Born into Madness (Devils Will Rise: Melnikov Legacy #7)

Prologue

Sasha

When I wrap my hand around the handle of the knife, something inside me clicks into place.

It’s like the puzzles my older sister spends hours putting together.

Two unique pieces finding their match and locking together.

That’s how I feel when I tighten my grip and lift it from the case it’s in.

It’s black, the blade as long as my forearm, and I know it’s deadly sharp without having to test it.

My dad is careful with his weapons, always keeping them in top condition, ready to go, and securely locked away.

He’d be furious if he knew I was in here. This room and cabinet are always locked, but I know where he keeps a spare key, and I’m not above snooping and sneaking around to get what I want. And right now, I want to hold this knife.

I’ve memorized all of his weapons, so I know one of the smaller knives is missing. I’m not sure about the guns because those are kept in separate boxes with security codes that I haven’t bothered to try and crack. It’s not the guns I’m interested in.

He went out with my uncles tonight. Everyone in my family tries to pretend they have normal jobs, but I know they don’t.

The other kids at school talk about their dads, the doctors and lawyers who make enough money to send their bratty, stuck-up kids to the private school I’m forced to attend, and none of them sound anything like what my dad does.

My dad doesn’t leave for work early in the morning, and he doesn’t get home at a set time each day.

He doesn’t go out wearing a suit or carrying a briefcase, and he never talks about what he does.

I’ve never asked, but I’m guessing none of their dads have a spare room filled with weapons either.

I’ve asked my cousins about it, and all they tell me is that they’re just as clueless about it as I am.

With my fingers still wrapped tightly around the knife, I step back and swipe at the air before plunging it forward like I’m stabbing someone.

I want my movements to be smooth and strong, but it feels more clumsy than anything, and the irritation that springs to life inside me has me throwing a few more stabs into the faceless body I’m imagining.

My dad’s a good fighter, and he’s been teaching me how to protect myself, but I want to know more.

One day I’m going to learn how to use a knife. One day I’ll learn to fight like my dad so I can join him when he goes out to wherever it is he disappears to for hours at a time.

The sound of a door closing has me freezing in place.

I stop my pretend fighting, cocking my head so I can hear better, and when I hear the deep sound of my dad’s voice, I bolt forward and put the knife back in its place.

My fingers have just enough time to graze the hilt one last time before I’m shutting the drawer and grabbing the spare key.

In seconds, I’m out the door, locking it behind me and then bolting down the hall.

“Are you okay?”

I hear my mom’s worried voice and peek my head around the corner. My dad has his back to me. He’s leaning down, cupping my mom’s face while he says, “I’m fine, malinkaya. It’s not my blood.”

Blood?

All my senses perk up at that one word, like my body has a mind of its own. I don’t understand it, but I also can’t stop the interest, the way my heart skips a beat at that one word and all the images it brings to mind.

My dad kisses my mom and then says, “Let me put my weapons away, and then I’ll be up for a shower.”

“Okay, I’ll be waiting for you.”

My mom smiles and walks off, and right before my dad can turn and see me, I race back down the hall, hiding in the bathroom at the end.

I listen for the sound of his heavy boots on the floor, tracking his movements until I hear him unlock the door and step in.

Unable to resist, I scoot out of the bathroom and creep towards the open door.

I watch as he takes a gun out from the small of his back and then pulls another from an ankle holster.

He makes sure they’re put back in their secure cases, and then puts the knife up last. When he turns to the side, I see the blood my mom was so worried about.

Even with his dark shirt, I can tell the front of it is soaked.

I also see the dried blood on his hands when he closes the cabinet, and his neck and face are splattered with it.

I must gasp, because his head whips to the side, catching me spying on him before I can even think to hide.

My dad is a large man. Tattoos and muscle, along with a lip and eyebrow piercing, mean that most people step aside when he comes walking towards them, but he’s never been scary to me.

Even now, knowing I’m breaking a rule by even being in this room, I’m not worried.

I know he’d never hurt me. His light-blue eyes are identical to mine, and there’s nothing but worry in them when he sees me eyeing the red that covers him.

“It’s okay,” he starts to say, stepping in front of the cabinet to block it from my view. He’s speaking Russian like he usually does when it’s just us. “Don’t be scared, Sasha. I’m fine.”

I’m not scared, though. I step towards him, wanting and needing to get closer.

When he’s in front of me, I reach up and brush my fingers over his blood-soaked shirt.

It’s mainly dry, but there’s enough of it still wet so that when I pull my fingers back, they’re coated in it.

Mesmerized, I bring my hand to my face and run my thumb over my fingers, rubbing them together so I can feel the slickness on my skin.

“Sasha,” my dad says, and the concern in his voice has me lifting my eyes to his. He’s so much taller than me, so he squats down so we can be face-to-face. “You shouldn’t touch that, son.”

“Why not?” My fingers keep rubbing together, and the sight of all that red has my heart speeding up. I reach out for more, but my dad grabs my wrist, stopping me.

“Sasha, look at me.”

I force my eyes from the blood to my dad.

The concern I see has me wishing I’d hidden my awe.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed that my reactions to things aren’t normal.

I’ve been learning how to hide, how to blend in, but seeing him covered in blood had thrown me off balance, and I’d forgotten.

Taking a breath, I force myself to relax, and then I give the easygoing smile that usually seems to put people at ease.

“I’m fine, Dad. I just thought you’d gotten hurt,” I tell him, hoping he won’t be able to see the truth behind the lie.

