The Mafia's Girl
1829 Words
CHAPTER TWO: THE MAFIA’S GIRL
Cassandra awoke to darkness.
Not the soft, velvety kind that meant safety or rest, but the suffocating black of an unfamiliar room. Pain throbbed at the back of her skull. Her wrists burned with rope marks. Every breath felt like it scraped down her throat.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was.
Then everything rushed back.
The van.
Harlow’s sneer.
The crash.
The flip.
The screams.
Her heart seized.
“Jason!” she whispered, voice cracking.
A dim, amber light flicked on, filling the room with a warm but eerie glow.
She jerked upright.
Someone was sitting across the room, in a leather armchair, legs crossed, posture relaxed, but the air around him vibrated with danger. Cassandra stiffened, instinct screaming predator.
He wasn’t a wolf. She could tell immediately. But he wasn’t human in the way ordinary people were either.
No, this man had the aura of someone used to power. Used to being feared.
He had dark hair slicked back, a neatly trimmed beard, and eyes that glimmered like obsidian, cold, calculating, and yet burning with something she couldn’t name.
“Good,” he said softly. “You’re awake.”
Cassandra flinched. “Wh-who are you?”
He didn’t answer right away. He simply rose from the chair, smooth, deliberate, controlled. His tailored suit was immaculate, his shoes polished, his manner almost… elegant.
But underneath that elegance was something lethal.
He approached her slowly, hands in his pockets.
“My name is Bosco,” he murmured.
Don Bosco.
The name vibrated through Cassandra like a warning bell. Even in the King’s pack, wolves whispered about the mafia lord who ruled the shadows of the continent. Ruthless. Untouchable. Unpredictable.
Cassandra struggled to sit up straighter. “What do you want with me?”
A flicker of amusement touched his eyes. “You were brought to me by someone who owed me money. He thought you would make an entertaining gift.”
Her stomach dropped. She pulled the blanket tighter around herself.
“I don’t belong here,” she whispered.
“No,” Bosco said quietly. “You don’t.”
He reached into his coat pocket, and Cassandra tensed, but he withdrew nothing harmful. Instead, he lifted his hand and gently moved a lock of her curls away from her collarbone.
Cassandra froze.
His fingertips brushed something cold resting against her skin.
A necklace.
Her necklace.
Bosco’s breath hitched so sharply it shattered his composure.
“Where,” he whispered hoarsely, dangerously, “did you get this?”
She swallowed hard. “I, I’ve always had it.”
A lie. But she had no idea where it truly came from, only that she’d woken up with it as a child in the human foster home before being sold to the wolves. It was the only thing she’d carried into the pack house.
Bosco stared at it like it was a ghost.
The chain was silver, delicate yet old, holding a pendant carved with swirling symbols she never understood.
But he understood them.
His hand trembled.
“You’ve always had it,” he repeated, voice barely controlled. “Since you were a child?”
“Yes.”
He stepped back, running a hand through his hair. The calm mask cracked, fear, grief, disbelief flashing across his face.
“This necklace,” he said quietly, “belongs to someone I loved.”
The room thickened with tension.
Cassandra blinked. “A woman?”
Bosco nodded slowly. “Her name was Cicilia.”
The name meant nothing to Cassandra. But the way he said it, soft, wounded, made her chest ache.
He continued pacing, struggling to regain control.
“She disappeared years ago,” he said. “Vanished without a trace. I searched every corner of this cursed world, and found nothing.”
He turned to face Cassandra again, eyes burning.
“Until today.”
Her blood iced.
“Why do you think I have her necklace?” she whispered.
“I don’t think,” Bosco murmured. “I know.”
He stepped close, too close, studying her face with a strange intensity. Every detail. Her bone structure, her nose, the curve of her jaw.
“You look like her,” he murmured, almost to himself. “So much like her.”
Cassandra’s heart hammered in confusion. “That’s not possible. I’m human. I grew up in a foster home.”
“No.” Bosco crouched before her, eyes leveling with hers. “Humans can be taken. Bought. Stolen. Hidden.”
Cassandra’s breath stuttered.
“Who told you where you were born?” he asked softly.
“N-no one.”
“Exactly.”
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“You don’t know who you are.”
Her eyes burned. “If you think I’m this Cicilia’s daughter or something, why am I still tied up?”
“I don’t know what you are,” Bosco said honestly. “Not yet.”
He stood, jaw clenched. “But I know you don’t belong to wolves. And I know you’re worth more than the filthy price that beta tried to collect.”
He exhaled, long and controlled.
“You’re safe here.”
She stared at him, stunned. “Why are you helping me?”
Bosco didn’t answer.
He just walked to the door, paused, and turned.
