Unmaksing my Mafia Groom

If I close my eyes, I still hear the sound of his laughter. My father’s laughter isn’t like other people's. It carries warmth, like a baby’s excited chuckles. It’s the kind of highly infectious laughter that makes you laugh too. Real, pure, safe. Today at the park the sun is generous, spilling golden light over everything it touches. Children run with sticky cotton-candy fingers, balloons bob lazily in the sky, and my father and I sit on a wooden bench eating coconut candy and skimmed milk from a roadside vendor. We don’t have much, but that candy tastes like a King's feast. “Life doesn’t have to be grand to be beautiful,” he says, crunching into the sweet. His eyes crinkle in that familiar way that always makes me smile. I am eighteen. Old enough to know we’re poor, young enough to believe love can fill the cracks money can’t. We own almost nothing—just a one-room apartment with creaky floors and dreams borrowed from the future. But I have him. In my world, that is everything. I don’t know it will be the last time. We walk home, the park shrinking behind us, when it happens. The road isn’t busy, the path is very quiet with no trace of any human but the hum of an approaching car grows louder, heavier, like thunder announcing a storm. I see the shine first- the blinding reflection of sunlight on polished metal. A sleek black car, the kind you only see in magazines or billionaire movies. “Hold on,” my father says, tightening his grip on my hand. But the car doesn’t slow. It comes faster. Too fast and is swerving without direction. I shout, yank him back, but fate has a cruel way of showing how little strength I have. Tires screech; a sickening thud fills the air, and my father’s body is flung high into the air and it collapses to the asphalt like a rag napkin. The world stops. I drop to my knees, palms scraping the ground as I scramble to his side. Warm blood soaks my hands. His chest rises and falls shallowly, painfully. “No! No, please Papa, stay with me! Someone help!” The car door clicks open. A man steps out, and even through my haze of terror I know he doesn’t belong in our world. His suit screams wealth, arrogance stitched into every seam. His shoes shine like mirrors. His face is sharp, sculpted, as if carved by ambition itself. He doesn’t run toward us. He doesn’t kneel. He doesn’t flinch at the sight of my father bleeding on the ground. I beg him. “Please! Please, help me get him to a hospital!” My hands tremble, slick with red. My voice cracks. He glances at me, expression cold as marble. His look like an evaluation of my social status from my appearance.Then he smirks. “You’re poor,” he says, each word like acid. “People like you don’t get justice. Do you think anyone will believe you against me?” I blink. For a second I think I must have misheard. “What… what are you saying? You hit him! Please! he’s dying!” He adjusts his cufflinks as though my father’s blood is nothing more than spilled wine on the pavement. “I don’t owe you anything. And even if I did, you can’t touch me. Remember that.” Then he climbs back into his car. The engine purrs, and with a casual flick of his wrist he drives off—leaving me kneeling in the middle of the road, my father’s life slipping through my fingers. I scream after him, my voice raw, tearing my throat. The world blurs. People gather, murmuring, whispering, but no one moves fast enough. By the time an old man runs to call an ambulance, it’s too late. I hold my father’s head in my lap, rocking, sobbing until my tears mix with his blood. His eyes flutter open for one last time. “I am…. sorry,” he whispers. His voice is faint, like wind brushing over dying embers. I shake my head violently. “No, no, no, don’t say that. You’re going to be fine. Just—just hold on!” His lips curve in the gentlest smile, a smile that breaks me more than his wounds. His hand reaches weakly, brushes my cheek. And then… it falls. Silence crashes around me. His chest stills. His warmth slips away. My father is gone. I want to rip the world apart. I want to scream until the skies split open. But all I can do is clutch him, rocking back and forth, my body shaking with grief too big for its bones. My tears soaks my chiffon dress and clings it to my breasts sending cold chills down my spine. Something inside me cracks. Through the cracks, fire seeps in. That man – the one with the car, the suit, the arrogance— walks away like nothing happened. He thinks we are nothing. He thinks I am nothing. He is wrong. I lift my head, tears carving tracks down my face. Strangers whisper condolences, pity dripping from their voices, but I don’t hear them. All I hear is the echo of his cruelty. You’re poor. You can’t touch me. My fists clench. If the world won’t give me justice, then I will become justice. I swear it, right here on this blood-stained asphalt, my father’s lifeless body in my arms. I will rise. I will build myself into someone untouchable. One day I will make that man pay—not just for killing my father, but for spitting on his life. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I know this: I will get man to apologize , I will get him to kneel and beg for forgiveness. This is the day my life changes. This is the day the girl I am dies with my father. In her place, someone new is born– someone who carries a vow sharper than any blade. I whisper into the night, a trembling promise to the stars above: I’ll make you regret it. And never again will I let any man decide my fate.