My Mafia Bully Became My Stepbrother

Chapter 4: Collateral Damage

POV: Elena

Sunlight pierced through the sheer curtains, hitting my face with a blinding, aggressive brightness. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could dissolve into the mattress.

For a split second, I forgot. I reached out, expecting to feel the lumpy springs of my old twin bed and the draft from the cracked window.

Instead, my hand brushed against cold, smooth silk. My eyes snapped open. The massive white ceiling stared back at me. The Fortress.

The memory of last night crashed over me. The move. The dinner. The chair sliding across the floor Dominic.

I sat up, my heart doing a nervous flutter in my chest. I looked at the door. The velvet chair was still upright where he had left it. The door was closed. I was safe at least for now.

I swung my legs out of bed. The carpet was so thick my toes disappeared into it. My suitcase sat in the middle of the room, looking pathetic and out of place. It was duct, taped at the corner, scuffed gray against the pristine white surroundings.

I needed to unpack. If I hid my things—my ugly, worn, out things—maybe I wouldn't feel so exposed. I knelt beside the suitcase and unzipped it. The sound was harsh in the silence.

I pulled out my clothes. Faded jeans. Sweaters that had been washed too many times. A pair of sneakers with a hole in the toe. I shoved them into the bottom drawer of the massive dresser, burying them deep.

Then I reached for the side pocket. My fingers brushed against the cool metal of a small, tin box. My sanctuary. I pulled it out. It was an old cookie tin, chipped and rusted at the edges. Inside was the only thing I had left of my father.

It wasn't much, just a Polaroid photo.I sat back on my heels, opening the lid. The photo was curled at the edges, the colors fading to sepia. It showed a man with laughing eyes holding a baby, me, high in the air. He looked happy. He looked like he wasn't going to leave us two years later with a mountain of debt and a broken mother.

But it was proof that I had been loved, once. Before poverty. Before the bullying. Before Dominic.

"Touching." The voice came from the doorway.

I gasped, fumbling the tin. The photo fluttered to the carpet, landing face up.

Dominic was leaning against the doorframe. He held a mug of black coffee, steam curling around his fingers. He was dressed in a crisp grey suit, looking like a prince of the city.

I hadn't heard the door open."I didn't hear you knock," I whispered, snatching the photo from the floor and clutching it to my chest.

"I didn't knock," he said, pushing off the doorframe and walking into the room. "We established the rules last night. No locks or secrets."

He stopped a few feet away from me. He looked down at my open suitcase, his lip curling in distaste.

"Is that your entire wardrobe?" he asked. "It looks like rags used to wash a car."

"That's all I have," I said, my voice defensive. I stood up, hugging the photo tighter. "We didn't have money for new clothes, Dominic. Some of us had to eat."

"Save the sob story for my father," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes drifted to my hands. "What’s that?"

I took a step back. "Nothing."

"Show me." It wasn't a request. It was a command, delivered in that low, dangerous tone that made my knees weak.

"No," I said, a spark of defiance lighting in my chest. "It's mine."

Dominic set his mug down on the dresser with a deliberate clack. He closed the distance between us in two long strides. Before I could react, his hand shot out. He gripped my wrist, his fingers like steel bands.

"Let go!" I cried, trying to twist away.

He didn't squeeze hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to make my fingers go numb. My grip loosened.

He snatched the photo from my hand.

"Please," I begged, the defiance instantly replaced by panic. "Please, Dominic. Give it back. It’s my dad."

He held the photo up to the light, inspecting it with a bored expression. "The man who ran out on you?" he asked, arching a dark eyebrow. "The man who left your mother to beg my father for salvation?"

"He loved me," I choked out, tears stinging my eyes. "He’s the only good memory I have."

Dominic looked at the photo, then at me. His eyes were cold, devoid of any empathy. "Memories are crutches, Elena," he said softly. "Especially the fake ones. He left because you weren't enough to make him stay."

The words hit me harder than a slap. "That's not true," I whispered.

"It is," he said. "Just like you weren't enough to make the kids at school like you. Just like you aren't enough to be in this family."

His fingers tightened on the edge of the photo.

"No!" I lunged for him.

He side, stepped me easily. With a sickening rripp, he tore the photo down the middle.

I froze. He didn't stop. He tore the halves into quarters. Then eighths. He let the pieces flutter to the pristine white carpet like confetti.

My knees gave out. I dropped to the floor, scrambling to pick up the pieces. My hands shook so badly I couldn't grasp them.

"Why?" I sobbed, looking up at him through a blur of tears. "It was just a picture. It couldn't hurt you."

Dominic looked down at me, his expression unreadable. He didn't look happy, he didn't look sad. He looked like he was teaching a dog a lesson.

"You need to learn, Mouse," he said. "Holding onto the past makes you weak. And in this house, the weak get eaten."

He stepped over me, his expensive leather shoe crushing a piece of my father's face into the carpet.

I stared at the ruined image, my heart breaking all over again. Dominic walked to the door, checking his watch as if he hadn't just destroyed my world.

"Clean this mess up," he said. "And get dressed. You have orientation at the university today."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, smearing tears across my cheek. "I’m not going."

He stopped as the air in the room grew heavy.

"You're going," he said, not turning around. "You’re going to play the part of the grateful stepdaughter. You’re going to smile. And you’re going to pretend we’re a happy family."

"And if I don't?" I challenged, my voice shaking.

He turned then. The look in his eyes was pure anger. "Then I make sure your mother finds out exactly how much debt she’s really in," he lied smoothly. Or maybe it wasn't a lie. With the Russos, you never knew. "And I make sure your life at the university is even worse than high school. Do you want a repeat of junior year, Elena? Because I can arrange that with a single text."

I flinched. Junior year, the locker incident, the cafeteria, the shame. "No," I whispered.

"Good girl," he said.

He leaned against the doorframe, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. "You have one week, Elena," he said.

I blinked, confused. "One week for what?"

"To convince me you aren't a parasite," he said. "If you’re still this pathetic in seven days... I’m going to make you wish your father had taken you with him."

He walked out, leaving the door wide open.

I sat on the floor, surrounded by the torn pieces of my past. I picked up a fragment, just my father's smiling eye, and pressed it to my chest.

A sob ripped through my throat, raw and ugly. He was right. I was weak. But as I looked at the open door, a new feeling sparked in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't fear. It wasn't sadness. It was hatred. Pure, black hatred.

I wiped my eyes. I stood up, one week, i thought.