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My empire is my cover, funding the real work.
I have an entire secure room in my penthouse, which looks like something out of an episode ofCSIor some crime documentary. I covered the walls with images of mafia families from the United States and other parts of the world.
Which mafia is the question I ask myself every day.
I was nine when the men turned up at our house, storming it with machine guns.
My father was helping me with the setup of my train set when we heard the cars. His face paled, and he screamed for my mother. She came running into the room.
“Get Rebecca,” he yelled, referring to my sister, who was three.
Then he grabbed me and tore open the door under the stairs, held my face, and said, “Stay silent, no matter what you see. Do you understand?”
I nodded, my heart pounding.
“Don’t cry. Don’t let them find you. And never tell anyone who you are, son. Run! Run when it’s safe and find Detective Scott. Give him this, and he will work out the rest.”
Then he ripped a chain off his neck. On it hung a key. He put it over my head, tucked it under my sweater, and said, “I love you, Connor.”
Seconds before the door burst open, he shut me inside.
Then my world collapsed.
Through an air vent, I heard and saw them grab my father, pull my mother and sister from downstairs, Rebecca crying, and then smash them with the butts of their guns.
My mother fell to the floor, blood pouring from her head. My sister, tumbling from her arms. My father, screaming.
It took everything I had in me to follow my father’s instructions. Tears fell down my cheeks, and my fists clenched, anger and terror filling every cell in my body.
I knew then I could be next.
Iwouldbe next if they heard me, or if I had stepped out of that room. All I had left was the key, cold on my chest, reminding me of my father’s orders.
“Carlos. I have them,” a man with an accent said. He waved a brown folder. “Let’s go.”
Carlos nodded at the other man, who I couldn’t see, only hear, and lifted his gun. “You traitor, Beaufort. You piece of fucking shit.”
“You cannot kill me, Carlos,” my father said from his knees. “Leave. You shouldn’t be here. You know that.”
“Fuck you,” he had said, then swiveled the gun and shot my mother in the head.
Rebecca screamed. My father roared, drowning out my gut-wrenching muffled cry as my hand slapped over my mouth. I had nearly vomited.
“You will die for this, Carlos,” my father said, reaching for my mother. But he never got to her.
Carlos turned the gun at him and sprayed dozens of bullets at his body.
By then, I was numb from shock.
Rebecca, three years old, sat on her bottom, crying, terrorized and alone. My hand was on the door handle, ready to fly out and save her.
“Leave the girl,” a man nearby said. “She’s innocent.”
I watched Carlos look around, grunting something out, then slowly, he spotted something.
“Where’s the boy?” Carlos asked, picking up the framed photo on the cabinet in the hallway and poking the glass. “He could be in the house. Find him. He’s old enough to talk.”
Rebecca continued screaming as the men took off to search for me. I pressed myself far into the corner of the cupboard, shaking and in terror as another shot suddenly sounded out.