My dad is quiet, the silence stretching on long enough to make me feel antsy, but then he says, “I’m not hurt. This is someone else’s blood.”

“Whose?” I ask the question because I’m curious, but also because I know it’s what anyone would ask right now.

There’s nothing suspicious about normal curiosity, unlike my urge to put my fingers in my mouth to see if it tastes like my own blood.

I’m forced to resist because I know that would be odd, and it would make my dad worry, which is the last thing I want.

My dad looks like he doesn’t want to answer, but then he says, “A bad man. He tried to hurt your Uncle Roman, so I stopped him, because you always protect family, Sasha. No matter what.”

I nod. A lot of things don’t make sense to me, but this one does. I think of my two sisters, knowing I’d fight to protect them, too.

“No matter what,” I say, nodding my head in agreement. “Is Uncle Roman okay?”

My dad grins, the smile tugging at his lip ring. “He is, yeah.”

I reach a hand out and touch the dried blood on his tattooed neck. “What about the bad man?”

He grabs my hand, gently stopping me from touching more blood. “You don’t need to worry about him. Come on, Sasha, let’s get you cleaned up and back to bed.”

Knowing he’s not going to just let me sit here and explore the blood he’s covered in, I do what I know will make him happy and nod my head in agreement.

He grins and ruffles my hair before standing back up.

He’s like a giant standing over me, and not for the first time I wonder if I’ll ever be as big as him.

I feel fragile and scrawny in comparison.

“Were you ever as small as me?” I ask him.

He laughs and leads me out of the room, stopping to lock the door behind us before pocketing the key. He’d have a fit if he knew I had his spare in my pocket right now.

“I was smaller than you,” he says, and I give him a genuine smile, unable to believe that he was ever smaller than me.

“No way,” I tell him.

“It’s true. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, so your uncles and I were always hungry.”

“But you didn’t grow up in the same house,” I say, knowing they aren’t related by blood but instead a family by choice.

My dad nods and gives another laugh. “Yeah, but we were all poor. We had food, but it was never enough.” He looks down and winks at me. “That changed when your Uncle Danil learned how to use his computer to steal us money.”

I smile at the thought of my uncle hacking into banks so they could buy pizza. “But you were small when you were my age? Do you think I’ll be as big as you one day?”

When we stop outside the bathroom that’s next to my room, he squats down and smiles at me. “I was, and you’ll be even bigger.” Reaching out, he grabs onto my upper arm, giving it a squeeze. “You keep hitting the bag with me, and you’ll have muscles bigger than mine.”

I grin. I can’t help it. If I want to learn how to use a knife and be good at it, then I need to be strong. My dad never lies to me, so if he says I’ll be bigger than him if I train hard, then I believe it.

“Wash your hands and then get to bed, okay?”

When I nod, he pulls me in for a hug and kisses my cheek. “I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad.” I say the words, and I know that I mean them.

I’ve never felt any sort of warmth for anyone outside of our family, and I’ve always been too afraid to ask if that’s normal.

Something tells me it isn’t, but it has to mean something that I feel it at all.

I’m not empty, not completely anyway. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel anything for anyone else, but at least I feel something for them.

It’s proof that I’m not broken.

It’s proof that there’s something inside me beyond the darkness I feel when I think about blood or holding a knife.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that, though, and when my dad walks off and I step into the bathroom, I don’t immediately wash my hands.

First, I bring my fingers to my mouth and run my tongue over the tips, tasting the copper on my tongue before it dissolves.

It’s faint, barely a taste at all, and I don’t know why that disappoints me, but it does.

I hesitate before the sink, and in the end I can’t bring myself to put my hands under the water.

Running my thumb over my fingertips, feeling the sticky remnants that still cling to my skin, the overwhelming urge to fall asleep like this, to keep this bad man’s blood on me while I sleep is one I can’t deny.

I turn off the water, deciding to wait until morning.

I can still get it off before breakfast, and no one will ever have to know.

When I open the door, I make sure the hallway is clear before slipping out and darting into my room.

My little sister’s room is right next to mine, and I can’t say I’m surprised when she jumps out at the last minute to block my path.

Mia is eight, and so far her favorite hobby is sticking to me like glue.

I assume she’ll grow out of it at some point, but for now, she’s my little shadow.

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” I remind her.

Her hand has a firm grip on the stuffed dog she always sleeps with, but her hazel eyes are lit up in a way that makes it clear she didn’t just wake up.

“I’m not tired.” She looks me over, and before I can hide my hand, she sees the blood and quickly steps closer. “Are you bleeding?”

“Just a paper cut,” I quickly say, pulling my hand back before she can touch it.

I don’t know why, but I feel the need to keep it from her.

Just because I like it covering my skin doesn’t mean I want it touching hers.

She’s only eight, and she looks far too innocent in her Scooby-Doo pajamas with a stuffed animal clutched to her chest.

“You need to go back to bed before Mom and Dad find out you’re still up,” I tell her.

She doesn’t look happy, so I add, “Wake me up in the morning and we can watch cartoons together while we eat breakfast.”

Her smile fills her small face before she lurches forward and gives me a hug. Using my clean hand, I rest it on her head and ruffle her hair.

“Go to bed, Mia.”

She nods before running back into her room. The part of myself that feels normal fades away with her footsteps, and by the time I’m crawling into my own bed, I’m lost again to the dried blood that still coats my fingers and the images it puts in my head.

It’s a long time before I fall asleep, and then I’m lost in dreams of knives and blood, so much blood I could bathe in it.

A part of me knows I’ll never be clean of it.

A bigger part of me doesn’t care.