Page 1 of Merciless Queen (Moretti Mafia #1)

Harlow

When we were taken, this life took more from us than our bodies.

It took our souls. My mother did her best to protect me from the monsters and prevent this world from destroying me.

But now, I lived in a nightmare without her.

I wanted to die so I could be reunited with her, but even my death wasn’t in my hands.

I wished I could remember her as the woman who loved me unconditionally, but everything was slowly fading. Another thing he took from me.

I missed my mom, but I missed the person she was before this life destroyed us.

She was beautiful. My mom gave me my dark brown hair and my light brown eyes that reminded me of the brightest topaz gems. She called me her duplicate, her mini.

I remembered a few things about her, but her laugh was a distant echo replaced by her screams. She could brighten a room and cure the Monday blues.

She would leave me four Hershey’s Kisses in my lunch box with a note every day to get me through school.

A kiss for every break during the day until I came home to get another one.

I tried to hold onto the happy memories, but they were slowly becoming tainted with the evil that took us.

Her screams still echoed in the back of my mind when I desperately wanted to remember her laugh.

She always protected me until her dying breath, and then the veritable nightmare began.

The monsters that were under the bed and hiding in the shadows were now my reality.

Vincenzo Mancini, the don of the Mancini crime family, was a monster.

He was my destroyer. He said I was his favorite, his perfect dove, but he allowed his friends, men, and the highest paying customers to abuse me.

They called me a whore, but he called me his.

That was what he made me. It was what my mom tried to prevent, but when she died, so did I.

In the seven years since my mom died, people had drugged, beaten, raped, and tormented me more times than I could count.

I learned to stop screaming. I vanished into a void, the darkest recess of my mind where I could pretend my life was better.

Sometimes I did scream, and I hated it. I hated myself.

They got off on it. I never wanted to give them the satisfaction of hearing what they’d done to me.

But sometimes, my mind broke, and my body gave in.

Vincenzo owned a high-end strip club where he had me working—not as a stripper, though.

He paraded me around in tiny lingerie to show his clientele.

Since I was his favorite, I was high dollar to his exclusive members.

They could do anything to me as long as I was still breathing when they were done.

Burns, bruises, and cuts would all heal in Vincenzo’s mind.

Being his favorite meant I was desired the most. Rumors flew in the club.

Everyone knew. Even the other girls in the club.

I was here the longest, and saw a lot of people leave.

When they left that meant either two things, one being the most frequent: the girls either died, or they were sold to another man.

Everyone knew when we were brought into a room to cower under the men who hurt us, and we would live.

They would play a game of eeny meeny miny moe , pointing a pistol to each of us before pulling the trigger, but it never landed on me.

Even when I would beg for someone's life.

It was a power play, knowing my life was in their hands.

They utilized that knowledge, too. I wanted to protect the new girls they brought in.

I would beg them to hurt me instead of crushing the souls and innocence of the new girls.

Instead, they would force me to watch, to listen, and sometimes they’d hurt us together.

If I tried to do anything or if I fought them, I wouldn’t be the one to get a bullet.

I was the boss’s favorite whore, and if they killed me, he would torment them.

So while the girls died around me, I would survive another day in hell.

Maybe one customer would get a little too excited and accidentally kill me so I could physically end my torture. I already knew it wouldn't happen. Vincenzo had strict rules when sharing me. The only way I could end my misery was to do it myself, but even I couldn’t control that.

I tried to kill myself once. After my mom died, Vincenzo decided it was time for him to take his rightful claim to me.

He was training me to be his anyway, without actually penetrating me—visiting me while my mom was with someone else; sending me to his house for days at a time.

My birthday present when they first took us was touching his dick.

He said next time I could give him a blow job, and I dreaded the next time he sent for me.

That night was the start of my permanent torture.

My mom died when I was almost eighteen. Vincenzo said it was time for me to become a woman since I waited and ‘teased’ him for three years since being stuck there.

In a single night, he ruined my life. The one thing my mom saved me from was the harsh reality of our circumstances, and I would never be the same.

After he finally let me leave his room after three days of continuous torture, I immediately tried to take my life.

Why deal with this existence when there was an easy way out?

My attempt was futile since someone heard the glass shatter, and Vincenzo’s doctor saved me.

The older man looked at me with pity and told me life would be better if I lay down and submitted.

Easy for him to say. He had a dick between his legs.

I was on bedrest for a week, and by bedrest, I mean Vincenzo kept me chained to his bed and used me as he pleased.

Eventually, I accepted my fate. Vincenzo wanted me, and he would do anything to keep me.

Instead of trying to kill myself again, I attempted an escape, but I was scared and got caught. Because of my failure, I lost the only friend I had. That guilt still eats at me. And now Vincenzo knew I would never try it again, because a failed attempt meant a fate far worse than death.

Nine years later, I had no fight left in me. If one of the men Vincenzo handed me off to happened to snap my neck, I wouldn’t protest. They’d already done enough damage to last five lifetimes.

I had once wanted life to be different.

I had dreams. I had goals. And then there was nothing.

If time travel existed, I would go back in time to kill my father and protect me and my mother from our untimely fate, but that sort of thing only happened in fairy tales, and this was real life.

I was stuck in the hands of a monster until he decided he was tired of me, or he found a new girl to replace me.

