CHAPTER ONE
DMITRY
Knowing Sylvia isn't my biological mother should explain why she'd treated me so differently from Pawel, and why she was so fucking cruel. It should provide me with answers, but it doesn’t. Instead, it leaves me to wonder what life would’ve been like if Anna hadn't died bringing me into this world, and Sylvia hadn't volunteered to take on the role as my mother.
Maybe it was my own fault, maybe I should have spoken up sooner and told my grandpa how she’d abused me, but it's too late for that now. The bitch sits dead in the kitchen. Grandpa doesn’t seem to mind that I’d killed her.
I’d put her out of her misery, but in doing so I've forced myself to remain in mine. I wanted answers. Real fucking answers. Son or not, why the fuck did she torture me? All I ever wanted was to be loved ... to be loved by a mother. To know what it felt like to be loved by the woman who gave birth to me, but I never got to experience that, and it’s something I know I’ll have to accept or struggle with for the rest of my life.
Look at you with mummy issues, you’re pathetic, Dmitry.
A grown man still stuck on his childhood.
It happened—get the fuck over it! You’re weak and always looking to blame everyone else for who you are, for your mistakes, for the decisions you made.
You’re a monster, Dima. You murdered Pawel’s mother, your grandpa’s daughter.
First you took his wife and now his child.
You’re sick. You belong in Highspring Hall.
You need to turn yourself in before you hurt Natalia.
My darkness rages on until I hit back.
No, you’re wrong. I’d never hurt Natalia. She’s precious, unlike Sylvia or my grandmother. Both proof that evil was spawned from evil. I’m not battling my demons today. Not now. Breathe, focus, Dima.
I silence the noise in my head and chuckle at this fucked up situation. It amuses me to know Pawel would never allow his precious mother to end up in the meat grinder, maybe grandpa wouldn't either.
I need to know if Pawel knows the truth. Has he kept it from me?
The fucker disappeared while laying the final stones of grandpa's wall—it had to be laid, winter or not.
My mind races, I turn to listen to grandpa.
"Drink up my boy," he tells me.
"Do you want me to wait outside?" My beautiful Little Sparrow offers to give us some privacy. We all know this conversation will be difficult.
"I want you here with me," I tell her, squeezing her hand.
I look over at mother's ... Sylvia’s body—I hate her.
I look at her in disgust, even as her still warm body sits slumped over the table.
Everything she did to me was real. She could have refused to take me and sent me to an orphanage.
There's enough of them to choose from across Russia, especially here in Moscow.
She chose to keep me, chose to abuse me, chose to lie to me all of these years, but then so did the one person I'd always trusted—my grandpa.
Why hadn't he kept me himself? Been honest with me?
Fucking told me my real mother died giving birth.
No, they all kept their fucking secrets.
The times mother would scream that she should have got an abortion was all an act.
She meant I should have died instead of Anna. Fucking cruel, callous bitch.
My blood thrums fast through my veins and a knot forms in my stomach. My hands are clammy. I don't fucking know if I can do this shit right now. I'm angry with the one person I'd trusted my entire life ... I'm angry with my grandpa.
“Dima, are you ok?” He asks and places his hand on my shoulder.
“You fucking lied to me. My whole life, grandpa. Why?” I go to stand but his hand pushes my shoulder back down.
“Language, Dima.”
“Sorry, Grandpa.”
"My boy ... drink.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to speak to you this way. Who am I, Grandpa?” My hands tremble as I take the glass of whiskey from grandpa. My knee bounces almost causing me to lose my grip. I drink fast, emptying the glass. I swallow hard.
I watch as my grandpa makes his way back over to the cupboard where he’d retrieved the man’s skull. He pulls out an old metal tin with lock secured in place. Pricking it open with a pin, he takes out a thick but small, brown journal, walks back over and sits next to me.
“Everything you want to know is inside here,” he says casually passing it to me. You’d think the old man hadn’t just dropped a huge fucking bomb on me and his deceased daughter isn’t still slumped over the kitchen table.
I hold the journal between my now sweating hands. I don’t even know if I want to face what’s inside. I lay it flat in one hand and stare down at the old, wrinkled cover and run my thumb down its spine. It’s thick. It must have a lot of shit in here.
“Anna was just a teenager,” Grandpa’s voice wobbles. “Open it, read it,” Grandpa instructs and knocks back his whiskey.
