PAST— 14 YEARS AGO.
SOMEWHERE ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NEW YORK
TIVAL BASEMENT
My mother established the numbering system out of pure logistical necessity.
Imagine five men armed to the teeth all responding at the same time when a child screams "Dad!" in the middle of dinner. Have you ever seen the chaos of five Glocks being drawn simultaneously because Yakov slipped in training blood and called for help? Exactly…
That's how we learned:
DAD 1 ➻ HEROS
The patriarch with broad hands that served equally to bandage scraped knees and to dislocate the jaws of traitors. Our first-aid manual was him murmuring, "Press here, daughter, until the bone stops grinding," while threading a needle through open wounds.
DAD 2 ➻ LUTHER
The strategist. He drew tactics with empty shell casings across coffee-stained maps, cigarette smoke clouding the most crucial details.
"A direct attack is predictable," he would say, dragging his finger along an alternate route. "Real power lies in what they don't expect."
He was the one who taught me to think five steps ahead—on the streets, in business, in the silent war we waged.
DAD 3 ➻ NOAH
He taught Yakov how to kill without noise: "The trachea collapses in twelve seconds if you press… here."
His voice was calm. His hands, lethal. We brought him coffee on the nights he stayed up cleaning traces of our "accidents."
DAD 4 ➻ LOHAN
The elite sniper. He trained us with empty beer cans in the backyard. "Breathe between heartbeats," he whispered against my ear while adjusting my stance. When I hit the target, he'd crack open another beer and leave the empty can on my nightstand as a trophy.
DAD 5 ➻ ZEDEKIAH
The pyromaniac. His knife collection was a private museum: "This one killed an Interpol spy… this other one, just for breakfast…"
Vasily idolized him, of course. Zedekiah gave each of us a pocketknife on our seventh birthday—"to cut the cake," he said with that laugh that made Mom roll her eyes.
The numbering system was sacred. Calling Luther "Dad 3" guaranteed no dessert—and Noah laughing for days. But when all five responded together to Mom's invented danger whistle… that's when we truly understood what family meant.
Five pistols racking in unison sound like a symphony. Did you know that?
At three years old, I pointed to the portrait on the wall—the five of them in suits surrounding her wedding dress—and asked with the cruel logic of children:
"Is it from most loved to least loved?"
Mom laughed until the glasses trembled on the shelf. Her ruby earrings swayed as she took my chin between fingers stained red (back then I still believed it was paint).
"No. It's by age. But love…" Her eyes traced the five names tattooed on her left wrist. "Love is like a bullet. It doesn't divide. It multiplies."
But now, at seventeen, tied to a rusted metal chair in a basement that reeks of mold, dried blood, and cheap cigarettes, I think…
Does that rule really apply to everything?
Because right now I'm here. Alone.
And the Tivals don't share anything.
They grabbed me outside the private school my parents insisted I attend "to keep up appearances." A black van with no plates, a cloth soaked in chemicals pressed to my face, and when I woke up, I was already here.
No emergency whistle. No symphony of five Glocks.
Just the echo of my own heartbeat against my ribs.
The man who enters now is tall, bald, with a scar slicing from his left eyebrow down to his mouth. Dimitri Tival. The firstborn. The one my father Heros swore he would kill personally if he ever laid a hand on any of us.
He lights a cigarette slowly, as if he has all the time in the world.
"Your mother is a clever bitch," he says, blowing smoke in my direction. "Five husbands, five bastard kids with the same last name… and she still thinks she can keep playing chess with the whole city."
I don't answer.
I press my wrists against the ropes until I feel the skin tear. Hot blood trickles down my forearms.
Luther taught me: pain is information. Use it.
Dimitri steps closer, crouching until he's eye-level with me.
"You know what's funny? Your parents think you're at a friend's house studying. They don't even know you're missing yet."
He smiles, yellowed teeth glinting in the dim light of the hanging bulb.
"But when they find out… they'll come. And when they do, they'll die down here. All five of them."
I lift my chin, even with my split lip and the taste of iron in my mouth.
"They won't die."
My voice comes out low, hoarse, but steady.
"You will."
He laughs. A short, dry sound.
"A little Blackwell girl talking tough. Cute."
Then he stands, flicks the cigarette to the floor, and crushes it under his boot.
"We'll see how long that bravery lasts when we start sending pieces of you to their mansion. Finger by finger. Maybe I'll start with that pretty face."
He leaves. The steel door slams shut, the sound reverberating in my chest.
Silence.
I close my eyes.
I breathe between heartbeats, exactly the way Lohan taught me.
And I think about the boy who arrived a few months ago. Mikhail Holloway. The stranger with amber eyes who never smiled, but who picked up a pistol like it was an extension of his arm.
He was in the van that took me home.
He saw everything.
He didn't scream. Didn't run.
He just watched. Like he always does.
If anyone arrives before my parents…
It will be him.
And when he does, it won't be a symphony of five pistols.
It will be a storm.
And I can hardly wait to see what that storm can unleash when it comes for me.