Chapter 2 .

Mia's pov.

With Ruben crouched down in front of me, I let my eyes stop on his chest. That way I look at him, but I don't disrespect him by looking into his eyes.

You know what they say, the eyes are the window to your soul. And you can learn so much about a person just by looking into their eyes. What kind of character they have, their belief and value. And I'm not thinking about religious belief, I mean their belief in humanity and what they think is right and wrong.

"Mia, you know you don't need to call me Sir or my wife Ma'am, we are and will always be Ruben and Dahlia to you. And you don't need to bow down to us like we are your masters. We are just your bosses here, but that also doesn't mean we are worth more than you." Ruben said in a warm, soothing voice.

"You have been with us for two years, and we look at you as a daughter. Both me and Dahlia worry about you. And without you telling us anything, we have learned that your parents are abusing you. And we want to help you." Ruben said, and I felt my entire body started to tremble.

They can't get involved, Ivan will hurt them, they have to stay away from Ivan.

"Boss, everything is fine, you don't need to worry." I said, bowing down more. I couldn't let him see the tears in my eyes.

It honestly means so much that they want to help me, but Ivan has told me if I tell anyone about how he is or what he has done, he will kill those I tell, me and my mother.

Even if my mother is also a part of the problem, she is my mother, the one giving birth to me. She may have been abusing me too, giving me many of the scars I have on my body, telling me how useless and worthless I am. But she is still my mother.

Even if I want to hate her, I just can't, the little girl in me won't let me. I just want my mother to bring me into a safe embrace and tell me everything will be okay, that we will get away from Ivan together. I just wish my biological father would want me, but my mother said he didn't want to have weak, fragile girls, so she was stuck with me.

"Mia, you know you can always talk to us. We will always be here for you." Ruben said softly, and I couldn't help the sob that came out of my mouth.

"Boss, I need to get back to work." I said, trying to get out of this conversation before it makes me break down completely.

"Okay, but here, me and Dahlia wanted to give you this. Keep it safe and use it on something you need." Ruben said, and placed a thick envelope on the table next to my plate.

"Thank you Boss." I said, bowing down even more, doing everything I can to keep my tears in my eyes from spilling over.

Ruben let out another sigh before he carefully stood up and walked out of the lunchroom.

I gently took the envelope and put it in the pocket of my apron I have on before I took a few deep breaths and got back to work for the last few hours of my shift.

When my shift came to an end, I took off my apron and took on my baggy hoodie, took the envelope and hid it in my pocket of my hoodie. I said goodbye to Ruben and Dahlia before I headed home.

But when I got home I got a bad feeling. The house was too quiet, I could also smell blood. It was dark everywhere, but the front door was wide open.

I got in and saw so much broken glass, decorations and furniture.

I carefully got further into the house and I could see some drag marks of blood, so I followed them.

There I see my mother on the floor and she is bleeding badly.

I rush over to her and she is still alive.

"Mom." I cried out, forgetting that I was supposed to call her Ma'am.

I located her injuries and started to press on her wounds. She looked at me with sad tearful eyes.

"Oh my sweet baby girl." She said, and I felt all the air get knocked out of me. She never talk to me like that.

"Mom, I will call 911." I said frantically, but she took a grip of my hand and didn't want to let me go.

"My sweet Aria. Can you start a recording?" She said, and I looked at her confused but did as she asked.

"Please, I know I don't have much time, but you need to listen to me." Mom said, and tears just kept flowing down my cheeks.

"Please look at me, Sweetheart." She said, and I had to work hard to meet her eyes. Both her and Ivan have always told me to never look them in the eyes. But now she is telling me too.

"I need you to listen carefully to everything I have to say, and hopefully you will understand why I had to do what I did. I don't ask you to forgive me, because I have treated you absolutely horribly. But hopefully, you can see I have done it all out of love." She said before she started to cough a little and I saw blood coming out of her mouth.

"Mom, I need to get you to the hospital." I said, crying hard.

"No Sweetheart, it's too late for me. But you need to listen." She said, and she carefully moved one hand towards my face and I flinched. That made her hesitate for a moment before she continued to move her hand to my cheek.

"Your name is Aria Bellini, you are a mafia princess. When you were two years old, I took you from your family. Some bad people wanted to take you, so I was scared and ran away with you." Mom said before she took a breath.

"My plan failed, the Russian mafia found us. Ivan is part of the Russian mafia, and he told me either me and you had to live with him or he would kill you right then and there." Mom said, and she had tears running down her face as well.

"After a little, he also said if I didn't participate in educating you to be as submissive as they wanted you to be, they would kill you. Ivan and his mafia want to force you to marry the Russian mafia heir when you are 18, and they want you to be obedient and follow their every order without hesitation." Mom continued with a serious tone. But I could also hear she was getting weaker.

Why didn't she tell me any of this sooner? We would have found a way to get away together. My mom wouldn't be dying right now if she had just told me everything sooner.