Rooted from Betrayal

Chapter 1: *Judging a book by the cover*

'Just one drink' they had said. 'Nothing bad was going to happen.'

Liars; the lot of them. I had trusted them, and they had broken my trust in the worst possible way, they sold me to the highest bidder, literally.

We had just graduated-turned into official and certified doctors-and we had planned to have a small, and rather chaste, celebration with only the five of us. However, after a call came in three weeks prior to that fateful night telling me I had been chosen to be amongst the few medicine graduates who got a chance to grow and nurture their skill at Queen Nandi hospital-one of the most renounced hospitals on all of Africa-those plans had quickly changed.

When I had told my friends-the only family I'd had-they appeared just as happy as I was. I should have known better. After a lot of begging and haggling, they had finally managed to convince me to go to a club instead.

Because I had trusted them, I had not thought too much into it when they had chosen a club above what we could afford. It had been normal for them to take advantage of their parents' generosity; they had plenty after all.

The club we had gone to was one of the most famous clubs in my home country and was known to be visited by all kinds of rich people visiting the country from abroad. It was precisely to one of those people that the people I had believed to be my family, had sold me to.

The night had started in a mundane manner with nothing of note happening, but as the night progressed, there had been a shift in the air around our table: it had not particularly stood out to me. We had been drinking and talking amongst ourselves for a few hours, when an exotic-looking brunette with a Mexican accent came to our table and told us that her brothers wanted is to join them in the VIP section.

Naturally, I wanted to refuse but Brayden and Priya-ever the luxury lovers-had immediately jumped at the opportunity and with Sakhile and Naledi deciding to join as well; I could not let myself be alone in a night club and had followed behind with reluctance.

Thinking about it now, I realize how perfectly the entire ideal had been planned because not one of my friends had tried to push me into joining them, as if they knew I would follow them without complaint.

The sight I had arrived to had been bit shocking to me back then-I had thought them over the top and wasteful- but mostly it had made me quite uncomfortable, to put it lightly. On a secluded part of the club-likely the VIP section-there had been four men wearing black suits standing guard by the 'entrance' leading to where a transaction on my life would later occur, who allowed us to pass without question.

Even back then I had found odd because I had expected them to at least inspect us. On the private booth we had found five men and seven females-that were clearly there for the pleasure of the five men.

Nicholas. Antonio. Mario. Giovanni. Dante.

Rosy had made a point of introducing each one of her brothers-probably out of courtesy for me. At first nothing out of place had happened, other than someone dressed as plainly as I had been to be in that booth, along with the long and unnerving stare I had kept on receiving from the occasional brother.

But then, slowly something had changed: Naledi had kept glancing at me, sitting further away from everyone and simply watching, with uncertain eyes. After catching her looking at me with the same look for the fourth time I had been about to ask her what was wrong when Brayden had given me a drink saying I needed to enjoy that once in a lifetime chance. I had been growing uneasy because of Naledi's looks and I decided that one glass-as Brayden had 'promised'-would at least calm my nerves.

Little had I known that that one drink had been spiked and would make me lose my sense of self.

I know it was foolish of me to ignore my gut feelings, but I had been confident that should something happen, my friends would not let anything happen to me.

However, I was wrong. I guess even if you have read the entire book, you must not be too quick to judge it because you do not know what truths are missing and can only be found in prequels and sequels.