I didn’t know how young he liked them or if he would even want to keep me until I died naturally .

“Mama,” I called out to her as I sprinted inside from school.

I had a date, and I was excited to tell her about it.

It was not my first date, but it was the first one with the girl I was hopelessly crushing on hard.

Mallory said yes! After our kiss two weeks ago, it took me that long to ask her out. “Mom?”

Walking inside, I saw my mom on the couch, crying as my father kneeled on the ground in front of her, looking at three big men and a shorter, thinner man. He looked like the boss?

“Don’t hurt her, please,” my mom begged the man. “Please.”

He smirked. “That’ll cost you extra.” My mom nodded. Cost extra? What was going on?

One of the men walked up to me and I stepped back. I felt like I should run away, but before I could even think about doing that, the man grabbed me and dragged me to the couch. My mom pulled me into her arms, comforting me. She muttered words of apologies so fast that it sounded like tongues.

The tall, thin man walked up to me and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Your dad did say you were beautiful. I can’t wait to have you soon.” His thumb dragged down my lip. “You see what happens when you don’t pay up, Derrick?”

“I’m good for it!” my dad screamed. “Please.”

The man chuckled. “It’s too late for that.

It’s too early to stake my claim, but I can wait a few years.

Your wife and daughter will pay, and they’ll work off your debt.

” He pulled a gun and shot my father in the head.

His blood splattered across me and my mom as she sobbed.

My eyes grew wide as I clutched onto my mother.

He…He was dead. His lifeless eyes stared into my soul as I watched the blood seep from his skull onto the white tile.

It was a delayed reaction, and I didn’t realize I was screaming until the man backhanded me to silence me.

Copper filled my mouth as my mother pulled me into her.

She was shaking, or maybe it was me. I was still numb, terrified of what was going to happen to us.

“Be a good girl and maybe you won’t be hurt,” the man said as he put away the still smoking gun.

“Please, don’t hurt her. Do whatever you want to me, but don’t hurt her. Please,” my mother begged, holding me tighter.

“Javier, take her to one of the rooms and test out the merchandise while I sit with my prize.”

The man, Javier, grabbed my mother, but I pulled her back.

I didn’t want her to leave me. She told me everything would be okay, but I heard the fear in her voice as she let the man pull her and the other two followed them into her bedroom.

I knew she was not screaming or fighting because she wanted to protect me.

I wiped my bloody lip as I looked at the man in front of me.

He was in his early twenties, maybe older, with dark black hair.

He was thin but lean in his pressed suit.

His eyes were evil as he wiped my father’s blood from his face.

“Harlow. That is a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”

“W-Why did you kill him? Who are you?”

He smirked. “He owed me money, and he made a promise. It’s time to cash in. Tell me, Harlow, how old are you?”

I swallowed hard, scooting away from him, which angered him. His fingers tangled into my short hair as he pulled me back. I screamed, but he grabbed my jaw, silencing me. “Stop, please. I-I’m fifteen. I-I’ll be sixteen in four months.”

“Growing into such a beautiful woman.” His hand moved to my white button down and he jerked my shirt open, buttons flying across the room, revealing my simple black bra and the swell of my breasts.

I bit the inside of my cheek as his fingers burned my skin.

“Tell me, are you a virgin, sweet Harlow?”

“I—why?”

“Answer me,” he snapped.

“Y-Yes.”

“Excellent.” I didn’t like the darkness in his tone.

I jumped when my mom’s screams echoed through the house.

Involuntarily, I jolted, turning on my heels to run to her side, but he grabbed me and forced me to sit on his lap.

I struggled, jerking my arms, but it…excited him?

More tears streamed down my face as I listened to my mother scream.

What were they doing to her? Were they going to kill her, too? What about me?

The man held me down on his lap, and I felt him digging into my thigh.

It made my stomach churn. I was a virgin, but his excitement in my struggle terrified me.

He killed my father, what was he going to do to me?

His hot breath made my skin crawl as he smirked against my neck.

My body tensed as a wicked chuckle echoed in my ears.

“I’m trying to be a good man and wait for you to be older, but if you don’t stop wiggling, I’m going to fuck your virgin cunt right now. Fifteen is close enough to being an adult.”

A sob escaped my lips as I fell still against him as his wicked hands caressed my bare thigh.

I tried to be still, but the emotions ravishing inside me won as grunts, cries, and the creaking of my mother’s bed seeped into the living room.

I looked at my father’s dead body, watching the red bleed into the white floors.

Red and white were beautiful together, but this… this was a nightmare.

A debt and a promise. What did my father do for him to be killed?

I should’ve felt something more seeing him like this, but all I felt was numbness and fear.

Was I truly numb if fear flowed through my veins?

What was going to happen to us? Was he going to kill my mom, too, or do to me what they were doing to her now? Were we going to die?

It was silent between me and this man for a few minutes until the bedroom door opened and all three of them came out with my mother.

She was only wearing her t-shirt that was ripped in places, with blood pouring from her nose and dripping from her thighs.

Her hair was a mess as tears streamed down her face.

I didn’t care what this man did to me—I wiggled from his grasp.

My legs were moving before my brain processed what had happened, and I ran to my mom.

She pulled me into her arms and sobbed as she held onto me for dear life. Right now, I was her lifeline.

“Get them to the truck.” I looked back at the man. “Welcome to your new life, ladies.”