Chapter 1 – The Snow Is Red
Bianca POV.
I didn’t cry hysterically. I didn’t cry at all.
I just stared at myself in the mirror for a long time, like my mind needed proof that my body was still breathing.
Then I made tea. I rinsed the mug. I lined up the small things on my table like an inventory: a scarf, a thermos, my phone—and the quiet part of me that learned it’s allowed to not shed a tear when your brother drowns in a pool of his own blood on his wedding day, right in front of your eyes.
A few hours earlier, I was not standing in this room. I was outside, by the Whitewater Creek, on the sidewalk of a beautiful quaint little chapel.
That chapel was white when I first walked into it early this morning. It was drenched in red by the time I left.
Snow fell without sound. The cold January air carried the faint smell of gunpowder and smoke. Outside the chapel, the streetlamps stood in a row, side by side, their silhouettes standing tall while my entire world had fallen apart.
They were a picture of serenity. Magic morning by the Whitewater Creek.
Inside the chapel, though, it was a different story.
The wall to the right was painted red. The painting hanging on it was drenched in red, too. And to the left was a horrifying red trail that continued on for a few feet before veering off in the direction where the groom’s family was seated.
I was covered in blood. I could feel it seeping into my clothing. The coppery smell of it hit my nose. It took me all I had not to gag as I stumbled on the pavement outside the chapel, crawling on all fours, pushing myself up onto my hands and knees.
As I stood up, my long hair fell over my shoulder and got stuck to my dress, dying the ends red. A shiver came over my body at the ghastly sight and the unsettling sensation it caused.
But the sight inside the chapel was not ghastly. It was grotesque. Bodies lay strewn around. Body parts lay severed and scattered all over the floor. Blood flowed freely like a river.
Bullet holes adorned the walls and the furniture. Hundreds of them. The entire enclosure meant for the groom’s family and relatives resembled a war zone.
Nothing was left standing.
No one was left breathing.
The groom’s corpse lay a few feet ahead, not in the enclosure but on the altar.
The altar that was supposed to be the starting point of his new life turned out to be the end of his old one. His huge lifeless body lay face up, surrounded by a giant puddle of his own blood.
A part of his face was gone, blown away by the onslaught of 9mm shells that rained on him from point-blank range.
Twelve rounds. He was sprayed with twelve lead shots from head to toe. From less than a couple of yards away.
One or two would have done the job. But that wouldn’t have been enough to send the message. Overkill was necessary. Almost like using a sledgehammer to drive a nail into a wall.
That’s the way the Bratva does it. That’s the way they like it: frenzied, explosive, brutal.
And if anyone needed evidence of the extent of their brutality, the groom’s bullet-riddled torso would be enough. It takes an ocean of anger, its waves red with spilled blood and wrath, to execute a man so mercilessly.
No matter who pulls the trigger: a professional hitman or the bride herself.
Yes, the bride. Tatiana Burova. The Bratva Princess. The only daughter of Andrei Burov, the supreme leader, the Pakhan of Little Imperiya.
I remember seeing her slender, velvet-gloved finger wrapped around the black trigger, her electric-blue eyes sparkling in savage vengeance, and her elegantly-styled long blond hair flaring up like naked flames of a winter bonfire.
“The Bratva gives. And the Bratva takes it away,” she murmured as she pulled the trigger.
Twelve times.
A delicate female finger that had probably never held either a paintbrush or a hairbrush pulled the trigger effortlessly a dozen times before anyone could blink. It doesn’t take practice accomplishing a feat like that.
All it takes is ice in your veins and poison in your heart. A Bratva natural. A Bratva necessity.
I also remember the priest asking the couple to exchange vows at the altar. “Do you, Paolo Moretti, take Tatiana Burova as your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold from this day forward…”
“I do,” Paolo beamed in response.
The priest then turned to the bride. “Do you, Tatiana Burova, take Paolo Moretti as your lawfully wedded husband?”
She fluttered her eyelashes, shot a piercing gaze at Paolo, and pulled out a mini handgun from her tiny purse.
The priest gasped. The groom stood stunned.
She aimed it at Paolo and uttered those words. Not her vows, but those of her clan.
“The Bratva gives. And the Bratva takes it away.”
Why they waited four long years to take away what they believed they had ‘given’ was impossible for me to comprehend. But there was no doubt in my mind who the original recipient of their benevolence was.
Me.
My brother had to pay the price for my ingratitude.
It was open season after that. Tatiana was whisked away by her bodyguards once she emptied the chamber of her handgun into my innocent brother’s torso.
The bride’s family and relatives then proceeded to finish what she had started.
Weapons flashed. Bullets whizzed. Empty shells rained down onto the floor, clanking and clattering. Blood oozed out from open wounds like mountain geysers. Terrified screams and wails bounced off the pristine white walls.
In less than five minutes, the entire Moretti clan was wiped out, their lifeless bodies piled up in a heap on top of each other, resembling a giant mass of slaughtered animals.
The pristine white walls had turned deep red by then.
Only three people survived the massacre apart from the priest: the groom’s sister, his best man, and a three-year-old boy.
And the only way they managed to survive was by playing dead.
Yes, the sister of Paolo and the daughter of Alfredo Moretti had to play dead like a coward to escape getting executed. While her father, the legendary Don Alfredo, lay bleeding a stone’s throw away, along with the rest of his family and crew.
I survived. I am still breathing. The outsider, the cause of this carnage miraculously escaped unhurt. Simply by playing dead and hiding under piles of fallen family members.
But I had to embrace cowardice. A three-year-old innocent's life was at stake.
And that three-year-old boy was now tugging at my arms. “Mamma, look! The snow has turned red!”
