Beauty and the Mob Boss

Chapter 4

*WARNING!

SOME SECTIONS OF THIS CHAPTER DEPICT INSTANCES OF VERBAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE AND MAY MAKE MENTION OF s****l TRAUMA WHICH SOME READERS MIGHT FIND DISTURBING. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.*

Several hours earlier

Bela had barely stepped into her room when she was grabbed by her hair and slammed against the wall.

“Have you been holding out on us Bells?”

The smell of stale alcohol and m*******a assaulted her senses as her father leaned into her to ask that question. The queasiness in Bela’s stomach was an immediate response.

She could tell by the slow slurring of his speech that he was drunk and possibly high from more than just m*******a.

She knew from experience that it wouldn’t do her any good to plea or cry when he was in this state. It would only make him angrier.

So, despite the pounding in her head and her chest, she tried to sound calm when she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“f*****g liar!” he roared, pulling her head back and slamming it against the wall with such force that her vision blurred temporarily.

She knew that was going to leave a bruise.

Which meant he was past his normal state of high. And pissed.

He was normally careful about leaving scars and bruises where they would be visible.

"Dad---"

"Don't call me that! If I was really your father, you wouldn't be hiding things from me, would you?"

Before she could ask him what he meant again, he lifted her head from where he'd held it pressed against the wall and spun her to face the room where her bed, chest of drawers, and a few of her other measly possessions had been housed since she'd moved into the room a few years ago.

What she saw made her stomach bottom out.

Her mother was spread out in the middle of her bed surrounded by a pile of various crinkled notes.

The plastic treasure box where she'd hidden her savings of three years lay broken and discarded at the foot of her bed.

She instinctively took a step towards her bed but was pulled back by the grip her father kept on her hair. She grabbed at his wrist with both her hands in an effort to loosen the hold he had on her, but as drunk as he was, he was still stronger than her.

"You're nothing but a lying little w***e!" her father spat. "Where did you get that money?"

"I saved it...from work."

"The only kind of work that gets you that kind of money is the one you do on your back!" he pulled viciously at her head, forcing her on her toes. “You haven’t been doing anything you shouldn’t be doing have you Bells?”

Bela hated when he called her that. There was a lack of affection there that was glaringly obvious to her. Especially when he whispered it in that nasty tone that made her skin crawl.

She knew what he was implying, of course. What was sad was that he probably wouldn’t have minded if she was sleeping with men for money. As long as that money ended up in his pocket somehow.

Bela was aware she’d drawn on the shorter end of the stick when she’d ended up with these two people as parents.

She wasn’t under any illusion that they harbored any love for her. And if she were to be honest, she’d grown to hate them almost as much as they seemed to hate her.

It wasn’t out of any filial obligation that she’d stayed here and paid bills that had allowed them to stay blissfully high and avoid homelessness.

She’d been saving. She wasn't foolish enough to think she would be able to leave this house and still remain in the same town as her parents. She would need to leave the state altogether. Probably move around a bit until they got bored trying to find her. And when she finally found a new place to settle down, she’d need to find a suitable place to live. She would be able to do all of that with what she had now but there was no guarantee that she’d be able to find a job that would sustain her. So she needed to save enough to fall back on in case finding gainful employment took longer than planned.

But now…

Now she’d have to start over from scratch.

“Don’t worry Bells. We’ll take it off your hands for ya. It don't matter none to me who you spreading them legs for,” he whispered to her, patting one of her bare legs in a way that caused a shiver of disgust to roll through her.

“In fact, you keep up the hard work huh? Just make sure you bring the fruits of your labor right to your old man. Like the good little daughter, you are. Ya hear?”

He pulled on her hair a bit harder when she remained silent.

“Yes,” Bela responded, her voice devoid of emotion.

“Babe, we should go to that fancy new joint that opened up just across the Bay. Ooh, I could get a new dress and everything!”

Her mother’s excited announcement cause a jolt of anger to pierce through Bela’s heart, but she remained still and unreacting under her father’s hold.

The man chuckled indulgently as he glanced over at his wife playing with a few stray bills.

“Sure thing sweets. We can go...as soon I teach our Bells here a good lesson not hide anything else from her parents.

Bela’s heart stuttered. “Dad…”

“Ah ah ah…you try to talk your way out of it, it’s just gonna make it worse.”

Bela lost track of how long his lesson lasted. Somewhere along the line, he’d decided his belt hadn't been doing an adequate enough job and switched to his fists.

At some point, Bela was aware that she was alone, though she couldn't recall when the beating ad stopped. She’d lain on the floor for more than an hour after, taking stock of her injuries, mentally planning how she would prepare herself for work in the morning, thinking all the while, that she would have to look for a second job if she wanted to leave here soon. She’d had no idea at the time, what the rest of the night held in store for her.