Regret?

Marie stirred in her sleep, as light penetrated directly from the window to her eyes.

She groaned loudly , and opened her eyes slowly because she never sleeps with her window blinds open.

A strong wave of headache hit her, and she winced Loudly in pain. She studied her surroundings, and went into full panic mode. She was in a large unfamiliar room, on a bed thrice the size of her bed back home. She tried to stand up, but the pain she was feeling wouldn’t let her.

“Did I get drunk again?” She thought to herself, while almost pulling her hairs out in agony

She got drunk for the first time in high school, and she promised herself never to do it again. It was at a pool party organized by one of the popular girls in school, so everyone who was anyone was present.

Engrossed in the moment, she kept taking several shots while dancing crazily. After some time, she had taken more than she could handle, and she naturally went ahead to puke on herself while in the middle of the dance floor.

The music stopped, and all eyes were on her in confusion and disgust. With teary eyes from embarrassment , she started scrambling to clean it off, she accidentally fell into the pool fully clothed. That was the beginning of her social ruin in high school, and her last invite to any party.

On top of all that, she didn’t remember the details of her embarrassing act till her best friend explained it to her the next day. And since, she had made sure to never drink past her limit, as she is a lightweight…until yesterday.

Scenes from before she got drunk flashed back into her head, and her headache intensified. She decided to pull a surprise visit on her fiancée after she just returned from a quick trip outside town. On getting to his house, she used her spare key to gain access as he wasn’t responding to her repeated knocks.

Heading straight to the bedroom, she found her fiancée having sex with a woman she had never seen in her entire life.

The grocery bag she was holding fell to the ground with a thud, which caught the attention of her husband that was engrossed in the act. His eyes widened and she could see the visible panic in his eyes, as he began to stutter

“I thought you were out of town till tomorrow” he asked her with a shaky voice.

Without hesitation, she removed the engagement ring off her finger and threw it to him on the bed.

“Fuck you” she gathered herself, and walked out of the house angrily. A part of her wished he would run after her and beg, but she couldn’t hear him calling after her.

Blinded by rage and sadness, she entered the nearest bar, and found herself in this mess.

From the look of things, it seems like she had sex with someone, but she couldn’t even remember what he looked like. She was mentally scolding herself and trying hard to figure her thoughts out, when her ringtone cut through her thoughts. She looked down at the phone, and saw it was her mother calling.

“Hi ma-“

“Marie, you need to come now! We’re in danger, and you need to be here right now” Her mother cut her short before they could even exchange pleasantries, and hung up right after.

“Danger” was all Marie needed to hear she got dressed, and dashed right out of the hotel. On getting out, she realized she was in one of the biggest and most expensive hotels in the city, but that was the least of her worries.

“At least, I didn’t sleep with an homeless man”

While on the bus back home, she thought of the million and one things that could have happened, and what her mother meant by danger. Yes, her mother was pretty dramatic, but she wouldn’t use danger when knew it would make her scared. She had an elder sister, who was the apple of her parents’ eyes.

In contrast to her, her sister had always received more attention and care from her parents as she was the image of a “perfect child”. On the other hand, she was left to do the hard work and take on tasks because she wasn’t what they wanted her to be.

Unlike her sister who was currently in Law school, Marie had always enjoyed being behind the computer. She took on computer courses at a very young age, and started hacking mini sites from the age of 15. Seven years later, her parents see her as a disappointment and not what they envisioned their second daughter to be like. Her parents were not rich, neither were they poor. However, her father and mother have to work two jobs each to make them live comfortably.

The bus stopped, and she rushed out as fast as she could, heading two her house which was about two minutes away.

On getting home, she saw two black heavily tinted cars parked outside her house. There were two hefty men dressed in all black standing beside each car, and she began to get scraped. The plate number of the car read “Big Boss”, and that was all she needed to know.

Someone from the biggest mafia in the city, “The Shadow Empire” is here. But, what could be the affiliation of her family with them? She dashed inside to see her father and mother kneeling in front of an unknown man, who was holding a pistol.

She let out a shriek as soon as she saw the sight and rushed over to kneel with them.

“What’s going on mama, papa?” She screamed in tears and shook them vigorously.

The man with the pistol stood up, and raised her face up roughly to look at her properly. He was dressed in a black suit, and was vicious looking with his gold teeth.

“Is this the girl you’ll be giving up?” The vicious man directed the question at her parents.

“Who is giving whom up?” Marie looked at her parents with tears in her eyes.

“Yes sir” her father ignored her, and bowed his head.

“Dad, what is going on here?” Marie shouted as loud as she could.

Her parents looked away, ignoring her, as the man grabbed her by her arm nearly penetrating his fingers into her skin.

“Let me off” Marie struggled as she tried to bite him and fight him off, but to no avail.

“Dad, Ma can you say something please?” She said as she cried heavily, as she was dragged off the house.

The man with the gold teeth grimaced. “You are now a property of The Shadow Empire”