Chapter ONE

CHAPTER ONE

            SPAIN, BLAIR

                               ᕙᕗ

Dark figures limped towards her from the dark corner of the room. There faces devoid of any emotion. She attempted to move but it felt as if someone or something was restraining her without direct contact. She looked back at the horrific figures as panic crept up her conscious, a scream left her lips earning her a sharp sting in her lung. She grunted in pain clutching her side as her eyes fell to her left, surprised the bodies were closer to her than before. As the bodies were illuminated by the unknown source of light, she clearly saw what the shadows were hiding.

Brutally slit throats,  decapitated limbs and faces disfigured out of recognition.  

"Pl... Please don't hurt me" she sobbed,  her voice hoarse and breathy as she shut her eyes tightly awaiting for her doom.

But nothing was happening, her face pinched up in confusion as sweat beads run down her trembling body, there was nothing but her and the deafening silence in the dark room , the bodies disappeared like they were never there and as she was about to let out a breath of relief the silence was broken by a heavy creaking noise that came from the walls. She narrowed her eyebrows as she observed the walls and her eyes widened in fear when she realized the walls were caving in on her.

She breathed faster and heavier as she tried to move but it was to no avail and the wall got closer and closer and then too close...

The first thing that Blair did was look at the corner opposite her when she had awoken from her nightmare. Relief flooded her body like a bucket of cool water on a summer day and she released a sigh while rubbing her moist eyes with the back of her dirt stained hand.

"It was just a nightmare, there still dead" She whispered to herself as she slowly rose from her sleeping position letting out a shaky breath as her bare back made contact with the cold slippery wall behind her and her teeth chattered as the cold chill air engulfed her body like a blanket. She rubbed her hands to generate some heat but it came too close to nothing and eventually she gave and hugged herself, the cold easily got to her as she was only in a thin cotton nightdress that went up as far as her mid thigh as it hardly got to her. Just to be sure she looked around the room again, medium sized with a lingering smell of rotting flesh, the room was dimly lit with a weak light from the light on the stone ceiling, her eyes choosing to ignore the small pile of dead bodies at the corner. A  yawn left her lips as she knew she was still sleepy but She couldn't go back to sleep fully aware that the next time she does it will not be a sugar coated dream because she always had nightmares.

She tried to adjust herself to a better sitting position but soon regretted it when a sharp pain from her side stopped, she rubbed slowly and gently as her head rested on the wall and she looked up the non aesthetical ceiling. A sarcastic smile crept up her face, if it wasn't for her painfully busted lip and scratchy throat she would have broken into fits of hysterical laughter at the way life turned the table on her.

Bruises and cuts covered her entire legs just like the rest of her. The laughter would not be coming from a source of humour but simply because it was unbelievable. From where she had started from she would have never guess that she would be living in the worst case scenario but fate had a dirty trick up its sleeves, to makes things slightly easier for her mental health , Blair came into terms with the hard fact that good things eventually fall apart.

"Stay here ..Don't come out until am back.... ok," she remembered her mother warning her with fear tainted all over her face but yet she still managed a smile. 

All Blair could do was just wonder why her mother looked so.....scared. she wanted to question her mother about what was going on but her mother had closed the door before she could say anything.

The sound of glass shuttering and a piercing scream made her heart drop with fear and panic, she knew her mothers voice too well to recognize the voice to be her mothers.

"Mm.....mom!"

Blair stuttered as she cried and rushed to the door but her mother made sure it was locked from the outside.

"I'm going to FUCKING kill you !... Like the rest of them , Worthless SLUT! You are just as pathetic as the rest of them" she heard her father's voice roar making her flinch in fear, it was the first time she ever heard her father's voice sound so venomous. 

She did not know what was going on but she could tell that something was terribly wrong. She had never heard her father speak in such a manner. He was a loving husband and a good father, she looked up to him and would always run to him for anything.

Another scream startled her from her thoughts. She tried to open the door but failed again and the screams continued and she couldn't help but cry and listen.

