The Mafia King's Controversial Bride

August 24th, 2012. New York.

Twelve-year-old Denyefa hovered over her dying mother, trying desperately to arrest the bleeding from her stomach. Her mother's blood stained the white tiles of the kitchen floor as the young girl's efforts seemed futile.

Tears flooded the young girl's face, mixed with sweat which glued stray strands of hair on her face. This might be the last time she saw her mother, and what a horrible sight it was. Just then, one of their attackers walked into the kitchen where Denyefa and her mother were. There was no time for them to hide. Denyefa quickly grabbed a knife and charged at the intruder. She was of a little frame and build, but had a ferocious and dogmatic spirit.

She rendered a couple of blows on her attacker who at first underestimated her. When she sent him reeling back, almost landing on the floor, he knew the girl wasn't just an ordinary twelve-year-old. They quickly got into a scuffle which earned the intruder a cut on his face.

Rosalie looked at her daughter fighting for life and regretted letting her get into this mess. There was a small dagger clasped on her knee pad underneath her dress. She tilted her body a little to get to the knife. An excruciating surge of pain sent a wave through her abdominal and pelvic area down to her legs and even her chest region. Tears trickled down her face as she finally laid hands on the blade.

The intruder had somehow managed to get hold of Denyefa and was pulling her away. Rosalie took her aim and with a swift move, she sent the dagger across the intruder's neck, slitting his throat. Denyefa gasped as the knife swished past, almost hitting her too. Blood gushed out of her attacker's neck and he dropped to the floor, dead.

Quickly, the young girl ran back to her mother who smiled weakly at her.

"Mother," Denyefa cried in a shaky voice.

"Mi amor, listen to me, run! Run away until you get to safety."

"No Mother! I need to save you."

Rosalie shook her head, feeling weaker by the second. Her vision was now blurry but she could make out the figure of their greatest nemesis, the mafia king. For some special reasons, he had chosen to prey on this particular family. Fear gripped Rosalie when he noticed them and she pushed the dagger into Denyefas hand. "Save yourself first! Now go, Denyefa! Run!"

Sensing the urgency in her mother's voice, the young girl stood up with the dagger and ran through the escape route in the kitchen. It was a canal dug through the floor by her father. Thinking of her father, where would he be? When the attack started he had asked Denyefa and her mother to meet him in the garage in five minutes while he went out to fight the intruders. More than twenty minutes had passed without any sign of him.

Denyefa crawled through the canal which triggered her claustrophobia. She hated small and tight spaces. The canal was dark too and it made matters even worse. She pushed away the slab covering the canal's exit and found herself in the garage.

"Dad?" She called, walking out of the canal. The garage door was pulled open and the car was outside. A sense of hope lightened the young girl's heart as she sneaked towards the car. Just beside the car, she stumbled over her father's frame on the ground with his back turned to her and she fought the urge to scream. She took some steps back in shock before kneeling beside him, scared to even call out his name. Tears stung in her throat and she found it difficult to breathe.

With trembling hands, she turned him over to reveal numerous bullet wounds on his chest and one on his head.

"Dad," she cried in a cracked voice. Someone had sighted her in the distance and was now walking towards her. Barely having time to recover from the shock, she quickly grabbed her father's gun and made way for the woods close to the house.

Her family had never lived in a completely urbanized area. It seemed to her like they had always been on the run and she used to wonder why. That day she got her answers in the most cruel way ever. Life handed her her share of lemons, overly toxic and excessive for her young age. What would a twelve-year-old do with such bitterness life had shown her?

The last thing her mother had told her was to run and that Denyefa did. She ran madly through the woods, hoping to get to old Sully's house before the attackers sought her out.

Two men appeared behind her from nowhere and she increased her pace, surprising herself at how fast she was running. Even with her newfound speed, these men caught up with her and dragged her back towards the house.

They tied her hands behind her back, blindfolded her, and put her in a dark van. So much treatment for a common twelve-year-old. Denyefa, despite her fear, felt a burning rage inside of her. She managed to grab her mother's dagger from underneath her night dress and used it to cut the ropes on her hands. Next, she removed her blindfold and tried to unlock the back of the van where she was imprisoned. It was useless trying to break through the lock so she kept still in a corner of the dark van. She put the ropes back over her hand and the cloth over her eyes, tearing holes through it which she could see through. Her heart raced and her body trembled with fear as she sat at a corner of the van, waiting for what they would do to her next.

When the van finally stopped, a guard came and hoisted her out of it. She jumped over him, pulling him to the floor of the van and slit his throat. It wasn't only her fighting skills that led to her successful kills but the fact that her attackers underestimated her. Their letdown was her secret weapon. Another guard came to her, this one was more prepared than the first. Maybe it was because he had heard the shout of the first guard who went in to get Denyefa.

He managed to get her out of the van although with some bruises and cuts on his skin. Denyefa was dragged roughly across the hard ground. It was a tough fight getting her to follow the guard, but he managed.

A man was sitting in front, outside a sprawling mansion with an exquisitely designed exterior. If one weren't careful they could mistake it for a family house only that this one was where these bandits lodged, planned their operations, kept their mercenaries, did their training and kept some of their victims which Denyefa was to become one. The house overall was dirtier on the inside.

The man sitting in front of the house was completely dressed in black. He had those piercing eyes that seemed to search one's soul and a carriage that screamed dominance. He wore a skull head ring on the forefinger of his right hand. It made him seem occultic. Denyefa was brought to kneel before the king but she stood up immediately and pointed her gun at the man.

The guard wanted to intervene but this man stopped him with a raise of his finger. After all the ordeal he had faced in his life, a little girl was the last person who could threaten him. He tilted his head a bit as he studied her. She did not even know how to use the gun properly.

"Who gave you a gun, little girl," the man asked in a surprisingly calm tone which almost threw Denyefa off balance. He was supposed to be agitated if not for any reason but the fact that she had a gun pointed at his head.

"I'm the one to ask the questions here. Why did you kill my parents?" Denyefa raged. "They did nothing wrong. They did not deserve to die. We always lived a peaceful life."

The man looked unaffected by her anger.

"Well, your parents are already dead, what can you do about it?"

This statement unlocked a new level of anger in Denyefa and she pulled the trigger. She continued pulling and pulling but there were no shots fired. She flung the gun at the man and charged at him with her mother's dagger. This time the guard caught her and held her in place.

The man stood up from his chair. He had an intimidating stature as he towered over Denyefa. He raised her chin to examine her face under the moonlight. She spat in his face and he looked away, wiping off her saliva from his eyes as he let out a low laugh.

"You are stubborn like your mother. Instead of worrying about the dead, we can use your energy for something better." He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. "Take her inside. Tomorrow, we'll send her to the big house."

As the guards dragged Denyefa away, all she could imagine was that this man was going to use her as his slave. Little did she know that he had bigger plans for her.