Seraphina

Chapter 1 - The Beginning...

(15 y/o) SERAPHINA POV

I have a habit of keeping secrets from my family. But only because they don't trust me enough with their own. Here's an example... likeee how i don't know about the fucking MAFIA. (Cue eye roll)

I wouldn't say that I despise them for it, I know they believe they are keeping me safe from not letting me know or be involved in it until I'm 18. So I play along, letting them believe they are protecting me from the dangers of their world, but little do they know their little princess is a danger TO the world herself.

They seem to have forgotten about me all together though trying to keep their secret safe from me. Unbeknownst to them, I felt like an outsider in my own home because of it. Only my mother shared her unconditional love and time the same as before, as for everyone else...it's almost as if I could vanish off the face of the earth and they wouldn't notice.

I used to be close to my older brothers and sisters: Rome (18), Ciro (20), Bella (21), Ariana (21), Leonardo (23), Xavier (26). As a child...I was treated like a princess by them, they used to play with me, talk to me nonstop and be around to protect me 24/7.

But the older I got, the less they spoke to me, and slowly as everyone got older and joined the family business I was left behind and in the dark. Whenever I bumped into somebody or tried speak to them the only thing I'd receive was a short 'not now Seraphina', 'I'm busy', 'stop being annoying!', 'leave us alone'.

And of course as a child with higher than average IQ, I understood where I was not wanted. Therefore I did not speak. I kept silent in their presence, minded my own business as they minded theirs. Only my mother and occasionally my grandparents to speak to.

My grandad was the only person who knew of my abnormally high IQ at such a young age, along with the fact that I knew about the mafia. He had caught me one day listening in to a conversation outside of the kitchen entrance as he was about to walk in, but instead of shouting or reacting angrily towards me he smirked at my widened eyes and put his finger to his lips signalling me to be quiet as he walked in and ruffled my hair.

You see, my grandad is Alessandro Donatello, the ex Italian mafia don, the most cunning and tactical person in the underground. That and my best friend. He knew that I was better off knowing how to defend myself if the time came, and introduced me to my trainer Zander Nikolov, who was like the brother I never had.

While my grandad knows that i am now fully capable of defending myself, he does not know the extent to which I am involved in the underground world, I decided this secret would be mine and mine alone. I would not let anyone ruin it for me, and I would build a name for myself so that by the time I was 18 and an adult I could by dependent on myself and move out of the house I grew to hate. I couldn't call it a home, as nobody who loved me lived in it.

You may realise I haven't talked about my father. Well that's because there's nothing for me to say really, he was practically a stranger to me now just as my siblings were...ignoring my existence when I needed them the most. When I needed a father by my side as a shoulder to cry on when I was upset or hurt, when I needed my brothers overprotectiveness, when I needed someone to hold me, nobody was there to hold my hand.

I resented them for it. Hated them even more. Instead of preparing me and protecting me from the life I was living by my side, they focused only on the underground aspect, believing that nothing evil could taint me that way. They were wrong.

The Medusa tattoo on the left side of my lower hip proved it to them, to myself even. If only they knew, nothing is left untainted for long.

[Medusa tattoo - resembles survivors of SA - not getting too deep into it]