Bound by Blood and Lies

4 Years Ago Carina It's dark, almost void of any color. Am I blind? Maybe I'm dead, finally. I have no idea where I am, my heart beating drums against my ears, making it hard to hear my surroundings. My breath is ragged, as if I was partaking in a marathon. It hurts to breathe. I can't feel anything. Where am I? What happened? The only thing I can do? Smell. There's a faint smell of alcohol and a stench of rotting food surrounding me. I want to cry, throw up, maybe even scream. I'm stuck, frozen in place, screaming at my body to just move, figure out where we are, hide. I try to regulate my breathing. 3 things you can see. I can't see anything. I focus hard. Shadows surround me. Through my teary eyes, I can make out the sides of two buildings, brick it seems. 1. A dumpster. Too close for comfort. 2. Behind me, I can notice light posts, far from my reach and dim, almost burnt. 3. 3 things you can hear. My heartbeat beating rapidly against my ribs. 1. There's broken breathing, either mine or someone else's. 2. There's a mixture of bass boosting whatever song is being played in one, or both, of the buildings I've been sandwiched between, and screams from the party-goers recognizing their favorite song. 3. 3 body parts you can move. 1. I can move my left arm, swinging it in circles. 2. I can move my legs, moving them from my seated squat position I didn't know I was in, to straighten them out. Lastly, 3. My head. I can move my head, not well, it hurts. Sore. Using my now calmed body, I scan my surroundings more. Both behind and in front of me are lights. Too far to reach quickly. Why am I in an alley? Listening closely, I hear my name. I tense. I don't know the voice. "Carina! Where are you?!" They yelled, frantic to find me. Their voice, almost drowning in the sea of voices and sounds in the night, can't be recognized, harmonizing with the environment. From the screams and bass of the clubs' DJs, I can make out an approximate time, 1 to 3 a.m. Everyone is out and about, yelling and dancing and having fun, yet here I am, in a dark alley, with no recollection of how I got here. Was I drugged? I need to move. But I can't, it hurts. Why does it hurt? My legs, my ribs, my throat, my stomach. I need to move. I try to yell, maybe the person or someone will hear me and help, but I can't make a sound, a squeak bursts out, nothing nearly loud enough to attract attention, barely hearing it myself. I want to scream, but even that hurts. It's my breath that's ragged and broken. My ribs are broken, or at the very least bruised. The slightest of movements shoots a jolt of pain throughout my whole body. "Carina, we need to go! Please! He's here!" My blood runs cold. He's here. The only person that knew what was happening was Luciano. He's here to help, like he said he would. I knew I could count on him. I need to move, to have him see me. To be saved. Against my body's plea, I try to move. Breathing as much as I can through the pain, I move my hands around the ground, making sure to clear any objects that could hurt me more. My hands make their way to my sweater, something I would never have thought of taking it off. How is it here? It's soaked, but it's not raining. What could be on here? Alcohol? I don't have time to think about that. I reluctantly grab my sweater, using it as a cousin for my elbows as I army-crawl to the sound of Luciano's voice. "Luci, I'm here!" I tried to say, but my voice was gone, in its place were pained breaths and whines. I muster up all the energy I have left, which isn't much, and crawl. I make it about a foot in front of me before my arms give out and the blood loss I didn't know was happening, kicks in. "Holy sh*t, Carina! I'm coming!" Luci yells. Just before I finally shut my eyes, allowing darkness to consume me, I hear a voice I never wanted to, or thought I would, hear again, lean down and whisper in my ear. His accent hot and thick against me. "You can never escape me, malen'kiy krolik," he continues. "I'll be back for you again." I don't have time to react before my eyes finally shut. ********************************************************************************************************** Present I wake up with a start, drenched in sweat from another reoccurring nightmare of my past. It's been four years and that night still lingers on in my mind like a fresh memory. Everything is still so vivid, my mind playing sick, twisted tricks on me in my daily life. A shadowed figure outside my window, his voice in my ears, his cologne wafting through my nose when I'm home alone. He was right, I couldn't escape him. He's engrained himself so far into my psyche that even now, he's still here. Four years of being physically safe, yet it's taken a toll on me mentally. Luciano even forced me to sit down with a therapist. He said he was worried about the person I'd "changed into" after that day, four years ago. "You would cry at the bug in your room and call me to come deal with it. Now, I can't even barely get a laugh, let alone a cry out of you. I can't recognize you now," he told me. Luci was the one to help me, taking me to the hospital. He stayed with me for the duration of my stay. Even helping the doctors pull me out of my catatonic state. Therapy is hard when your line of work goes against everything they stand for. Emotions and feelings aren't something you can have in this field. "Never let your opponents see your fear, your weaknesses. They can be used against you. One slight twitch in your eye, a curl of your fingers can give them what they want, leverage, power. Emotions, in this world, get you killed." Father would tell me when we would train. Giovanni Russo isn't the Don of the Sicilian Mafia for no reason. He knew how to work his opponents, and knew how to stop them from doing the same. With therapy, Luciano forced me back into training with Father. Something I missed when I was away. This time though, we trained harder. This time wasn't just about the physical aspect of a fight. He taught me how to mask my emotions. Not allowing a slight twitch of fear to slip through while fighting. Being 5'1, almost every opponent is bigger than me. Both in muscle and height. Learning how to look for your opponents' weakness is an asset everyone should have. Laying in bed for what felt like minutes, I'm brought back to reality by an annoying voice I wish I could put six feet under. "Still as lazy as always." Jace, my stepbrother, barges into my bedroom, berating me as always. Jace is my mother's illegitimate child. He was born two years before me, to another unlucky man my mother managed to wrap around her finger before she found my father. She was eighteen when he was born, infuriating her parents, my grandparents. They wanted more out of their only child, yet even with the unlimited resources she had, she chose a life of scum. Her baby daddy doesn't even want anything to do with her or Jace. Groaning, I bite back. "Still as annoying as always." Jace, or more so my mother, thinks he's getting my rightful spot as Don of the family's mafia since Jace is the eldest child, but he's not my father's blood relative like I am. Yet to keep the peace, he keeps that idea floating in their heads. "I just came to be the great brother I am and remind you of your meeting in..." He looks down at an imaginary watch. Too stupid to read an actual watch, "...an hour." he finishes with fake sweetness. "If you actually read emails instead of pushing off on your imaginary assistant, you'd know it got pushed back two hours," I retort. I stay lying in bed until Jace leaves with a scoff and 'whatever' under his breath before I get up and start my day. I won't give him the opportunity to think he's won. With a sigh, I make my way towards the kitchen, grabbing a coffee from our maid Eva.