She was only seven but she could give an account of her father hurting her mother. She would've tried to save her but a seven-year-old girl couldn't have the potential to go against a mafia father that had suddenly turned violent.

"Mom! Let m..me out"  She cried as her sobs choked her, she banged on the door but no one came to open it. There was nothing she could do but sink to the floor, muffle her ears from the sound with her small palms and just listen to the muffled horrifying screams her mother let out until it was all over.

And when it was all silent she watched her mother slowly open the door, close it behind her and slide down next to where Blair sat, her left eye swelling with a nasty purple color, a small line of blood oozing from the corner of her lip and strangle marks all over her neck and jawline.  

She took Blair in her arms and Blair hugged her back. Little Blair didn't dare to ask her mother what happened when it was all over her body.

That day was when it all started, it wasn't too long until her fate became much like her mother's. The beatings, crying, and misery. It became a routine they could never take a break from.

Her father had changed completely overnight. She never knew what exactly triggered his sudden change, but unfortunately for her and her mother, they had to endure the pain he inflicted on them every time he was ready to hit them like a plague.

The beatings got worse day by day and before she knew it days turned into long unbearable years.

They would've tried to report him but it was a lethal move. He was the Clan de serpientes mafia leader, one of the cruelest power-seeking mafia men in Europe, and reporting him was hopeless. He had connections that would easily cover up everything. They had no one to help them, no one to relieve them from their pain and suffering, and no one to give them strength except for each other... But sometimes it was never enough.

Her trip down memory lane was disturbed by a shuffling from inside her poorly lit room. Looking around, she spotted a rat running across the room from the small space beneath the door. Normally anyone would have shrieked or jolted from their seat but she was too used to seeing rats in her room..(as she chose to call it, it was more of a dark cold cellar than a room) that she no longer got scared.

The corner of the room opposite her was always occupied by either two or five dead bodies of people her father had mercilessly tormented, amputated, or burnt to death... right in In front of her. The site was never pretty, not to mention the unbearable stench of rotting corpses and death, she would never get used to it.... her father made sure she never did, everything that she had seen and heard in that cellar left a scar on her for life.

The dead bodies that were already decaying away in the room only made her loose inches of her sanity day by day having nightmares of them wanting to kill her. He would bring in people she didn't know and torture them. He would stand there and watch with a smile while his men did their sinful works on people like he was binge watching his favourite shows.  She always wished to have another room but she wasn't stupid enough to ask for a new room. She knew the consequences that came with opening your mouth without permit. That was the way of the Clan de serpientes  Mafia.

Some rules had to be followed. Rules that she entirely thought of them as sexist and insane but who was she to say anything? She was nothing but an insignificant little scrap of garbage in In front of her father. He despised her with every fiber in his body reason being she was a girl. She didn't think that those rules about men being superior to women existed in this time and age but her father had more than a hundred ways of proving her wrong.

Honestly it sometimes all seemed like a nightmare she badly wanted to wake up from. It was hard to believe that her father had changed into such an egotistic cruel animal overnight. He was once sweet and loving but now....he was a monster. There were days a small suicidal voice in her told her to speak up for herself but she was not ready to have her tongue cut off so she mastered the easy art of silence,  just like her father had told her once Silence for a day keeps the monster away.

But in Blair's case, it kept daddy away.

Pretending...that is all he had been doing.  Her mother was a mafia Princess from a Cartel in Mexico, the Vermundo. She and her father got married as a peace treaty between the Clan de serpientes and the Vermundo cartel and from what her mother had told her. She never loved her father back then, but as time went by she fell in love with him and so did he.....pretend for the most part, but her mother was too naive and blindly in love to realize his true intentions. After two years of marriage, her parents had their firstborn, Elbrus and four years later her mother got pregnant again and gave birth to her.

Her father was secretly plotting to wipe out the vermundo clan, they were a respected mafia with power and that was what her father was after.  He succeeded in wiping out every single one of them and because of that, there was no reason to pretend, no reason to put on a show as a nice loving father and husband. He changed overnight. The way he used the saying fake it till you make it was almost impressive if it were not the lives of her and her mother at a daily risk because of it.

