Page 110 of Orion Ruined

The video starts playing and the three of us watch in horrified silence. It’s her. Maisy. She’s too young, too naïve, and she’s being coerced by a vile old pedo, Milan. He reaches her in the first few minutes, and I pause the DVD before we see something we can never unsee, which will probably do more damage because acting on impulse never ends well.

It’s not that I can’t watch it. It’s that I don’t want to.

We glance at each other. “She was telling the truth about this. Do we want to see it?” I ask.

Both Kai and Orion shake their heads.

“Check Rosey’s DVD,” Kai suggests.

Orion goes through the box and finds the DVD with Rosey’s face. He hands it over and I take a better look at her features. I see the resemblance. They’re twins, but not identical.

“‘Rosey, twelve, doll,’” I read from the back cover.

I remove the disc and as I do, a small note flies out. We all reach for it just as Maisy walks in holding a bottle of water. The note lands on the floor, clearly readable to the three of us.

‘Dead, suicide.‘

Orion snatches it and crushes it in his hand.

“Did you see me?” she asks coolly, her chin a little raised. No one will ever take away her pride.

“Maisy, we’re not gonna watch it,” I reassure her.

“Good. And Rosey? I want to see her video.”

We regard each other in silence. She doesn’t have to be strong in front of us. That’s why we’re here. So she can let go. This couldn’t have been easy on her.

“Are you sure, darling?” Orion wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her to him, and she immediately finds a home in his chest.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. If it connects me with her, then yes.”

“It won’t.” He kisses the top of her head. In a few strides, Kai and I reach them and embrace her too. The three of us surround Maisy like a human shield.

“Nothing will ever happen to you again. Nothing,” Kai mutters.

She cranes her neck to look up at us and smiles, her eyes glazed with tears. “I know.”

MAISY

They still haven’t figured it out, but they will eventually. Right now, they’re dealing with the Slavs. Milan found out about his safe and what was taken from it: the three boxes and the DVDs. His main concern would be the DVDs, anyone could figure that out. Especially after Orion sent the box to the police last week.

I told him not to do it because we could use them as leverage, but he didn’t agree with me. He knows Milan has someone working for him in every police station in New York and beyond, but he thought this would at least give them time to regroup, to plan. Because for some reason, Milan is still managing to cause them complications.

Every day, something and someplace are attacked by the Slavs. Simultaneously, the Cartes, Delgados, and Vitalis are being targeted by Milan’s devious plans. They don’t say anything directly to me but I’m around, I spend time with them, and I hear the worry. People are getting killed, tortured. Bobby, the snitch Logan couldn’t kill, is now working for Milan. He’s the one who told him it was all three of Kai, Logan, and Orion who were involved in the heist. Natasha, Kai’s ex, is also working for Milan. And he must’ve caught on that it was me who’s been rattling his cage. Fucking bastard. But that won’t deter me. I’ll find my sister no matter what.

With my boys next to me, I’m invincible. They’re smart. There’s already a plan to assassinate Milan, with the promise it won’t be before he sings like a canary of my sister’s whereabouts.

I couldn’t protect her that day from Milan, but everything I did after, I did for her. Milan promised me as long as I worked for him, she’d be taken care of. That didn’t do her any good. Now I know better. Now I’m playing my cards right, with men who I trust and love.

With Kai, Orion, and Logan, I’ve found my place, my home. I don’t know how we’ll work out, but we have so far. I’m still at Orion’s and I love it here, but there are other options. Kai’s talked about his beach house in Long Island. His secret place. Nobody knows of it but us and it’d be a great place to take a vacation. Logan told me he lives in a penthouse and would love to take me there. Orion and Kai aren’t invited, of course–because of the security and cameras, and his whole family living in that building–but I am. And I’d love nothing more than to be treated like a princess in his tower. The problem is, with Milan’s retaliations, the mafia families are back to hating each other and Orion’s plan is farther away than it ever was. There was a failed attempt to join forces when Milan declared New York belonged to him, and that the Cartes, Vitalis, and Delgados were to leave the city and never come back.

Milan figured it out. He saw through them. He knew all this time they were together as allies, and that’s what he wanted to expose. The idea was they’d kill each other and let him rule. But when they attacked first, I told them, Be ready, be prepared. Milan’s a sneaky fucker. He has information on every person in New York and can make whole buildings disappear, not just people.

As long as they played safe, and looked twice behind their backs, I was happy. Sleeping with the three of them, all of us sharing my bed, is a hedonistic pleasure I’ve learned to love, and crave. One important thing we all had to remember in the past three weeks was to tell Lisa when we’d be ’together,’ as she’s run into us once already. She’s petrified Mya may see something she shouldn’t. Rightly so.

We’ve been locking the door since that happened.

~

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