“I can’t ... not now,” I reply and sit the journal down on the sofa next to me. “You do realize we need to do something about her,” I reply and nod at mother ... Sylvia’s body.
“We’ll bury her in the morning, my boy. Place her on here.” Grandpa pats the sofa I’m sitting on.
I get to my feet, walk over, and lift Sylvia’s body. I don’t want to, but for my grandpa I will. I hold her lifeless body in my arms. Her head falls back on my right arm, her legs dangling over my left arm. I place her slowly onto the sofa, laying her on her back.
Look at you the evil bitch who made my entire childhood hell. You don’t deserve any dignity. You don’t deserve me to handle you with care.
Grandpa retrieves the blanket from the chair and covers her up to her chin. Her pale lips are no longer able to spout vile words at me.
“I hate you,” I whisper into her ear hoping that she can hear me in whatever hell I know she’s been taken to.
I look and see Natalia is overwhelmed. Tears form in her eyes.
I cup her chin. “Don’t Sparrow. Not for her. She’s not worthy of your tears.”
“I never got the chance to say goodbye to my mother. She left ... and then I heard she’d died, Dima,” Natalia replies, wiping at her eyes.
“I know but even your mother doesn’t deserve your tears, Natalia. And this woman she deserved to die a long time ago. She’s not my mother. She never was.”
“Here.” Grandpa’s shaky hands pass me the journal he’d retrieved from the sofa as I placed Sylvia down. “Make sure to read it my boy,” Grandpa says and offers me a soft smile.
“I will.” I place my hand on his shoulder. I can see the pain in grandpa’s face and wonder what family secrets the journal holds. I wonder about my real mother, Anna and what she was like. My mind skips to my real father. Who was he? My mind is a chaotic mess, now is not the time for me to know.
“Come, Sparrow.” I take hold of Natalia’s hand and guide her out of the room.
We make our way upstairs to the bedroom I used to call my own whenever I stayed with my grandparents during the summers I loved so much. But this time instead of sneaking away at night to be with my little sparrow, here I was with her.
She’s all I ever craved, all I ever wanted. She was my escape from reality, the one who brought me joy, who gave pleasure willingly. We found comfort in each other.
This ... this was everything the young Dima had craved and here I was living my dream.
I soon pushed mother’s death to the back of my mind. I didn’t care for her. I tried so hard to make her love me but nothing I did was ever good enough.
My Little Sparrow is so different. She loves me for who I am, for what I am.
Even in my darkest, most depraved moments she loves me through it all.
She embraces my crazy, she drives it. But she also knows my tender side, the protector within me, my caring and nurturing side.
She loves me for everything I am. She loves me for me.
I’m obsessed with her, she really is an other worldly being.
She’s made from the rarest forms of stardust. She’s as sacred as the moment the universe formed—and she’s the center of mine.
A precious diamond that pulls me in like gravity, the one goddess who sits on the pedestal I place her on and she keeps me grounded. She’s mine.
I squeeze her hand, head toward the bed and grab a vanilla scented candle my grandpa left sitting on top of my drawers.
He knows I love to look at flames; I find them calming, soothing.
I can’t quite explain but they soothe the rage inside of me.
I take my lighter from my pocket and flick it open, spark it up and hold it against the wick.
It lights immediately; a pretty white flame dances and reflects in the mirror opposite my bed.
“I left my bag downstairs.” Natalia says and looks down at the ground as though she’s embarrassed.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it, I’ll get it for you, wait on the bed for me,” I reply.
She leaves the bathroom and perches on the edge of the bed, and I head for the bedroom door.
“Dima,” she calls me softly.
I turn around to see her gesturing for me to sit beside her. I move back into the bedroom and sit down next to her, placing my hand on her knee.
“I want to thank you, Dima.” She runs her hands up my chest and hooks them behind my neck.
“Thank me?”
“You saved me from my life, well it wasn’t a life. You saved me from a real monster. From Nikolai and being forced to work in Sasha’s. For the first time in my life I feel ... hope. The same hope I felt whenever you’d visit me in summer. I only ever knew hope because of you, Dima. My ... Dima.”
“My sweet girl, you’re my hope too. You were my beacon of light whenever I felt like ending it all. I can’t count how many times the thought of you stopped me from ending my life.”
Natalia moves her lips to mine and kisses me slowly. The taste of her watermelon lip-gloss meets my tongue as the kiss grows deeper.