My father sold me to the Mafia King-Chapter 26/Waiting for Hell

Chapter Twenty-Six:

Julie’s Point of View

I stormed into my room and locked the door behind me, my heart pounding in my chest like war drums.

For the first time, I saw that side of him; he was truly, deeply furious. His face had always been a cold mask of ice, devoid of features or emotions, but today he proved to me that the face I had been longing to see was actually my worst nightmare.

"You fool! How could you make such a fatal mistake?"

I struck my head with my hand as if trying to reclaim my sanity, which had deserted me back there.

I shouldn’t have sat in that chair, and I should never have dared to speak to that man called "Mendoza."

My eyes fell on the wall where the large television screen hung, and beneath it, a collection of boxes and bags were scattered on the floor.

I approached them with hesitant steps and opened them; they were the clothes and books I had requested, even the hair dryer and that watch.. everything was there.

I stopped suddenly, a lump forming in my throat.. Will he take all this back now? Will he punish me because I breached his fortress and meddled with his privacy?

I sat on the edge of the bed, hugging my arms tightly to my chest, like a little girl awaiting her father’s harsh judgment after a heinous deed.

The silence enveloping the place now was not comforting; it was the silence that precedes the storm.

These feelings forcibly pulled me into the past, to that ill-fated day when I was thirteen years old.

I remember how my father pushed me into my room with a force that shook my being, growling:

"I will hold you accountable for this!"

then locking the door with the key.

In that moment, I felt my soul slipping away. It wasn’t the punishment that terrified me, but the "waiting."

He had delayed my reckoning for later, leaving me prey to my thoughts that began to gnaw at my mind: Would he hit me? Would he deprive me of my studies? Would he kill me or lock me in the cellar? Those questions collided violently in my head until I found myself clutching my head with both hands, trying to stop the noise.

I asked myself bitterly: What was my mistake? What did I do?

After hours of continuous psychological torture, the door opened.

He entered, his face flushed with blood, holding a red paper in his hand, gripped so tightly it wrinkled.

He shouted, straining over his words:

"What is this?"

I answered him in a trembling voice that was barely audible:

"What is it?"

He approached me frantically and slammed the paper against my face so hard it fell to the ground, screaming:

"Explain to me what this is!"

I leaned down with trembling hands to pick it up, and when I opened it, the shock struck me like a lightning bolt.

It was just a simple letter from my schoolmate, "John." The words froze in my throat, and I spoke with difficulty:

"It’s.. it’s just a letter.."

But he didn’t give me a chance; he screamed a question in my face that pierced my innocence like an arrow:

"Did something happen between you two, Julie?"

His question was hideous, disgusting, and far beyond my comprehension at the time.

How could he interpret innocent childhood sentences of admiration in such a filthy way? I replied to him in shock and brokenness:

"What? What are you talking about?"

He uttered his words, which fell upon me like the edge of a sword cold, sharp, and lethal:

"Did you sleep with him, Julie?"

My God! He said it with a haunting audacity and a sickening clarity, without a flinch or a shred of shame for himself or me.

In that second, I raised my hands forcefully and pressed them against my ears, as if desperately trying to block the paths of his words, preventing them from flowing into my depths.. but I failed.

That sentence was the pickaxe that shattered the last threads of affection that bound me to him.

In that precise second, I felt a hatred flowing through my veins, a hatred surpassing everything I had ever felt toward him.

He assassinated my image of myself and of him with a single question.

I looked at him with absolute loathing and said in a voice trembling with bewilderment:

"What are you saying, father? Are you truly aware of what you are uttering?"

He didn’t answer with words; instead, he poured his rage into his fist, which he slammed against the wall with all his might.

The plaster shattered, and blood flowed from his hand to draw red lines on the wall. He screamed at me hysterically, terrifying me:

"Answer.. yes or no?!"

He looked terrifying a man hurting himself just to squeeze an answer out of me to a hideous question. With tears filling my eyes, I spoke a single word:

"No."

I thought this word would be my lifeline, that the nightmare would end here.. but he drew closer until I could feel his furious breath, and said in a terrifying hiss:

"Are you sure?"

I nodded in agreement, for my voice had betrayed me and I was unable to speak. And then, he uttered the words that became a destiny haunting me:

"No young man will ever touch you, Julie.. not now, and not later."

The moment he left and locked the door behind him, I collapsed on the floor as if my legs had expired; they were no longer able to carry the weight of the shock.

I fell while still hearing the echo of his final threat resonating in the corners of the room.

With trembling fingers, I picked up that cursed paper and read it again, searching for the crime he saw that I had missed:

"Julie.. when I see you, my heart beats fast, and your green eyes always enchant me.. I have often purposely touched your silky hair while sitting in the seat behind you.. would you accept being my girlfriend? .. with love, John."

I read it once, twice, ten times.. I tried hard to find a single word, a single hint to justify that filth my father threw at me, but I found nothing but the innocence of a child trying to express his feelings.

My thinking stopped at a more terrifying question: How did he find it? Had his obsession reached the point of searching my privacy and belongings in my absence while I was at school? Was I living in a prison called a "home," with a jailer called a "father"?

I remembered clearly how "John" had handed me that letter two days prior; that tall, blonde boy with grey eyes, whom every girl in school dreamed of.

That day, a delicious fear took hold of me; I ran home at my top speed, the letter trembling between my fingers.

When I read it in my solitude, I felt my cheeks burning with shyness, my smile widening until it almost touched my ears from sheer joy.

But, with a fearful instinct, I hid it deep in the drawer. The next day, I ignored John completely; I was embarrassed, not knowing how to face the magic of his eyes.

Despite my friend "Sunshine’s" constant attempts to push me toward him, I ran away every time.. as if my soul realized, in advance, that these innocent feelings were "forbidden" to me. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

I lay on the cold floor of the room, clutching the paper in my fist, whispering to myself in shock:

"My father was always a dry man, so what suddenly made him care about a teenagers’ letter?"

My father was never a religious or traditionally conservative man, so his frantic concern over my body while ignoring my existence as a human being was very puzzling.

But the mystery didn’t last long; I realized the bitter truth later when he decided to sell me to Mr. "Robert."

Only in that moment did I understand everything. He wasn’t protecting me; he was protecting his "investment".. he was guarding the "merchandise" he planned to sell for the highest price, an investment whose only title was my "virginity."

The door swung open with a violence that blew all my memories away, and the wall of reality crashed into my head when I saw Robert standing there.

He wasn’t just an angry man; he was a human hurricane threatening to destroy everything in its path.

Our eyes met, and at that moment I felt a coldness coursing through my body, as if time had stopped to replay the scene of my father of old.

I closed my eyes for a moment and whispered to myself bitterly:

"Here is your punishment finally, Julie.. prepare for the hell you summoned yourself."

His heavy, audible breaths filled the room, and his eyes, smoldering with sparks of rage, darted from the scattered bags on the floor to me.

It seemed as though he didn’t see a girl standing before him, but rather a piece of property that had dared to spiral out of control.