BOUGHT, NEVER BROKEN

My brother looked at me the way people look at something they are about to throw away — with guilt, and with relief.I didn't know, then, what he had done.Thirty thousand dollars. That was my price.Vittorio Severino Falcone — Don of the most feared syndicate in New York — didn't need me. He had everything. He took me anyway.He doesn't explain himself. He doesn't justify what he's done. He simply looks at me like I am something he decided to keep — and that was always going to be enough for a man like him.I told myself I hated him.I said it every single day.I'm starting to wonder if I said it so many times because part of me needed to believe it.I was sold. I was caged. I was kept.But I was never broken.