Sold to The Mafia (2nd Version)

18: 14days to wed

Before Reading:

This chapter contains triggering themes of abuse, so please skip if you need to.

***
Victoria's POV:

As I stepped out of that house, a tumultuous wave of emotions crashed over me, threatening to pull me under. The moment my foot hit the ground, I felt the weight of the past pressing down on my shoulders—heavy, suffocating. The woman who gave birth to me, the one who should have been my protector, had instead left me to rot in the hands of a man who reveled in inflicting pain. How dare she come back into my life and act as if time had erased the scars of my childhood? The nerve of her! She had no fucking clue about the torment I had endured, the nights spent crying myself to sleep, wishing for a mother’s love that never came.

“VICTORIA!” Victor’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts like a jagged knife. I climbed into the car, feeling Markus close the door behind me, but my momentary relief shattered as Victor yanked the door open again, his anger palpable. “Get out!” he barked, his hand gripping my arm with an iron hold, pulling me from the car as if I were nothing more than a rag doll.

“Don’t put your hands on me!” I screamed, my heart racing, panic surging through my veins as I wrenched my arm free. The fear of being trapped washed over me, igniting a fire of rage within.

“How dare you speak to Mother like that?” His voice was laced with indignation, as if I were the one who had wronged the world.

“My mother died when I was twelve,” I shot back, the bitterness spilling from my lips like poison. I felt the truth of my words stab at him, a reminder of the gaping hole she had left in my life.

“Why are you like this? Six months ago, you…” he began, but I cut him off, my fury boiling over.

“Six months ago, you left me with strangers! You didn’t care about what would happen to me!” I yelled, my voice rising, fueled by years of pent-up anger. “Now you want to ask me why I’m like this? You made me this way!”

“I’m sorry, but I had no choice,” he replied, the hollow sincerity in his voice only deepened my anguish.

“Yeah, whatever! I have a wedding to plan, and you have a funeral to plan,” I spat back, my heart pounding with defiance as I turned my back on him, retreating into the car he had just pulled me from.

***

When we finally got home, I stormed straight to my bedroom, desperate to escape the suffocating atmosphere that clung to me like a shroud. I changed into my gym clothes, the fabric clinging to my body, reminding me that I still had control over some parts of my life. I needed to release the anger boiling inside me, to punch and kick and scream until I felt something other than this all-consuming rage.

My mind spiraled back to my mother—how she had nine long years to reach out, to check on me and my brothers, yet she chose silence. Her absence had been a void, a dark pit that swallowed me whole, leaving me feeling abandoned and unworthy. Now that she was dying, she thought she could just waltz back into my life and pretend everything was okay. Part of me wanted her to feel the pain I had endured, to suffer as I had suffered, to know what it was like to be abandoned by the one person who was supposed to love me unconditionally.

“Vee? Are you okay?” Isabelle’s concerned voice broke through my thoughts, pulling me back to the present.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth, my fists pounding against the heavy bag in front of me as if it were my mother’s face, the rage spilling out of me like a torrential downpour.

“You are clearly not fine,” she said gently, her voice filled with empathy.

“Back the fuck off!” I yelled, frustration bubbling over, a desperate plea for space.