The Stolen Mafia Girl |✔️

Chapter 1 - Kitchen Duty

Being a teenager isn't always easy, but being a teenager in an orphanage is worse.

I have been here since I was born. The thought of my parents not wanting me. The thought of them just throwing me away. Just like that. It's been haunting me my whole life.

"Veronica!"

I hurry downstairs to the kitchen. I am one of the eldest kids in the orphanage, so I have to do the most chores.

Each week we are assigned to a different task. Last week I got toilet duty. This week I am on kitchen duty.

"Veronica, get your ass down here now!" Ma'am calls.

"Coming!" I yell back.

I enter the kitchen and see all the dishes, stacked up in piles. I just finished cleaning up everything from last night, now I have to start all over again.

"Veronica look at this mess! Clean this up now! And when you're done you can start cooking dinner."

"Yes ma'am." I say nodding my head and quickly start with the dishes.

Mrs. Stonehart, or as we call her, ma'am, is the only mother all of us knows. We always say her surname is Stonehart, because she has a heart as cold as stone, but that is her actual last name.

Her husband died about three years ago from a heart attack. She didn't even cry once. She only said, "good riddance"

I always dreamed of a family when I was a little girl. I would stare out the window and watch as a child gets adopted. I never got the chance to be the lucky one.

Now that I'm 17, my chances of getting adopted is about 0% because once I am 18, I am no longer allowed in the orphanage.

And who would want to adopt a teenager anyway? I will just have to make a living for myself...by myself.

I finish the dishes and start cooking. There are 144 children here. Starting from the ages of 2 weeks old to 18 years old.

We don't have a lot of money, so we can't afford three meals a day. The only meals we get is oatmeal in the morning and whatever the person in charge of kitchen duty is cooking at night.

I call everyone to the dining hall and hand out bowls full of soup. Garcie, one of the 4 year old, gives me a smile and says "thank you" in the tiniest most cutest voice. I smile back and nod my head.

Gracie is like the little sister I never had. She is so sweet. I remember the day she came here when she was one month old. Both her parents died in a car accident.

Ma'am doesn't really like the small kids coming in. She says they are too much work. So I took care of Garcie and the other children her age.

I take a bowl of soup for myself and start eating. I don't really have friends here. I had one, her name was Samantha. She was my best friend, but then she got adopted when we were 6 years old.

Everyone is finished and I start the dishes again. Ma'am always has guests over, so it's their dishes I also have to wash.

I am finally finished and I dry off my hands on the dirty dish cloth hanging next to the sink.

I walk up to my room and hear giggling from the room next to mine. I open the door and see Gracie and her friends jumping on their beds.

"Guys stop that. You know how ma'am feels about us misbehaving. You don't want to get punished, do you?"

They stop and shake their heads.

"Can you tuck us in Ronnie?" Gracie asks and I look at the seven little faces sitting on their beds.

Gracie could never say my name when she was smaller, so she always called me 'Ronnie'. I guess the nickname just sticked.

"What's the magic word?" I ask them.

"Pleeaassee?" They all say in union.

I walk up to every little girl and boy and tuck them in, giving them a goodnight kiss.

I walk out, close the door behind me and walk to my room. I can only take a shower every second day. We take turns otherwise there isn't enough water for all of us.

I change into my pajamas, climb into my bed and pray that tomorrow will be a better day.

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Christii