed his finger down her cheek.
“I’ll be right behind you mishka.”
He gave me a short nod and taking Irina by the waist, I pulled her from the door when Ilya slammed it shut and I heard the lock snap.
Irina screamed.
“No! Ilya!”
But I kept my arm around her waist pulling her with me as she kicked and screamed, her nails digging into my forearms and tears streaming down her cheeks.
It was only when we’d reached the village, that I realized that I’d been crying too.
