Becoming The Mafia Queen

SOFIAMy father always said that only a stupid man would walk into a casino with the hope of winning anything. The smart ones walk in there with the hope of finding out about themselves, and they are the ones who walk out with more than they walked in. I was five years old when he taught me that. Now, I'm twenty-four, and I'm not standing in a casino but the stakes feel just as high. "You're crazy," Valentina said. "Aren't we all?" I replied, glancing over at the tall, grey-haired man who was in deep conversation with a steely-eyed woman who looked like she was bored out of her mind. "If this works, we could both make it in by next summer.""Yeah, like the admissions officer is just going to hand you an opportunity to attend the most prestigious school in America," Valentina said. "Seriously, you're going to get us in trouble.""I'm not going to ambush him," I said. "Come on. What do you take me for?""You're not?" she asked, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Then what are you going

SOFIAI don't remember most of what happened in the days after dad's funeral. I mostly just locked myself away in my bedroom, trying to make sense of the world. For days on end, I would mostly just roll out of bed and sit by the windowsill, desperately trying to get myself to move even though it wasn’t going to happen.And the worst part was having to walk past the spot where the incident happened. Even after scrubbing it with bleach for hours, after airing out the entire house and even moving things around so it would look different, it was still impossible to walk into the living room and not relive the entire incident again. I was slowly losing my mind, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. The pain, anger, sadness, loneliness and depression all wrapped up around me like a suffocating blanket, and I just couldn’t shake it off no matter what I did. It was always there, constantly breathing down my neck and holding me captive. So I stayed in my room and tried to let the darkness c

SOFIAFrom the moment Adrian walked into the apartment, I started to feel self conscious. Everything looked horrible, and the longer I stared, the worse it became.There were empty pizza boxes all over, clothes strewn all over the couch and on the floor, empty soda cans lining the TV console, and a horrible stench which I hadn't noticed when I walked out earlier. I was extremely aware of how disgusting it all looked, and I imagined he would look at me like a disgusting pig who couldn't even take care of herself. But if he thought that of me, then he didn't make it obvious. He simply led me to the couch, picked up the discarded hoodie and moved it, then told me to sit down. "Where's the kitchen?" he asked. "Down the hallway to your left," I replied, feeling woozy as my head spun a bit. He headed off, then came back with a glass of water and he stood over me until I finished it. He then rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He proceeded to pick up all the clothes, empty pizza boxes

SOFIAThis could not be happening. This absolutely could not be happening. I stared at the laptop screen in shock, refusing to believe what I was looking at. There was no way this could be true. It had to be some sort of sick joke. How on earth did this happen? How could the nicest man I'd ever met in my life possibly be a criminal? It didn't make any sense. I refused to believe this. And what were the odds of something like this happening? He was just a random stranger. So how did he end up standing in the exact spot he needed to be to rescue me before I ended my own life? It all seemed too convenient. And I started to wonder if there was something sinister behind all this."Sofia?" Franco called tentatively. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost.""I-I'm alright," I replied nervously. "He just looked like someone I know, that's all.""Him?" he asked, pointing to Adrian's picture with a look of pure terror in his eyes. "I don't think you want to know someone like him

SOFIAFranco's funeral was held at St. Agnes Church. It was a quick and short ceremony, and there were only a handful of people there. I sat in the back and watched the entire thing, while a numbness settled over me. And when the coffin was carried out to the graveyard, I stayed a short distance away and watched as he was lowered into the ground. After the burial, I made my way to his grave and placed the roses I'd bought on his headstone. Even though I wanted to cry as I stared at it, I steeled myself and simply stood up. I was dressed in all black, with a scarf around my head and large sunglasses. So I could walk away without anyone recognizing me. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Or maybe being inconspicuous was my own way of coping with the tragedy. But there was no way I would be expected to believe that this didn't have something to do with the flash drive. I mean what were the odds that someone would break into his office a day before we met, ransack the place but not take an