ONE

I have learnt that sometimes SORRY isn’t enough, you’ll have to change yourself~ROLEX

Artemis...

“No, please stop”

I tried to crawl away from him but he grabbed my ankles and pulled me back.

His dark grey eyes watched the tears roll down my cheeks like they were the best part of his day.

My heart thumped so loudly in my chest that for once I actually thought it was going to jump out.

“Don’t worry, tiger cub. It won’t hurt that much” he said before raising his pocket knife.

I screamed.

And suddenly, I was awake, sweating and trying to catch my breath.

Once my heart returned to its normal rhythm, I looked beside me only to find the other side of the bed empty.

I climbed out of bed and into my flip flops and walked to the balcony, feeling my way through the pitch darkness.

She was there.

I stood beside her and we stared at the night that was as dark as our lives.

Neither of us said a word.

We didn’t need to.

* * *

A few years ago, I was a happy teenager. Always ready to do whatever Mummy and Papa said.

Now I was a broken one.

Broken beyond repair.

I was fifteen when I was sold.

Being the only daughter of a mafia don has its pros and cons.

The pros were two elder brothers who would fight anybody for me, a loving mother who taught me how to cook, bake and clean, and a father who was feared by everyone except me.

Having a mafia don as a father isn’t every girl’s dream.

But it was mine, and I was happy.

Happiness glowed on my face until my fifteenth birthday.

I had just finished my breakfast and was waiting for someone to wish me happy birthday when I was called to Papa’s study.

Everyone was there and I couldn’t help the grin that broke out on my face.

Mummy hugged me and wished me good luck. So did my brothers.

Papa only nodded, his face as white as snow.

But nobody said happy birthday.

Mummy looked ready to burst into tears, and my brothers were keeping up their faces pretty well.

Just as I was about to ask what was wrong, a needle went into my neck from behind.

And the last thing I saw before the darkness, the picture that burned into my mind even if I wanted to forget it, was this:

My family’s backs turned to me.

I no longer had a family.

* * *

Listening to the owls and feeling the night breeze against my skin was better than lying in bed having nightmares about Brody.

I shivered, not from the cold but from the fear that has lived in me since the first day I set eyes on him.

He had a dangerous look. The ‘I’ll kill you if you double cross me’ look.

I know it doesn’t make sense, but my fifteen-year-old brain saw it and gave it a name.

He never smiled. He never talked too much. He never told me his last name.

In four years, I never once heard anybody call him anything but ‘sir’.

Only I had to call him Brody.

He loved pain, tears and misery.

He was a monster.

A sadist.

The devil himself.

He made that clear the first day I met him, and just like that, I stopped being a person and became his.

Days turned into months and months into years, but deep down in me there was a little flame burning that told me I was going to survive.

I’ll escape, I told myself. I’ll find a good man and we’ll live happily ever after with our own kids. I’ll grow old with him and every day we’ll watch the sunset from our rocking chairs while we sip hot tea.

But that dream was taken from me too.

The week before I ran, Brody took me to a clinic. I didn’t know why until he told me during one of his drunken rants.

While I was asleep on that table, he made sure I could never have children.

“Nobody will ever want you now, tiger cub. Nobody but me”

I couldn’t stay after that.

So, I ran.

I didn’t make it to the bus stop before I was tackled to the ground.

We struggled. More like I struggled while Brody blocked my hits like I was a fly.

He stabbed me in the thigh three times, and I grabbed a stone and hit him on the head.

He fell unconscious, and I limped away.

I was so scared.

Scared as a church rat.