Sold to the mafia king

Livia's POV

I step out from the air-conditioned office but I'm sweating. Popping the first button on my corporate shirt, I glance back at the door that's now closed to me, wondering how I did with the interview. I could barely get a word out thanks to nerves and I have no idea if I did well or not. I applied to be a junior analyst and this is my first interview since I graduated with my economics degree. Only three of us made it to this level and I saw the confident smirks on the two others' face when they came out of that room, nothing like this queasy feeling of uncertainty turning my stomach.

I blow a piece of hair that escaped my ponytail out of my eyes and start for the door, I should start preparing my next application because I’m pretty sure I flunked this one-

I'm barely out of the building when my phone pings with a message. Covering my eyes from the glare of the summer sun, I peered at the message and my jaw drops.

"I made it!" I screech, startling a woman making her way in. Without thinking, I grab her in a tight hug, spinning her around and she looks at me like I'm mad as I shove my phone into her face.

"I made it, I'm hired!" I babble and she laughs.

"Congratulations girl."

I do a little happy dance as I take off running for the bus stop, heading straight home, my phone clutched in my fist. I landed the job! I'm to resume work tomorrow! I could text Mum about this but I want to tell her in person, I can just imagine the happiness that will be on her face when she hears the news. Our days of scraping pennies are over, she no longer has to worry about the school fees of my younger sisters, or the utility bills. With this job, even at an entry level, I will be able to foot most of the bills and still have some extra to spare.

My smile stays fixed on my face the entire bus ride home, earning me several questioning glances but I don't care. I can't believe it all paid off, all those sleepless nights spent poring over my books, reading on an empty stomach because Mum didn't have money to send me for food, graduating with a first class, it all paid off. Tears sting my eyes and I don't mind it because they are happy tears.

I get down at my stop and run the familiar path back home, bursting with the news but once I turn the corner, I skid to a stop and stare at the bags and furniture strewn everywhere on the front lawn that I painstakingly mowed last week. For a second, I think I must have missed a turn but I didn't. It’s my house in front of me, it’s just bizarre and unrecognizable. There are men in black suits crawling everywhere and when I spot my familiar pink box wide open on the grass, my clothes spilling to the dirt, the spell is broke and I'm running.

"What are you doing?!" I grab the man emerging with my sister Sofia's box and snatch it before he can launch it out. "Who are you and what do you think you are doing in my house?!" I growl.

He looks at me and sneers. "Buzz off, bitch." He snarls and shoves me and the box to the grass. My heel breaks as I land awkwardly to the floor and I hear a few sneering laughs and I see red.

"Where is my mother?!" I snarl.

A scream from inside turns my body cold and I scramble off the floor and rush inside, looking about wildly as my heart pounds out of my chest with fear.

The entire house has been turned upside down. The heavy sofas we have had for as long as I remember are turned over, revealing fumes of dirt and dust that have accumulated under it over the years. The large seaside painting I bought with my last cash last September and hung proudly in our sitting room is torn to pieces on the floor. It looks like a hurricane blew in here and nothing was spared. My mother is on her knees in the corner clutching my sisters Noni and Sofia to her, shielding them from the man raising his fist at her.

"You bastard!!!" I yell and without thinking, I launch myself at the man, landing on his back and tearing out his hair.

"Get her off me!" He yells, reaching over his head for me. He snatches me off like I weigh nothing and throws me into the wall where I bounce and hit the floor, my vision darkening for a second.

"Liv!" Noni screams and runs for me and I grab her, pushing her behind me as I face the brute looking down at my family in disgust.

"You are going to pay for that!" I growl though I have no idea how I'll make him do that. He is so much stronger and he has an entire gang of men.

"Fucking lowlifes." He growls and comes for me.

"Stop!" My mother launches herself between us. "Please! I just need a few more days, I'll pay the money I swear."

I still as my attention shifts to her, my rage becoming confusion as I stare at her.

"What do you mean Mum?" I ask, my voice getting shrill with rising dread. "What debt do you owe these men?"

"Today was your last fucking chance." The brute snarls. "Get out of this house and don't bother taking anything with you."

"Mum!" I cry, grabbing her thin shoulders and spinning her around. "What is going on?"

She dissolves into loud cries but amidst it, she is able to tell me everything in bits and pieces. She borrowed from loan sharks last year when my final year bills became too heavy for her. The loan sharks harassed her for months while I was in school until she started to fear for her and my sisters’ life. In a bid of desperation, she entered a gambling den and in that one night, she lost all of our meager savings, our house and all of our properties. She begged them for time to find money to pay it all back and she was given two months, two months that ends today.

When she is done, I'm cold to my bones. We have had issues in this house before; some hunger, a few crisis when she and I didn't see eye to eye but never a problem so big that it threatened to remove the roofs off our head. I imagine my sisters huddled under a tarp under the bridge like homeless people do in movies and feel my hands begin to shake. How long until social services take them away?

"Oh my God." I whisper. I thought these kind of things only happened in movies. I mean, who even visits loan sharks these days, don't they make enough movies detailing how bad an idea that is?

Mom did in her desperation and she endured all of their harassment without ever breathing a word to me. I take fast shallow breaths, feeling the beginnings of a panic attack that I've not had since I started going to the school therapist last year. My head is just white noise. Where are we going to stay? It's just my mother, we don't even have any extended family. A cold hand slips into mine and I look down to see our youngest Noni's scared face.

Pull it together, Livia. I tell myself as I squeeze her hand. Our mother is catatonic so I have the adult responsibility of looking for a way out of what is really the shittiest situation we ever found ourselves in. My phone pings with a notification and I see it on the floor where it landed when I was thrown.

"Wait!" I yell, startling everyone. "I can pay it, I got the job!"

It feels like another lifetime ago that I was running home excitedly about the news. I stumble forward and grab the brute's arm.

"Please! I applied for a job today and I got it. I'll pay everything we owe I swear."

"Get the fuck off." He sneers and wrenches his arm from my grip. "She won't shut up."

He raises his fist like he is going to hit me and I flinch, tensing just as another voice cuts in.

"Take her in. Boss will want to see her." Another man emerges from our kitchen and he smiles as he looks at me but it is anything but reassuring.

I don't care, I finally have a seed of hope that I can get us out of this. I will do anything to get these strange men milling around and trampling everything in my house out.

"Stay calm, I'll take care of it." I tell Mum with more confidence than I feel and I press a kiss to each of my sisters’ foreheads before hurrying out to meet 'the boss.'