Falling for the Agent (Falling #1.5, Agent #1)

Chapter 1

Betrayal.

Betrayal always leaves a sour taste in its path, a feeling of idiocy for ever trusting someone that didn't deserve it. A feeling of anger toward the person that took your kindness or naivety for granted.

This is how I feel, mostly because it's the reason behind my current state.

What's that you may ask?

Trapped, chained, and beaten in a basement a few feet away from my newborn child.

If my throat weren't so dry from the lack of water I ingested over the past few days, I would probably laugh at what I've become and the choices I made in the past.

I grew up in Minapolis a city not too far from New York. I lived there with my father and later when I was in middle school, I met my 'brother' William. My father took him in after he was emancipated from his parents. William never really talked about his time there, but I could tell it wasn't anything pleasant. I mean why else would he have chosen to legally separate himself from his biological parents at the age of sixteen?

William was like an older brother to me. We got along like true siblings and I was devastated when he graduated. I knew it meant he would leave our little family. He chose to enlist and joined the army while I finished my last few years of high school, before moving on to college where I received a full ride to Harvard.

I saw William when he would come back from tours and was proud of what he became. I smiled at the memory of a time I was still happy, where I laughed more times than I could count and spent time with my friends.

It was during that time that I met Marvin. He had the typical bad boy vibe which I was immediately drawn to. He took me out on his motorcycle and made me feel free and alive. We would spend most of our time together, exploring the city, going out on dates. Everything was magical until the day I sat down on the bathroom floor crying in front of two pink lines.

Marvin was understanding, he said he would be there for me and that we would raise this child together. We decided to leave school and both start looking for a job to be able to provide for our soon to be family. I was scared but excited as well, and although this baby wasn't born yet, I felt attached to it.

I tried to tell my father about it, but all he could talk about was how I wasn't making the right decision and how terminating this pregnancy was the best choice for me. It wasn't hard for Marvin to turn me against my own blood and make me leave with him.

We found a cute town not too far away and both started working. At first, everything was fine, it felt like a dream, but it didn't last. Slowly, secrets were uncovered. Things I wish I had known before, things I had wished to never be involved in.

Turned out Marvin was part of a gang. He was one of the top-ranked gang members in his crew. How did I find out? Well, let's just say he had a lot of explaining to do after three armed men destroyed our home by shooting bullets into everything they could find. Luckily, neither one of us was home at the time.

Since then he stopped hiding, 'What's the point if you already know anyways?' he would say. Gang members would walk freely in and out of our home, carrying their illicit drugs and unregistered guns around like it was any other grocery products.

By the time I was six months pregnant, common sense hit me at full speed. This wasn't a life for a baby, it wasn't safe, and it sure wasn't what I wanted for her/him. It was then that I understood that I was stuck or trapped, whichever word suits you better. I tried leaving only to be caught just a day after. The network this gang had was insane. Marvin had eyes on me at all times.

After my first attempt, I tried other methods. I tried bribing a guard, using only cash, I even started memorizing where the cameras where just in case they had ears and eyes within the police station. Each time the consequences were worse, the first time I was reprimanded and starting the second time the beatings began, more violent each time until it came to ganging up on me. They managed to avoid my stomach to make sure my child would come to terms since he/she was according to them the firstborn of our generation and the future successor of the gang.