I was six when the Italian mafia painted my home in blood. The marble floors ran red, gunfire echoed through the halls, and shadows swallowed my childhood in one night. Trauma doesn't let you forget—it replays the massacre in slow motion, carving into your skin like scripture.
Flashback...
"I thought I heard a gunshot outside Mikhail…Somehing doesn't feel right." My mother, Lyubov said.
I was sitting on her lap, my tiny fingers playing with the $75,000 bvlgari necklace around her neck, tracing the crystals, brushing over her baby bump as I played, unaware of the danger creeping closer.
The grand dining hall was filled with the chatter and laughter of the continents most dangerous men and the wives who kept their temper in lockboxes. I didn't understand much, but even at six, I could feel it: they screamed power. Their presence commanded the room, and even as a child, I sensed the weight of it.
My father, Don Ivanov Mikhail Rivienne, sat at the head of the table. I didn't understand why everyone called him "Don," or why people always bowed down to him, whispering in fear even when he barely looked their way. He didn't look scary. He was always gentle with my mother and me, but the others? They trembled. Even the slightest mistake, and their screams would echo through the mansion like warnings.
There was a door my father always told me never to go near, curiousity, of course, tugged at me constantly. Every time I approached it, my tiny hands reached for the door knob, someone – either my mother or one of the maids – would swoop in, lifting me off the ground, scolding me with soft panic in their voices, their eyes flicking nervously toward the shadows beyond the forbidden door.
"Probably nothing, Lyuba," my father said – the little nickname always eased something in him. He lifted his wine glass with a calm that people obeyed: a shallow move and the conversation resumed.
My platinum blonde hair – so much like my mother's, though with the faintest strand of black inherited from my father – brushed against her arm as I touched her rounded belly, curious about the life growing inside her. People always said we look so much alike, same blonde hair, same soft, delicate features – but her blue eyes were deeper, more vibrant, while mine leaned toward blueish-grey, a perfect blend of her light and my father's stormy grey eyes.
I remember the warmth of her hand against mine. She leaned close and whispered, "Do you like it?" Her voice soft, almost trembling. I reached forward, fingers grazing the necklace that rested around her neck. It was in the shape of a serpent shimmering like liquid gold, each jewel catching the dim chandelier light, scattering tiny rainbows across the polished marble floor.
As she spoke, I had no idea those words would become my only lifeline that night. When I nodded eagerly, she gently lifted the necklace from around her own neck and fastened it carefully around mine. It was heavy in a way that felt important, not just jewelry, but a talisman, a marker of who I was – who I was about to lose.
Lyubov though, could not unhear the small staccato sound in the distance. She eased me off her lap and unto the velvet chair beside my best friend, Sorella. Then she stood as if pulled by a string, smoothering her dress with fingers that trembled the merest amount. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and for a second the gold in her face looked like armour trying to hold back something raw.
"Please Lyuba, sit. It's the city. It's fire work season. You worry too much." My father smiled, but it did not settle my mother's hands.
She moved toward the broad window, breath rugging the glass. The garden beyond glittered with lamps and the silhouette of guards who should have been a shield. The garden lights flickered. Men – guards – collapsed in the impossible, terrible silence. One by one.
My mother turned back toward the feast, where the people still laughed, still poured another glass.
"Ivano –" she began, "something is wrong outside –" before she could finish.
The huge dining doors exploded inward like a shout. Metal and wood cascaded, the noise swallowed up the last polite note of music. Bullets sturdier themselves through the air.
Panick is a quick animal. People ducked, people hit the floor, plates broke, chairs scraped. My father's hand rose and men around the table scrambled for weapons of their own. Screams tangled with orders. Blood came blunt and shocking and immediate.
My mother's terrified eyes swept the dining hall, taking in the chaos – the powerful men and women who once ruled the world now falling like pawns on a chessboard. Something was terribly wrong.
Her gaze froze when it found Sorella's father – Don Montclair of America. He was supposed to be fighting beside my father, protecting our people. Instead his gun was aimed at our guards. I was still young, I didn't understand what was going on.
Then my mother saw me – and Sorella huddled together, small and trembling. Sorella's mother, swooped in, dragging us close, lifting us with desperate strength. She carried us, running toward the shadow of a corridor wall to hide.
My mother tried to follow. Her silk gown swished with her steps, her hand clutching her swollen belly.
A gunshot cracked. The dining hall window shattered into raining shards. My mother's body jerked. Blood spilled warm and dark across her dress, blooming from her stomach. Her lips parted, coughing scarlet onto the marble floor.
"MAMA!!!" I screamed, though the sound was muffled – Sorella's mother clamped her hand tightly over my mouth – over Sorella's too, smothering our cries before death could hear us.
But I saw everything. I still do.
My mother collapsed in a pool of her own blood, her hand weakly reaching toward me, toward the baby inside her that would never breathe. Her blue eyes, once bright with life, now dull as she struggled to lift her head.
And then I saw him.
A boy – no, barely a man – stepped through the doorway. He was the one who shot my mother.
He was tall, slender, cruelly beautifully. His piercing blue eyes glinted like ice under fire. His smile didn't belong to any human life I knew. It belonged to death.
Even as a child, I felt it. He wasn't an ordinary boy – violence clung to him like perfume. Every step, every tilt of his gun, screamed of someone who'd been raised on blood and obedience. He didn't just pull the trigger; he owned it. There was something rehearsed in his cruelty, something beautiful in the way he destroyed everything I loved.
My father's gaze locked on him across the blood-soaked hall. And in that boy's grin, Don Mikhail Rivienne saw his dynasty end.