Page 48 of The Don

I should be the bigger person and beg Ruben to kill him quickly, but every moment I was with Adrian he managed to chip away at my soul. Piece by piece.

Ruben leads me over to his office where he sits on his oversized sofa and pulls me down to sit on his lap. But I scoot over, not comfortable being so close to him when I tell him about Adrian’s ways.

Storm lies on the floor beside me. I take a deep breath and lower my chin as I play with my fingertips. I can’t bring myself to look up at Ruben as I try to figure out where I should begin. “It all started when our parents went to Adrian for a short-term loan of fifty thousand dollars.” I worry my lip between my teeth as I look up at Ruben. His dark features have somehow hardened. His eyes have narrowed and his jaw is tense. “They went to the mafia for a loan.”

“You were the repayment?”

I shake my head and snort a condescending laugh. “Nope. My parents put both Rose and I up as collateral if they defaulted.” Ruben’s brows rise. “They were set up to fail from the beginning. They had one month to make their first repayment of five thousand dollars. The terms were five thousand a month for twenty-four months, or Adrian would take both Rose and me in lieu of what my parents owed.”

“So your parents agreed to borrow fifty thousand and repay a hundred and twenty thousand.”

I roll my lips shut and nod. “See? Set up to fail.”

Ruben crosses his legs and settles his hand on his thigh. His finger taps his leg as he continues to stare at me. I don’t even know if this is normal practice for the mafia, and he’s not giving anything away. Unlike him—he used to ball his hands into fists and fly at me. God, I hate him.

“You and Rose were his repayment.” I nod. “That’s not an uncommon practice.”

Lowering my chin, I snicker and shake my head. “This is something you encourage?”

“No, I don’t. I’m not exactly like others. I never have been. Short term loans are usual, but using women as collateral isn’t something I do. And, Adrian knows this.”

I feel there’s more to this than he’s letting on, but I guess that’s a conversation for another time. “So, my parents defaulted and Adrian came to collect.”

“How did he not take both you and Rose?”

“I negotiated with him.”

“How?” Ruben pushes.

I knit my hands together and play with my fingertips, trying to delay the answer Ruben wants to know. “I didn’t want Rose hating our parents for essentially selling us for fifty thousand dollars.” I push the quick back on my fingernail beds. “They wronged both of us, but I didn’t want her to be as angry and hurt as I was when I found out.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “So I offered Adrian a counter deal.”

“To marry him,” Ruben says.

I shake my head. “I agreed to be his slave, whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it, as long as he left Rose alone.” From my peripheral vision, I see Ruben cross his arms in front of his chest. “He said he needed a wife...” I clear my throat while tears spring to my eyes. “And a whore.” I hold my breath, waiting for a reaction from Ruben, but nothing comes. Lifting my chin, I look into his hard eyes. “I did what I had to do to protect my sister. I married him and became exactly what he wanted.”

“You did all of this to protect your parents and your sister?”

“Screw my parents, they made a deal to benefit only themselves and couldn’t care less for either Rose or myself.”

“When Adrian told me he was marrying, he told me he met you at one of my clubs.”

“Nope, he didn’t. He made a deal with my parents, who he then went on to kill in front of me when he came to collect his interest.”

“He killed them?”

“You could say so. He handed a gun to my father and told him to shoot my mother or he’d also take my mother and sell her to some motorcycle gang and they’d use her as their club whore.” Ruben’s arms tighten around his chest as he shifts in his seat and straightens. “Then he sat back and told my father to stick the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger and if he didn’t, he’d cut out his organs while he was alive to sell them on the black market.”

“You saw it all?”

“Everything,” I reply. “Do you know the worst part of it all?” Ruben shakes his head. “They never asked for my forgiveness, not once.”

“Do you know why they wanted the money?”

“No idea. I asked, but was never given the answer, not even from Adrian. They weren’t the greatest of parents, but never in a million years did I think they’d sell us.” My eyes sting from holding in the tears, but I refuse to shed another drop for them. “He sat and smoked while my parents killed each other, and didn’t bat an eyelid when they did. He forced me to watch and told me if I went back on our deal, it’ll be worse for me. But the moment I agreed to his ownership, he beat me. At first it was a slap or a punch, but then when he’d give me to his men and I’d return back to him, he’d be wildly jealous and beat me because I was cheating on him. He’d willingly give me to his men as a prize and a reward for a job well done, then he’d accuse me of enjoying it and beat me.”

“He’s a lot like his father, my brother. I had to put him down too.”

Did I hear that right? “You killed your own brother?”

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