But for some reason, she always felt like there was more to the story but she wasn't going to put her nose in the mafia business it was always bloody.

Her father never laid a single hand on Elbrus though and she rarely saw him. He was taken out by her father so often. Unlike her,  she barely went out after middle school and she was home-schooled for her entire high school years. 

Elbrus was the golden child of the family. His father adored him and showered him with everything he wanted while she only stood like a rooted statue watching and wishing for the same treatment. Despite never having what Elbrus had, Blair did not hate him. Elbrus was a good brother. He was always nice to her and would treat her with care for the little time she was with him. Back in middle school he would always defend her from the bullies, and cheered her up when she was sick or sad.

she remembered one time when he lied to their father that he wanted Barbie dolls to practice hitting targets with, of course, their father was suspicious, after all, it wasn't a very boy like thing to ask for barbie dolls but whatever Elbrus asked for he got and when he was given he secretly gave some to Blair so she could play with them.  He was the ideal big brother anyone would wish for.

Fifteen years had gone by without seeing her brother, it came to her that it was an awful lot of years. She didn't know where he was or what he was doing but she assumed that he lived with their grandparents from their father's side in Canada, half of her was sad she did not have to see her brother often and the other was happy because he did not have to witness how much her father had succeeded in breaking her.

The sound of the door being unlocked made her take in a sharp breath, she didn't even notice she was crying and in a hurry, she wiped them away. Her heartbeat quickened and her body began to tremble in fear at the expectation of her father walking in with another victim of his cruelty.

Ned,  one of her fathers men towered over the doorway in a black suit that blended in the dark perfectly, sandy red hair neatly combed but not tamed. Blair relaxed, not completely he was just as intimidating as her father the only difference was just that he was younger.

"Come on. Get the fuck up" Ned said while gesturing for her to get up with a gun. His grey eyes staring her with all the distaste from a thousand eyes,  Not wanting to anger him she slowly stood up and almost fell due to her lack of strength and her slightly bruised ankle. She could feel her knees knocking against each other as her legs quivered.

"This place fucking stinks" Ned mumbled under his breath as he wrinkled his nose in disgust and walked away right after signaling her to follow. Of course, it would stink the room was no less than a butcher's workshop and rarely almost never cleaned but she would keep the honest review to herself, he had seen a side of him once an she did not want to awaken it.

Without saying anything she followed behind while slightly limping. A familiar shiver run down her spine as she passed the corner with dead bodies as they got out. They walked a few steps further in the dark corridor and came face to face with her father and two of his men who were dragging a  guy with a blindfold who looked to be in his early twenties, probably the same age as Blair, a chill went down her spine as she knew his horrible fate.

Not wanting to anger her father she looked down away from the blindfolded man immediately. It was a rule in the Mafia world as to what she was taught women weren't allowed to look men in the eyes unless they were told or if they came from a high-class family.

" Get her cleaned up and make sure she doesn't mess anything up or  I'll deal with the both of you," her father order his deep voice dominating the auras around,  though blair thought that the last part was specifically meant for her.

Ned walked away and she hurried behind him like an idiot. He noticed her struggle to walk but he could care more for a limping cockroach. They finally approached a door to a room Blair immediately recognized as hers.

" You have five minutes to get yourself cleaned. When I come back I should find you seated on that bed like a good little bitch" Ned said with a stone hard face Blair clenched her fist and relaxed it, she might have been used to being degraded and called many thing but it never meant she liked it.

Before she it the room was slummed shut and she was left alone, the room was devoid of any happy memories the seem to have faded as the years passed, know it was dark and gloom in her memories.

She did not want to waste any more time and she hurried into the bathroom and quickly took a shower. She flinched in disgust as she watched the dirt and some blood get washed off her body.

