The Mafia's Mercy のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 10

My parents were good people. They made shitty choices, but they were good parents. You see, the problem wasn’t that they didn’t understand the gravity of their poor decision making. The problem was that while they understood, they didn’t care about the consequences so long as they were the only ones who had to pay for them. Unfortunately, life doesn’t really work that way. You know what happens to people who can’t pay off the loan shark? They end up dead. You know what happens to the children of those people? Well…I won’t tell you because that would violate his rules. What I can tell you is that the Mafia doesn’t go after little girls. Instead, the Mafia takes the son of their deceased clients, they turn him into like them, and his sister becomes the girl that no one wants to sit at the lunch table with because God forbid you cross paths with her brother. Needless to say, loneliness becomes your shadow. My name is Mercy—Mercy Carter. I went to college. Got myself a useless Bache

I sit at the foot of my bed, brushing my knuckles with the pad of my thumb as my hand clenches onto the fingers of my other hand nervously. My leg jumps, the heel of my foot tapping against the carpet floor beneath me.My heart hasn’t quite caught up with the stillness of this moment, its rapid beats a testament to the fear and uncertainty that clings to my like a second skin.It feels like only seconds ago, yet hours apart, that I was dragged back into the life that I thought had parted ways with me the day that my brother walked out the front door of my childhood home. Now, in the quiet of the place I thought I’d always be safe, I can’t help but feel like a boat adrift in the middle of a tsunami.I never thought that I’d catch myself wishing that I weren’t as high as I am right now. The problem is not that I’m not sober. The problem is that while intoxicated me is typically a lot better at handling stressful situations, intoxicated me is also excellent at feeling the extent of my an

The familiar sound of the incessant beeping from the vital signs monitor prompts an audible groan from the back of my throat, pulling me into consciousness. My eyelids feel heavy, and I struggle to lift them as the bright light that beams from between the opened window blinds pierces my hazy eyes. My eyebrows furrow, my lungs drawing a deep breath as the discomfort from my shoulder slowly settles. It isn’t until my vision clears that I begin to recall the events from the night prior, coming to me like flashbacks in bits and pieces. Marcel. “Mercy?” My eyes widen at the familiar voice, my head snapping to the side to find Levi standing from the chair positioned at my bedside. He straightens on his feet, swiftly moving to stand beside me. “Hey…” the tenderness in his voice is comforting until I remember that I haven’t seen him for the better part of 6 years and the man who put me in this hospital bed is the same man that’s been looking for him. “Levi..?” My voice quavers, the rippl

I inhale deeply as my eyelids flutter open.There’s an odd numbness lingering in my chest as my empty eyes gaze at the coffered ceiling with gold lining. Despite the unfamiliarity, my absent mind ignores the lingering discomfort in my shoulder as my sight shifts to the illuminating, flat, round bulbs in the center of the odd geometric pattern of the decorative panel.I wasn’t ready. Although, I suppose, I probably never would have been.Levi…I didn’t get to say goodbye the first time he left, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe the reason he avoided saying goodbye at all is because he knew how I’d react. If 24-year-old me couldn’t hold it together, what hope was there for 18-year-old me to not have utterly collapsed under the heartbreak of knowingly parting ways with the only family I had left—the only family I have left.I suppose I only wish he’d stayed with me until I fell asleep.Would it have made it all better?The breath that parts my lips makes my chest slowly fall, my head

As of late, it seems that I often find myself thinking about the past. Even as I sit here, in the elegant dining room, staring at the computer screen in deafening silence, I’m drawn back to the haunting memories of the choices that I made that contributed to this. It’d been a week since learning about Marcel’s identity and I was home alone, yet again, like every Saturday evening for the last two years. Levi didn’t waste his breath on telling me to stay home—he didn’t have to. I’d felt so ashamed of the vulnerability and stupidity that led to me making desperate choices that I only left my room to go to school whenever he was home. In fact, I avoided him when I could. I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye. The humiliation was too much. It was the middle of December, and being in South Texas, it was just a little below 60 degrees. I’d curled up on the corner of the couch, wrapped in a blanket as I leaned into my side, my elbow resting on the armrest and my head propped up as