Page 121 of Twisted Addiction

“Preparing me?” I scoffed, my heart pounding in my ears. “Don’t dress it up, Mother. You mean groomed. I was raised like any normal girl. I went to school, had friends, lived like a civilian—not trained and molded like the heirs of a mafia empire.”

Her eyes hardened, the warmth fading into steel resolve. “No, Penelope,” she said evenly. “That’s just the part you remember.”

Her words struck like a slap.

For a heartbeat, the air left my lungs.

Then—a flash. The weight of a gun. My finger tightening on the trigger with terrifying ease. The recoil. Dmitri’s blood splattering across my hands in the cathedral. The eerie calm that followed.

I’d shot him—clean, precise—like someone who’d done it before.

My breath turned shallow, uneven. “Am I...” I swallowed hard, the question clawing its way out. “Am I some kind of experiment to you? Someone whose memories you can erase whenever it suits you? Because I’m losing my mind knowing there are parts of my life I can’t even remember—the dangerous parts.”

Isabella’s eyes flickered—not with guilt, but with pride. “You’re legacy, cara mia. You are the heir we built. That’s all you need to know.”

My mind spiraled.

My chest tightened, and the room seemed to tilt. Dmitri had been right all along. Every accusation, every story I couldn’t recall... it wasn’t fiction. It was real. My parents had been shaping me, breaking me, using me like a weapon.

She paused, letting the silence stretch like a blade across my heart. “You’ve heard about your uncles, haven’t you? Dmitri... he killed them.”

I swallowed hard, trying to shove away the crushing weight of this revelation.

My hands trembled in my lap. Even in my parents’ arms, I’d been nothing but a pawn. “Yeah,” I whispered, my voice tight and brittle. “Why?”

Her face darkened, the warmth leaving her voice. “They... took advantage of you when you were young. Dmitri found out—and he hunted them down.”

The words hit me like a physical blow.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. “Took advantage of me?” My voice cracked, the fear and revulsion spilling out. “You’re saying... they... raped me?”

She didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. The weight of her gaze was worse than any words. Regret, yes—but also pride, cold and suffocating.

I shook my head, panic clawing at me. “I... I was a virgin when I met Dmitri again. I know I was.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

Then she said it, soft but lethal, slicing through every fragment of my certainty: “You were never a virgin.”

My stomach knotted.

My hands clenched into fists, trembling, as nausea and disbelief churned through me.

My entire life—every memory I thought I owned—was a lie.

I wanted to scream. To collapse. To throw something. But I could do none of it.

All I could do was stare at her, my mind screaming with the horror of betrayal, my heart breaking in silent shards.

Tears burned my eyes before I found the words.

Pain lanced through my chest like wildfire — not only the ache of betrayal now, but the deeper stab of having pieces of my life taken from me.

“Did you know?” I demanded, voice cracking. “Did you know they... my uncles were raping me?”

Isabella’s knife-thin smile fell away.

For a heartbeat she was only the mother I’d loved; then the mask slipped and the Mafia queen surfaced, cool and dangerous.