She scrubbed herself and winced every single time as the soap made contact with her bruises. Once she was done she dried herself and walked toward the mirror. The sight itself made tears fall from her face, she looked like the physical state of the effects of misery and pain. Her hand traced the line of the nasty scar on her thigh that her father had made when he traced a red hot knife on. If her father took a glimpse of it he would marvel at the damage he had made. But what was outside was nothing compared to the scars that were inside. Blair could not bare the sight of herself in the mirror,  she covered herself and walked out of the bathroom wiping away her tears.

When she went back into the room she  took a seat on the soft queen-sized bed. She hissed under her breath while rubbing her arms for warmth. It was cold and it didn't help that she realized she was slowly getting a fever.

She heard the door creaking open and she tightened her grip on the towel, her eyes fell to the marble floor not wanting to look at Ned especially now that she was only in a small towel, he was no less than the perv men in the mansion.

"... Blair" The voice made her heartache. She knew too well to who that sweet melodious soft voice belonged to. Looking away from the marble floor and raising her gaze her eyes met her identical baby blue ones.

" Mom," she breathed with a raspy voice, and soon after saying those words she coughed to soothe her sore throat, she had been in the cellar for a month she was not given water regularly and she didn't talk to anyone but her conscious or the rats that occasionally visited.

Ferah almost choked on her tears as she looked at her broken daughter. The site itself was heartbreaking and enough to make any mother cry.

" Oh, Blair  I'm so so sorry" Ferah said and engulfed her in a tight hug but immediately released her when Blair winced in pain.

"Am sorry....are you okay? Where does it hurt? ...."

Ferah went on with her questions while Blair zoned out and watched her as she rumbled. Honestly, it was nice having someone to love and care about her. The feeling of being loved was what gave her strength. It might have been a blessing but it felt like a curse.

Looking at her mother she looked like she had lost more weight than a person should in a month, her once radiant light skin was pale, and her blue eyes seemed dead, to sum it all up she looked tired, in pain, and hopeless. There was no light radiating around  but a dull look of misery and ache. She hated seeing her mother like this.

Blair was always worried about how she was. She didn't want her to worry about her. She wanted her happy even though she knew that with her father around it was impossible.

"Mom I'm fine," Blair said barely audible but Ferah heard her she always did and more clearly everytime she screamed her lungs out in pain or agony in that cellar . Stroking her pale bruised face she gasped at how hot Blair's face felt. Feeling her forehead with the back of her hand, her eyes widened in shock.

"  Blair you have a fever. Let me go get some t..."

" NO! Mom pl p please ..am f..f...fine" Blair stuttered. There was no way she was going to let her mother go get her medicine. The last time she had gotten her some food was when she was back in the cellar and to make a long story short there was blood.

" Blair I can't just leave you like this. I need to get med-"

Ferah's words were cut short when the door opened. Both of their breathing stopped when her father, Ned, and two women carrying two bags walked in.

"I dont recall addressing you here" Raphael Caruso said with a deadly calm at his wife who was already trembling in fear.

" I just wanted to see her," Ferah said weakly like she always does. She was ashamed of herself for being weak and incapable of standing up for herself and her daughter.

" Go back to our room and wait there for me," Raphael said while glaring at Farah.

"You kept her locked up for a month, the least you can do is let me see her for a few minutes, Raphael," Ferah said her voice trembling and her gaze was not on Raphael. Blair grasped her mother's hand tightly. Raphael's gaze alone could kill.

" I won't fucking repeat myself," he said this time getting angry.

"She needs medicine" Ferah's words became a whisper when Raphael took some steps forward, closing the distance between them.

" You don't want those two strangers to see how much I can bend you to my will... Unless you do?" he threatened his voice cold as ice, Blair's body formed goosebumps.

Ferah's body shivered Blair felt it. Ferah glanced at the two strangers at the door and back to Raphael. She again had to lose to him.  Blair gave one last look of pity and squeezed Fera's arm affectionately then let her go as she saw her mother walk out with a heavy heart.

