This is a modern spin on the original fairytale Rumpelstiltskin. As a child for some reason I feared Rumpel's character so I chose to retell it in a way that is...less scary with no tiny beast looking man involved.
Adele is a girl from a small town...
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Once upon a time there lived a man name Matteo in a far away land...well more like Alabama but you get the picture. He was the owner of a small town café and very well known in his town. Too bad he wasn't known for his good qualities and things were about to get even worse.
Matteo was a alcoholic with a gambling addiction, one that has now gotten completely out of hand. He never had a sober day if he could help it. He did everything drunk. He drove, gambled, shopped and went to work drunk. He never had less than four full bottles of Gin and a case of beer in the house. That was his emergency rations and he immediately went shopping if he reached that level. Yet he would never describe himself as an alcoholic. He figured he could quit anytime he wanted to.
Shows what he knows, he lost the family diner when he sold the business to pay off a gambling debt. He went on a trip with a couple of his buddies to Las Vegas despite his daughter's plea for him to remain at home. Now here he sat the feeling of, fear and desperation had him dumfounded when for just a minute he was sober enough to realized what he had done.
"You ...you ca...can't take her! Please! She's all I have left!" Matteo begged in vain.
"I can and I will" the man replied in an emotionless tone.
"I won't tell you where to find her" Matteo said puffing out his chest in false bravado.
The stony faced man standing before him release a bone chilling, humorless laugh.
"How stupid do you think I am!? When you walked into my office earlier waving around a picture of your daughter telling me she has the voice of an angel and a body to make a grown man cum on the spot I jumped right on it. You gave me her picture, name and address when I handed over the three hundred dollars that you went and lost at the black jack table." the man told him with a smirk
"No" Matteo whispered shaking his head desperately. He was too far gone drunk to remember anything. "please I'm begging you. She's innocent, she's a quiet girl. Please don't bring her into this life. I'll do anything I'm begging you." Matteo pleaded
"You're a little too late. My men are collecting her from your home in Alabama as we speak"
"Dear God no! No! No!" Matteo jumped from the chair and grabbed for the other man's neck but he was knocked in the head by one of the bodyguards and forced back onto the chair.
"Would you like to speak to her one last time?" The man asked him
"Please" he kept begging quietly
"Dad! Dad help!" The voice of Matteo's daughter came blaring through the speaker phone.
"Aw, so sweet. Help dad" the man taunted.
Matteo wept brokenly as he listened to his daughter's desperate cry for help.
"Dad why are they taking me?" She wept
"I am so sorry sweetheart." Matteo sobbed "so sorry"
"Say goodbye" the man told Matteo
"Goodbye?" His daughter's voice asked frightened and confused.
"Goodbye" Matteo whispered defeated.
"No DADDY!!!" she screamed then the line went dead.
"Get him out of here. Make sure he gets on the next flight out of the city."
Matteo got up to fight off the guards but sharp blows to the stomach was what he got in return. He doubled over in pain as he was dragged from the office and out the back of the casino. When he saw that they were about to put him in the back of a vehicle in one final attempt to restore his dignity he punch the guard that was standing closest to him. He was rewarded with kicks to the stomach, right away he knew he had one or two broken ribs.
Matteo lay in the back of the van, his face closed in a grimace, his skin pale and clammy. Every few minutes he would scream, not like one of those guys in some Tarantino movie being tortured, but worse. It had a raw quality, the realness of a person consumed by a pain that knew no end or limit. Then he would go quiet, just panting and praying to wake up from the nightmare that was his life.
The van took a sharp turn causing him to roll around intensifying his pain. The tires screech as the van lost control. He gritted his teeth in pain and agony when he was thrown from the van when the vehicle hit into a light post and came to a stop.
After laying there for a few minutes waiting, eyes closed and his ears ringing while the world kept on spinning he heard voices then someone touched him.
"Hey Rumpel we have a live one over here!"
"Help her" Matteo tried to whisper
"What is he saying?" Asked the other voice that joined them.
"Save my Adele" Matteo begged
"Adele?" the voices asked puzzled then Matteo's world went black.
