𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆

~Katrina Annika Ivanov~

She was a saint...a person who valued family above all else. Yet she was a free bird that could never be caged. She was someone everyone aspired to be.

She was the sister everyone wanted.

The sister that they had lost...

But, at last...she had been found again...

She pulled away from the hug reluctantly as tears threatened to spill over, and looked them over one last time before taking a deep breath.

"I'm guessing you all want an explanation," she murmured.

"That'd be nice," Antonio sniffled as Starr comfortingly rubbed his back. Matteo clutched onto Ida's hand like a lifeline, not easing his grip for a second as more tears blurred his vision.

Thea stood by Oscar's side like a magnet, not moving an inch, too afraid that if she did, she'd burst into tears yet again.

It had been ten years since he had lost her. He was well over moved on. It had been ten days since Midnight passed. He was very much not moved on. At all. He wasn't sure if he could ever recover from that. Just as he thought he couldn't cry anymore, he did.

She backed away and motioned them to follow her as she chuckled slightly.

As they walked throughout the halls, everyone bowed their head in respect towards their Pakhan and opened the doors to a warm office with a crackling fireplace.

She sat behind the white leather chair while everyone else sat in front of her.

"I'll start from the beginning.

Viktor was born first. Then it was Alexei. I was born eight years after Alexei.

When they found out that I was a girl, they had sent me away to Sweden and put me up for adoption. They had told everyone that I was a stillborn boy and I didn't survive the birth.

I didn't know my real name or who I was. All I knew was that my real parents didn't want me and I was tossed around from foster home to foster home.

Ever since I was given away, I lived in Sweden until I was 15.

When I was five, I befriended this girl.

This girl was abused at home. Her father was an alcoholic and her mom was a drug addict. You could only imagine how that would turn out for her.

Every day at school she'd turn up with bruises and cuts and an empty stomach. Her parents forced her to go to school so none of the teachers would report them. They were already on thin ice with the law.

People at school bullied her because she didn't have the best clothes, didn't have a new backpack, and didn't have any friends. She worked three jobs on top of going to school. She worked her ass off just so she could provide for her little brothers and supply her parents with alcohol and drugs.

I helped her all I could. Patched up some of the minor wounds and helped babysit her brothers whenever she worked. But it was never enough. No matter what I did, her parents always abused her ten times worse.

We were too scared to call the police because she knew what kind of situation I was in and didn't want to be separated from her brothers.

One day, a scout from the U.S came to our little old high school and offered her an abroad scholarship to Columbia for her academic scores. She was over the moon and took it as her chance to take her brothers and leave the country and never see her parents ever again.

I didn't get to see her after that day.

I was kidnapped.

One day I was in Sweden and the next I was in Italy.