Born in the Riva family, Vasilisa is the offspring of a wise Russian woman together with a powerful Italian man, the sister of four once soft and gentle brothers who were made different by the things they had to go through, a victim of an unfinished conflict dragging from her mother's past, and most importantly a survivor of a terrible turn of events. After a series of silly mistakes made by her parents after an innocent family dinner, being only seven years old, Vasilisa, named so by her mother, ends up in the hands of a very violent man. But here's the catch. Her mother is taken with her. And that way the Riva family ends up heartbroken, the mother changes forever, and the girl's bubbly persona is buried under the survival skills she's had to develop.