Page 3 of Wicked Mafia Beast
Right in front of the curtains.
I inhale sharply. My heart stops. Restarts. It pounds so hard I feel it in my throat, my temples, and in every fingertip. Sweat drips down my spine. My legs shake with the effort of staying still.
The curtain shifts and a thin sliver of light cuts through the gap.
Our eyes meet.
He sees me.
Oh, shit.
He knows I heard everything.
For one endless moment, we stare at each other. Father and daughter. The man who's supposed to protect me and the girl he just sold. His blue eyes, so like mine, hold something I can't name. Guilt, maybe. Or grief. Or the hollow resignation of a man who stopped fighting years ago.
Say something. Do something. Help me.
His mouth opens. Closes.
I watch the war play out across his face. The flicker of something that might be conscience. The moment where he could choose differently. Choose me.
But he does none of those things. He simply turns away and walks out of the study, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
He saw me.
He saw me, and he left anyway.
The crack inside me splinters wide open, jagged edges shredding something I didn't know I was still protecting. Some stupid, childish hope that my father would choose me. Just once. Just this once.
My eyes blur. My throat closes. Twenty-five years of hoping he'd be different, and it takes exactly three seconds to kill it.
My fingers curl into fists. Every instinct screams at me to burst out of this curtain, destroy everything my hands can reach, and set fire to this whole filthy empire.
I want my mother. I want her so badly I can almost smell her perfume. Gardenias and vanilla. I can almost feel her arms around me, her hand smoothing my hair, her voice soft against my ear.You're stronger than all of them, baby girl. Don't ever forget it.
But she's gone. Buried in a cemetery I can't visit without seeing Malone headstones stretching back generations. And tonight proves my father might as well be among the dead with how soulless he’s become.
Instead of reaching for the matches I know my uncle keeps on his desk for his cigars, I count to sixty. Then sixty again. Making sure they're gone. Making sure no one is waiting in the hallway to grab me.
When I hear nothing, my heartbeat slows. Barely. The shaking in my hands doesn't stop. But I can’t wait around much longer. I move.
The files. I need my files. Six months of evidence, documentation, witness statements. Everything I need to destroy them.
I take two steps toward the door before reality crashes over me.
The files are in my room. My room is on the third floor. Guards are everywhere, cameras in every hallway, and my uncle's men are probably already watching my door.
If I go back for the evidence, I won't make it out.
The realization hits like a second blow. Six months of work. Hundreds of hours. Witnesses I cultivated, documents I stole, a case I built piece by painstaking piece.
I have to leave it. All of it. Six months of work abandoned.
My hands shake as I take inventory of what I have. Phone in my back pocket, driver's license stuck to the case. Laptop bag slung across my body, the worn leather strap cutting into my shoulder.
My friends tease me about never being without this bag. Always prepared, they say. Always ready to work.
Right now, it's the only thing I have.
