Explosive ( Bloody Heirs #1 )

Set fire to it ( Him )

AIDA

age 20

Smoking on the hood of your car while music was blasting from the inside of it was the best kind of therapy. Or at least that's what I'd convinced myself over the past years as more and more therapists failed to "fix" me.

I didn't need to be fixed. I wasn't a goddamned toy or object. I was a human - a very fucked up one at that, but still a human. Who felt.

Occasionally.

I'd learned to mask my feelings so well from the people around me sometimes I didn't even know what to do with them when I was all alone and they came crashing down. They were as wanted as a tsunami. Not one fucking bit.

"Aida!" Father's voice shouted from the entryway, his tone angry and exasperated. "Get inside this instant girl! The guests are about to arrive!"

I smirked to myself. Father and his guests, should be the title of the book I could write about why I am the way I am.

I raised my cigarette in salute and I heard him curse me in Russian before he stomped inside and slammed the door after him.

I happily inhaled the toxins of the drug in my hand, welcoming the stench of what would preferably end up killing me quicker. Knowing my luck, I could smoke sixteen packs a day and I'd still live 189 years on this miserable planet.

Maggie Lindemann's voice blasted through my speakers, the lyrics of the song mushing with the screaming thoughts in my head.

Peaceful moment - interrupted.

Thank-fucking-you, Father.

A window opened behind me and a blonde head stuck out, Natalya's blue eyes locking with mine as mischief curled her lips. I smirked back at her, a feeling of pride unfurling through me. I'd raised her and Ivan - as far as I was concerned they were like my very own children.

"What did you?" I asked her after a moment. She beamed the most evil beam one could manage. "I ordered more pink clothing," she said happily, her smirk widening into a grin.

I shook my head with a laugh.

Mama loathed Natalya's obsession with the color pink simply because my sister looked like the usual Barbie doll. Slender, with long limbs, a mane of blonde hair and porcelain-like blue eyes. Like I said, usual Barbie doll. If the Barbie doll enjoyed gore more than she loved her ribbons.

"Good job," I praised her. Overfilling our wardrobes with clothes we didn't need was a way for us Mikhailov women to cope with our sadness and trauma.

Natalya sighed as she leaned on her elbows. "He says you have to come inside and prepare for the guests," her mouth twisted the way it always did when something upset her and panic lit every nerve in my system.

"Tell him I'm going inside right now," I answered her, hopping down from the hood of my car to turn it and the music off. I heard my sister grumble something before she shrunk her head back inside and started yelling back at father.

Stomping my way up the front stairs of our house, I looked around. Vegas was an awfully busy city during the warmer times of the year but during the colder seasons, a sort of serene feeling settled over it. The soft layer of snow sitting atop the gates and trees making it look dreamy and straight out of one of Natalya's romance novels.

I shrugged my hoodie off my shoulders and hung it on the coat rack, risking the wrath of my mother's shoe as I made my way up the stairs to my closet.

"Get pretty for the guests," I muttered to myself, mocking father's voice as I stepped inside and unlocked the door separating the racks of clothes and shoes from my bedroom and pushed the handle.