“Because if you truly are connected to Cicilia, even by blood, I owe you a debt I can never repay.”
*****
He left her in a large guest room, far nicer than anything she’d ever known. Soft bedding. Clean clothes. Food. Medical supplies.
It frightened her.
Kindness always did.
Hours passed before Bosco returned, carrying a tray of soup.
Cassandra sat up slowly. “You don’t have to serve me.”
He set the tray down with a small, unreadable smile. “I want to.”
Silence stretched as she ate in cautious sips.
Bosco watched her, not like a man assessing property, but like someone trying to solve a puzzle with pieces missing.
Finally, she asked, “What exactly happened after the crash?”
His expression darkened. “The beta survived. Unfortunately.”
Cassandra froze. “Is he coming back?”
“No.” Bosco’s voice was lethal. “I made certain he understands that trading in human life, especially yours, is a mistake he will not repeat.”
A shiver ran down her spine.
But she wasn’t afraid.
For the first time, she felt protected.
“I don’t understand any of this,” she whispered. “First Jason, now you. Everything is happening too fast.”
Bosco’s posture shifted, barely, but undeniably tense.
“Jason,” he repeated. “The Alpha Prince.”
“Yes.”
A dangerous glint sharpened his gaze. “Is he the one who touched you?”
Cassandra flushed. “He, Jason and I, had a connection. A bond. But his parents!” her voice cracked “they want me dead.”
Bosco’s jaw tightened. “Then they have declared war on the wrong girl.”
Her eyes widened. “Please, don’t go after them. Jason didn’t want this.”
Bosco studied her for a long, heavy moment.
“You care for him,” he said quietly.
Cassandra nodded.
“But you fear him losing control of his world because of you.”
Her throat tightened. “I don’t want to be his ruin.”
Bosco exhaled softly. “He may already be.”
*****
Later that night, Cassandra stood before the mirror in the bathroom, touching the necklace.
She whispered to her reflection, “Who were you, Cicilia? And who am I?”
A soft knock sounded at the door.
“Cass?” Bosco’s voice.
She wrapped a robe around herself. “Come in.”
He entered with a stack of documents in one hand.
“I had my people search for information,” he said quietly. “About Cicilia. About the pendant. About your possible origins.”
Her pulse quickened. “Did you find anything?”
Bosco laid the papers on the bed, but didn’t open them.
“Before I show you,” he murmured, “you need to be prepared. The truth may not be kind.”
She swallowed hard. “I want to know.”
He hesitated, unusual for a man like him.
Then he opened the top file.
Cassandra leaned in.
Her eyes scanned the photograph clipped to the first page, and her blood ran cold.
A woman smiled back at her with warm eyes, delicate features, thick curls, and the exact same necklace around her neck.
She looked like Cassandra.
Almost identical.
Bosco’s voice was low. “This is Cicilia. The last known photo before she disappeared.”
Cassandra’s knees weakened. She collapsed onto the bed.
“Bosco, that can’t be me.”
“No,” he agreed softly. “But it could be your mother.”
A shockwave tore through her chest.
“My mother!” The word was foreign. Fragile. Terrifying.
Bosco offered her a gentle, almost hesitant touch on her shoulder.
“You are not a slave girl with no past,” he said. “You are someone’s daughter. And perhaps, mine to protect.”
Cassandra stared at the photograph again.
Her lips trembled.
“What happened to her?” she whispered.
Bosco’s eyes darkened. “She was running from someone. From something. And if I’m right,” he closed the file slowly, "that someone may come for you next.”
A cold chill swept through the room.
Cassandra clutched the necklace, pulse racing.
“Who?” she breathed.
Bosco met her gaze, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“That,” he said, “is what I intend to find out.”
*****
Cassandra sat on the edge of the bed long after Bosco left, fingers tracing the silver pendant that gleamed against her skin. Cicilia. A name she had never known, yet now it clung to her like a whisper from a past she couldn’t remember.
Her chest felt too tight to breathe.
My mother, was she truly this woman?
Why did she disappear?
Why am I wearing her necklace?
And more terrifying,
Who was coming for me?
A soft knock pulled her from the spiral of thoughts.
“Cass,” Bosco’s voice rumbled from behind the door. “May I come in?”
She opened it, swallowing her anxiety. Bosco stood there, still dressed immaculately, but something about him seemed heavier. Like the truth he had uncovered was dragging him downward.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“No,” she whispered. “But I don’t think I’ve ever been better informed.”
He gave a small, sad smile. “Knowledge can hurt as much as it heals.”
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The air felt thick.
“Cass,” he began gently, “there’s something else.”
Her pulse skipped. “More?”
He nodded, then extended his hand.
“Walk with me.”
- Writer
