Bound to the Mafia

Chapter 5 - Serena - 7 Years Ago

It's cold.

I can hear the rain hammering against the cracked window pane, smell the foul odor of damp trash down in the street. Sirens wail in the distance, but I don't dare allow myself to believe they might be coming to save me. Nobody is coming to save me. There's nobody left who even could. My father... my hero, my rock, he's gone. And he's never coming back from where those evil Mafiosi sent him. I grit my teeth and feel my whole body tense up as I curl my hands into tight fists. I need to stay calm. I need to accept that this—whatever this is—is my life now.

I can't save myself. And none of my friends know where I am or what I'm about to do. I haven't had any chance to talk to anyone, not with Claudio and Dino shadowing my every step and monitoring my every breath. They took my cell phone. I have no idea where it is now. For all I know they've used it to tell everybody in my contacts list to fuck off and never speak to me again. Anything to isolate me further. I wonder if they did. If so, maybe they sent a message to the last number Bruno was using. Not that it matters. He's probably moved on to a new number by now, and besides, he hasn't shown any interest in me for weeks. I shouldn't count on him or anyone else. I'm all alone in this, and I better get used to that.

I'm standing in a dimly lit motel room, the blinking neon vacancy sign sending faint strobe lights through the thin curtains in shades of sickly pale green. Across the room is a rickety-looking bed with a lumpy mattress and threadbare brown sheets. The light bulb in the bedside lamp flickers ominously every few minutes like it's ready to burn out any second. There are stains on the carpet I don't even want to think about, pools of rust red and dark gold. Who the hell knows what all has gone on in this room? Or in any room of this shitty motel? I don't want to know, but I have a feeling I'm about to find out. I'm going to get a taste of something horrible soon. It's coming.

My mouth is so dry. I wish I could get a glass of water or something, but I don't have any cups here, and even if I wanted to try and collect tap water in my hands to drink, something tells me the water here probably isn't quite up to drinking standards. So I just swallow hard and stare up at the ceiling tiles, trying to breathe slowly and calm my racing heart. The tears burn in my eyes but I can't let them fall. It won't help. And Claudio was very emphatic about keeping myself pretty. I need to prevent my eyeliner from running down my cheeks.

I blink rapidly to stem the tears and hurry into the creepy little ensuite bathroom, slamming my hand against the clicker light switch. One of the bulbs over the mirror pops, sending tiny shards of thin glass flying, and I let out a shriek as I fall backward into the tub, tearing the shower curtain down as I go. I sit there stunned for a moment, my bare legs sticking up out of the tub while my head pounds from the pain of knocking it against the porcelain. I heave a deep breath and reach back to make sure I'm not bleeding. Thankfully, I'm not.

"That's gonna bruise," I murmur to myself as I gingerly climb back out of the tub, trying not to step on any of the shattered glass. In this moment, I'm grateful for the ugly, oversized black platform heels Claudio forced me to wear. If I were barefoot right now, I'd probably have my feet all sliced up. I crunch across the glass to lean over the counter and survey my face in the filth-streaked mirror. My eyes are pink-rimmed from crying and even my designer mascara and eyeliner can't conceal how tired and broken I look. I use my pinkie finger to fix a slight smudge of the dark red Yves Saint Laurent coloring my lips. It feels so strange, wearing my expensive makeup and slinky La Perla lingerie under my little black Moschino dress in a disgusting, barely-functional roach motel like this. I bought these things to impress my classmates and fellow fledgling socialites, my high-end friends. Shopping on Fifth Avenue was just part of my persona, the reputation I built for myself. It was expected of me then. Just a given. The lingerie I bought a couple weeks ago in anticipation of the time I would inevitably find myself stripping down for Bruno. It was a distant dream then, something I suspected would happen once we'd been together for a year or so. Once things smoothed out and we could see each other more regularly. I was already planning a life with him. Sixteen years old and in love and so, so stupid.