The Mafia's Runaway Wife

They'd already been shot twice each by the time I came downstairs. I never heard the shots, never knew we had intruders in our home. Not until I heard the yelling, a man screaming “Kneel” over and over. I was already down the stairs, hoping it was one of Dad's old Jean Claude Van Dam movies playing too loud. No, it wasn’t a movie. There were five masked shooters circling my parents, guns aiming for that final death shot. My parents never kneeled. I found them sitting on the living room carpet with two gunshot wounds in the abdomen. They noticed me first, eyes pleading for me to run, but I couldn’t. They screamed for me to run, for me to leave them and find my brother. But I refused, I fought my way to get to them. I could see them bleeding out, they were barely holding on. I couldn’t leave them. I slowly slid back, reaching for the wall where I discovered one of my parents' hidden gun compartments. My hand touched that specific location and the wall opened. Too bad it made a click, cause all the attention was now on me. Three out of the five men raised the gun to me, but I still reached the nearest .45. I can hear my parents screaming for me to run, for me to leave them to go find my brother. But instead, I shot the two men standing in front of my parents. They died before hitting the floor. By the time anyone registered what happened, the three that remained dropped just the same. I remember being rushed from behind and hitting my head on one of the side tables. I remember for a brief second chuckling because I always told my parents that those stupid side tables were going to be the death of me. But I don’t remember when the tears started flowing, but I remember switching to my back and shooting the six men behind me. I don’t remember the other 7 shots or bodies. However, I remember finally getting to my parents. They were barely holding on, but they held each other’s hands while looking at me. I can still hear their voices, how they struggled to tell me to run and find my brother. How they struggle to tell me that they were sorry for leaving us so soon, how they loved us, and hopefully one day we’ll be able to forgive them and understand them. I didn’t get a chance to tell them not to leave us, that there was nothing to forgive, that we just wanted them alive. That no matter what, we will always love them. No, I didn’t get to tell them any of that. Two shots were fired, one in each of their temples. I didn’t even get to scream as I feel the needle being pushed into my neck. All I could do was watch their lives evaporate from their eyes still looking at me. Their dead eyes would forever haunt me the most. It wasn’t my kidnapping right after their deaths, being sold to that sick bastard and being locked in a frozen cell, or the cocktail of drugs that was pumped through me, or the starvation and rape attempts for a whole year after. No, none of those led a candle to my parent’s dead eyes. And two years after being sold again, I thought the nightmare had finally seized me. I no longer woke up screaming and fighting to get to them, I no longer saw their dead eyes set on me. At last, I thought I had found peace. I found Roman.