As the door closed Raphael's attention dropped to Blair, currently shaking. Looking at her with a blank face. she held the towel even tighter.

" Behave Tonight. If you mess up I'll fucking kill you or rather throw you to my men they know how to put a woman's body at work," Raphael said coldly and Blair nodded.

Raphael turned to the women behind him.

" Cover up every single bruise and Make sure she looks....," He started and looked at Blair like he was finding a suitable word.

"Worth looking at," Raphael finished, it was too obvious to everyone in the room that to Raphael Blair looked like the first draft of nature, he would be happy to know he had sent her to the very bottom of the pit of confidence.

The two women bowed their heads in respect and Raphael followed by Ned Walked away.

Not understanding what was going on, Blair let the women dress her up.  

An hour later the two women were finally done. They had dressed her and covered up every single bruise, making her skin look flawless. Looking at herself in the mirror she couldn't believe it.

The dress could have been nice if the lace was on parts of her body she preferred hidden. It showed too much cleavage and she didn't like it. The black platform heels were torturing the bruise on her ankle and adding some pressure on her swollen knee, the makeup felt weird, it was her first time putting it on. She could barely feel her face and the procedure itself was painful,mostly because of her bruises.

The two women were now long gone. She was all alone looking at herself in the mirror and concluded that she would rather stare at the sun on a hot summer afternoon then look at herself in the mirror.

The door opened again and Ned walked in, now dressed in a dark suit as usual but this on was more formal.

To admit to herself Ned was a good-looking guy with a height of six feet, well built, his hair a reddish blonde neatly cut on the side and ruffled at the top this time it looked better than before,  brown amber eyes, and a well-defined face.  The only ugly thing about him was his job. He briefly raked Blair's body with his eyes the same as she did.

" Never thought of you as the type with curves and a nice ass," was all he said with a blank straight face then signaled her to follow.

Blair felt her face turn scarlet, with the tone he used she was not so sure if it was an insult or a compliment, she never really could tell his emotions since he always had a blank face. Taking a deep breath she followed while trying to maintain her limp in the monstrous heels she was forced to wear.

The two walked into the narrow classy hallway in silence, Blair stared at Ned's back and wondered if he ever wanted to do something else other than being a right-hand man for a cruel person like Raphael, it had been six years and he was always working full time. She thought if he had any family he had to get back to or something because he did not look like he deserved the type of life he had, he was always there next to her father and sometimes he did the dirty work, she had seen how he tortured people, almost like he was taking out frustration or anger or something...

"It's rude to stare, "he said suddenly and Blair snapped out of her thoughts almost bumping into his back, she had forgotten the rules and quickly looked down.

"S..sorry, "she said nervously.

" Stay here and don't go anywhere,"  he ignored her apology and then walked away. Blair sighed and walked towards the big window that stood to her left and placed her hands on the realign. Her hands clasped around the edges as she gazed at the star-filled sky. The moon was shining as ever and so were the stars. The night was still young and beautiful, a noise disturbed her comical gaze at the stars as she heard tires screeching to a halt as three black SUV's pulled up the big driveway, Blair squinted her eyes to look at the people who came out but could not make out who they were. This only meant that there was a party going on in the ballroom, judging by how she was dressed she was attending it but that was no concern to her the only thing running through her mind was why she was all dressed up to attend it.  Her father never allowed her to attend any functions. She was never allowed to get out of the house. She could not even remember the last time she had seen the sky in broad daylight, looking back at the sky a sinful idea suddenly clasped her unstable mind.

She was alone no one could stop her. She would be free from all of the pain and her mother would not get punished because of her anymore. Her face held no emotion as she looked below almost as if calculating how quickly she would die when she jumped.

The dress she wore limited her from raising her leg over instead all she did was lean further over the balcony, just a little further meant she was done for good, and her heartbeat quickened. Taking in a huge breath she closed her eyes and leaned further. 

"WHAT THE HELL!".

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🚨Am not supporting suicide, if God put you in this life it obviously means your strong enough to go through it😘🚨