Lahat ng Kabanata ng Sold to the Mafia : Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

The dining room is too bright and normal for a house like this.Sunlight filters in through high windows, hitting the long dark table like a spotlight. There's no warmth in it though just exposure. The kind that makes secrets itch underneath one's skin.Thankfully Cessa is not here. The last thing I need is her face --- that smug, sculpted mask of superiority --- hovering across from me while I force myself to eat and pretend I'm not a pawn here. With her gone, the room feels a little less suffocating but that doesn't mean I can breathe.Not yet at least.The Italian bastard walks ahead like he owns the world --- or at least this corner of it. The marble floor reflects his movements, it's smooth and cold just like him. He doesn't glance back. He never does. Power follows him like a trained animal, and the room always seem to adjust itself to him without being asked.He doesn't just own the table. He owns the silence... and the space between everyone's breath. And the memory of what ha

I don't remember falling asleep, but when I stir, I'm curled up in bed, cocooned in blankets that I don't remember pulling over me. The room is quiet --- eerily so --- but the scent of ripe fruit and something buttery lingers in the air. My stomach twists in response. I lift my head, my eyes still hazy from sleep but I spot the tray sitting neatly on the small dresser beside the bed. It holds an assortment of tropical fruits, warm rolls, scrambled eggs, and a tall glass of something that looks like fresh juice. The food from earlier is gone, silently cleared away like everything else in this place. So efficient yet very unsettling.I sit up slowly and let the sheets slip off my shoulders. I pause, still unsure what time it is. The single bulb overhead hums faintly. Time doesn't live here just an artificial glow that is too dim to be morning but too constant to be night. My body, though, knows that this is my second meal. That the day, or whatever counts as day here, isn't done.I place

It's been three days.Three days of sleeping on this stiff leather couch with a throw blanket that doesn't reach past my knees. My back aches and my eyes burn. I haven't really slept, not properly anyways. I just close my eyes when the room gets quiet and pretend the silence means safety.But it doesn't.There's always someone here. The guard in the corner changes every eight hours, like clockwork. No names, just bodies with guns and that same flat look in their eyes--- like I'm a package they're making sure stays in one piece. Right now, it's the green-eyed one again... um Daniel. Cessa hasn't been allowed in. I know she tried. I heard her voice on the other side of the door, more than once but that was two days ago. Since then--- nothing. No more footsteps pacing, no muffled arguments, no sarcastic little jabs through the keyhole. Just silence. I think she's been dismissed or thrown in this elusive dungeon... or something. Either way, she's gone.The doctor came again yesterday. He

The walls gleam under the muted light that spills from overhead. The soft gold sheen that it cast across the hallway clings to the man's skin as he walks ahead of me tall, silent, barefoot and sure. With each step, the light illuminates the sharp lines of his bare back and shoulders with a reverence he doesn't deserve. I follow my captor with my own bare feet silent against the marble that feels too clean and too polished for the twisted mess unraveling inside me. Surprisingly, there are no men here. No guards with guns slung across their shoulders. Just the watchful eyes of the cameras, us and the hush of the hallway.It feels wrong.It feels too quiet. Too exposed.Like the calm before something breaks.When we reach near the end of the hallway, he pushes open the grand double doors of the dining room and I follow in hesitantly behind him."Sit," he says in a flat and unreadable voice as he points to the chair closest to his. I hesitate only for a second before sinking into it. See

"Wait here." the man's voice is firm and sharp enough to stop me cold. His hand had shot out like a barrier as his eyes flick back to make sure I obey. Without another glance, he strides toward Daniel, who leans casually against the matte black SUV, watching us with quiet intensity. I watch the man's broad back recede as he walks away with unyielding confidence. My hands slowly curl into fists at my sides in a silent battle to stay still as a war rage inside me. Now I'm left standing alone under the scorching sun that is turning the stone courtyard into a giant furnace underneath my very feet. The heat is already rising in shimmering waves blurring the edges of the high perimeter walls, the matte black SUV, and even the slumped guards posted near its flanks.My eyes dart restlessly around the compound; I haven't been out here since that day. Since Cessa. Now the world feels narrower... more suffocating. The memory from that day rises unbidden. I had earned a wooden knife, a mock trop