Lahat ng Kabanata ng Taken by the Mafia King: Kabanata 291 - Kabanata 300

PaigeI leaned against the back of Lauren’s bright-teal couch and stared at the seascape over her shoulder, ignoring both her gaze and the stare of the big, fluffy golden retriever who was sitting by her desk when I walked in today. She introduced him as Francis, her actual pet but also a therapy dog she’d like to bring to session sometimes. Of course, I told her to do whatever she wanted. Francis wouldn’t change anything about the shit I’d been through, just the same as her picture-perfect smile and bright-blue furniture wouldn’t. Nothing would.Francis huffed and sat at my feet.“So, did anything exciting happen since I last saw you?” Lauren asked.The word “no” bubbled to my lips, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. Mom was leaving for France. I had a laptop and a phone again for the first time in months. And I had a job, my old job, starting Monday. Somehow, in the course of two days, everything had changed.“I guess,” I said. “I emailed my old job to see if they wanted m

PaigeI marched up to my room after therapy, comfortably full for the first time in a while, and sat down at my desk. When I asked about the tablet, Tom told me the credit card was to buy whatever I needed, and he’d have his men pick it up. The slim, black rectangle had arrived yesterday, and setting it up had exhausted me too much to try it out. Now, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I started work on Monday, and I hadn’t so much as drawn a line in five fucking months. My hands shook half the time I tried to pick something up, and my knowledge of color theory seemed to have fallen out of my head. I needed to be the employee they remembered. I cracked my knuckles, turned on the screen, and got to work.A couple of hours later, someone knocked on my door. I looked up from a page covered in logos for a business I got off a random generator, a flower shop that specialized in grief and grievance arrangements, and stretched. The first few were sloppy, way below my usual quality, but I could

PaigeI sat bolt-upright in one of Tom’s big leather chairs, staring at him as he dialed a number. The dozens of tiny arched windows behind him let in shafts of the setting sun, highlighting the details of yet another of his carefully decorated rooms. I couldn’t place this theme, but everything flowed in a natural way I found way more comforting than the soaring ridiculousness of my bedroom. Even the liquor cart, which I could have laughed at having in his office if my heart wasn’t beating out of my chest, had legs that curled like vines up to its leaf-shaped top. The edges of my hair still clung damply to my face, and I felt weirdly vulnerable, even fully clothed with a desk between us. I hadn’t even meant to say that stuff about it being unfair; it just tumbled out. But he took it in stride, like he seemed to take everything, and immediately leapt to trying to fix it. Maybe McKenna was dead—my body trembled—but I had to try. We had to try.Somehow, I believed he was actually trying.

PaigeEarly Friday morning, I stood in the mosaic entryway of Tom’s house with Mom and her five suitcases, waiting for Fred to come pick her up and head to the airport. Tom had moved therapy to the afternoon so I could see her off. Not that that was going very well. She kept starting sentences and stopping. I picked at the stitching on her brand new matching set of suitcases I assumed Tom had purchased for her.Finally, there was a knock on the door. Mom flung it open, and an older man with a wide smile stood there.“Fred!” Mom wrapped him in a quick, platonic hug.“Natalia.” He kissed her cheek and released her. “And Paige! I was so thrilled to hear you were home safe.”I forced a smile. My stomach flipped, and it took all my willpower not to grab Mom and drag her back. From this angle, Fred looked a whole hell of a lot like another bastard.“You know, Killian Ricci asked me to find you months ago?” he said. “When I couldn’t, I was thrilled to be able to help your mom out instead. Yo

PaigeI sat in the window seat in my room after we got home from therapy and lunch, staring at the snow falling outside. Thick clusters of flakes, wet and heavy, thunked against the windowpane. I had my tablet in my lap, open to a mostly blank canvas, and the stylus in my hand. A list of long-term goals. How could I, with my graphic design degree, help other girls like me?The first few things I came up with stared back at me blankly. Help girls escape, something I had no skills for. Keep girls from being kidnapped, something I had no idea how to do when I barely remembered my own kidnapping.Dark memories reached for me. I could remember my own kidnapping if I wanted to. I could remember all sorts of things, absolutely every detail of the dozens of times I could’ve escaped and fucked it up because I was too stupid, too weak, or too slow. I could create a how-to guide for staying in the bastards’ hands, if I wanted to. Obviously, that would be helpful to no one but the bastards.I sho