“Dad is really gone,” Irina whispers right before tears spill down her face.
“Honey,” Mom says, wrapping her into a hug. Sasha is keeping a stoic expression while Ana is staring down at her phone.
I want to cry but I hold it back. My younger sisters need me to be strong right now so strong I’ll be.
“How did this happen?” Sasha asks, her lips barely moving. “One moment, he was here and the next, he’s gone.”
“We’ll never see him again,” Ana says, sinking low into the couch.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Mom promises. “I swear I will.”
Irina turns to me, taking my hand in hers. “He didn’t even get to see you in Swan Lake. I know he was so excited for it. He was talking about it for months.”
That makes a couple tears slip out of my eyes. I pull away from Irina and stand up. “I just need a moment.”
“We should stick together,” Mom says. “I don’t trust your uncle.”
“What are you worried he’ll do?” Sasha asks.
“I’m worried he played a part in your father’s death. We can’t trust any men right now. We only have each other.”
Despite how upset I am at my father’s death, my mind still goes back to the stranger I met at the theater. What was his name? I guess I’ll never know.
For some reason, that makes me cry harder and I run from the room. My sisters don’t need to see me cry.
My father will never watch me dance ever again.
And my uncle has returned to cause chaos.
Chapter Two
Natalya
My father’s funeral happens fast.
My mom found out what happened to him within a matter of days. Turns out, there was an attack on him and Denis outside a restaurant. My father was shot down in broad daylight.
The men who shot him took his body and dumped it down by the docks.
Tatiana used her connections to get his body back so we could have a funeral. She planned it all without shedding a tear. My mom is the kind of woman who goes into action and doesn’t stop until the problem is solved.
Now, me and my three sisters sit in a pew inside the large church, listening to the priest talk about my father as if he knewhim. Lev Petrov was not the kind of man who ever went to church. I can’t remember the last time he set foot in a place like this. But now, he’ll spend eternity buried next to the church. I can’t help but find that ironic.
The service is lovely but I expected nothing less from my mom. She might have had conflicted feelings for Lev but she was always loyal to him and knew he deserved a fine funeral to go out in.
She’s beside me, keeping her head up. My sisters and I have all shed tears over the past couple of days since losing our father but Tatiana hasn’t cried once.
I place my hand over hers and she flinches slightly, like she wasn’t expecting me to do that. She’s the kind of mom who would give a hug if necessary but she never offered them willingly. Only something bad would have to happen for her to give them. I’ve seen my mom give my sisters hugs more in this past week than she’s ever had our entire lives.
But I know she loves us. She has fought hard this past week to plan the funeral and keep us safe from our uncle, who she still doesn’t trust despite learning that he was not responsible for his brother’s death.
After a moment, she places her other hand on top of mine and offers me a grateful smile.
Irina is next to me, bawling her eyes out. Ana is the same while Sasha only looks at her lap without crying. I think she’s trying to be tough. She’s always felt like she needed to be tough where me and Irina and Ana were soft.
I glance around the church as the priest continues to give the eulogy and see that we’re surrounded by friends of my father. As well as coworkers. I’m assuming that since I haven’t met even half the people in this room. My father kept his job away from us but now that he’s gone, it’s going to start encroaching on us slowly, bit by bit.
It’s then that I notice a man near the back of the room. He’s leaning against the wall.
