The Mafia’s Innocent Revenge

Chapter 11: A Way Out

The darkness of the bedroom was absolute, broken only by the thin lines of moonlight peeking through the edges of the heavy window drapes. Lana lay on the massive bed, staring blankly at the high ceiling. Her ankle throbbed with a dull ache where the iron cuff had broken her skin, but the pain in her heart was far worse.

She could not just lie here and cry forever. Tears would not open the locked oak doors, and crying would not give her back the life she had lost.

"I cannot be this weak," she whispered into the empty room, her voice shaking but full of sudden determination. "I have to find a way out."

She thought about her two uncles working themselves to the bone in a scorching foreign land, counting every single coin just to pay her university fees. They believed she was safe, studying hard, and building a path out of the miserable poverty that had haunted their family for generations. Lana felt a heavy wave of regret wash over her. She hated herself for giving in to Chloe's cheap peer pressure. If she had just stayed in that library, if she had just stood her ground and said no, she would be safe right now, not trapped in a criminal's palace.

But regret was completely useless now. Her education was her only weapon, her only chance to change her destiny. She could not let a single night ruin the future her family had bled for.

Lana sat up slowly, wiping the remaining tears from her face with the back of her hand. Her body was still weak from the drug and the hunger, but her mind was starting to clear. She got out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cold marble floor as she began to walk around the dark room. She needed to look closely at everything. She needed to observe the doors, check the locked windows, find a pattern in the guards' footsteps outside, and locate any possible weakness in Zekail's security. There had to be a way out. She just had to find it before he came back through those doors.