"H-hold up a minute." I stutter, holding the sides of my head in my hands tight, a death grip between my fingers and the roots of my hair. 

My life is a top, spiraling out of control in an unpredictable pattern. 

"Look, I know it's a lot to take in-"

"Ya think?!" I snap, widen my eyes at him an no doubt looking absolutely insane. "I literally just moved to this fucked up town and I'm already the subject of a hit, trying to find my kidnapped mom, and stuck with a psychopathic mafia next door! So please, if you have a suggestion on how to make this 'easier' to take in, please, feel free to share." 

My chest is heaving and all my anger has boiled over. I've never dealt with confusion well, and this sort of messed up situation will not end well. 

"You need to sit down and listen to me." Luka's voice is too calm, too smooth. As if he deals with this kind of thing everyday. Maybe he does. 

I huff, crossing my arms over my chest and refusing to settle down, just because he asked me too. Confusion also turns me into a brat, as I've been told many times by West. 

Luka sighs, standing up and walking across the room to me. I follow him with my eyes, my body frozen. 

He's in front of me, his hands resting on my shoulders. 

"Sit." He snaps, pushing me down so my butt lands on the old couch. 

I humph, and turn my head so I don't have to look at him. 

I don't hear him speak for a few minutes, so I blow my damn hair away from my face and turn to face him. He's sitting on a chair, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, rocking slightly back and forth. 

"You need to tell me everything, from start to finish." I mutter quietly, he doesn't respond. But I know he heard me, as he sighs with a hot exhalation of breath. 

"I don't know everything," He mumbles into his hands. "But I can tell you what I do know."

I hold back a snarky retort. 

"Don't interrupt me as I speak." 

He sounds like a bossy father, but I sit still, while every part of me wants to scream at him for speaking to me like that. 

He clears his throat, driving a hand through his damp hair roughly. 

"My brother's name is Marcelo Cruz Vincenzo. Most in our family call him Marcel."

"What is this, a dating profile?" I snip, then clap a hand over my mouth. I really need to buy a filter. 

"Carajo, gringita, cayate." 

"Don't call me a coyote." I snap, crossing my arms over my chest. 

He looks up from his hands, his eyes squinted in the most judgmental look I've ever seen. If I wasn't so pissed with him I would be proud of such a bitch glare. 

"As I was saying," He continues after a deep breath, "Marcel is several years older than me, and only related through my father. That's how he has the ties to DQ. If it was on my mother's, my father wouldn't care." 

And I thought I had daddy issues. 

"My father hates all of his children, he probably doesn't even know how many he has. But Marcel was the first he took a liking to. He was...different. As a child he would pull heads off of stuffed animals and pretend to torture his toy soldiers. My father did little to censor Marcel's environment, and my grandmother believed he was possessed. He basically grew up on booze and bullets. He was my father's pride and joy. Then I came along and he tried to make me just like Marcel, but I wouldn't fully give in. He hates me."

Luka's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard. My heart breaks a tiny bit for him. 

"I was insignificant, and Marcel was his star. So when your father became involved, Marcel took a liking to him, so did my father. They knew everything about each other, which was dangerous. I remember staying up all night listening against the wall, and they would talk about women and murder. That's how we knew about you and your mother." 

Of course, my father will do anything to be liked by the worst of people, he stepped on everyone he could to get to the gutter. 

"It was only a matter of time before one betrayed the other. Your father snitched on Marcel to save his own skin, and, to stop my father from killing him, West told him the location of you and your mother." 

Bile begins to rise in my throat and I struggle to choke it down. My father gave us up for slaughter. I shouldn't be surprised, I always knew he never loved us. But his cowardice, the fact that he wasn't even human enough to spare his family...

"Katya." 

I snap out of my daze and Luka's eyes are on mine, his set in stone and mine rimming with shameful tears. 

"Eventually the fact that your father is dirt won't hurt you anymore." Luka whispers, and I know it was supposed to be comforting, but it digs into my bones. 

"Marcel had my father take your mother somewhere, but not to kill her. Not yet. But he needed something else. Something to cut deep into your father and into me as well. You." 

I shiver, raising a hand to rub against my arm. 

"I don't understand. If my father would give up our location so easily, why would he care if I was killed?" 

Luka rubs a hand on the back of his neck, a slight blush rising on his tan cheeks. 

"You were my father's only link back into DQ." 

"But how? It wasn't like I was going to join." 

Luka winces slightly, dragging air into his mouth through gritted teeth. 

"Luka, just tell me." I push. 

"He wanted to make an offer. You would be sold to Marcel, in return for my father's respect and new loyalty." 

I blink once. Twice. Three million times.

"What?!" I shriek, rising to my feet in a flash. "This isn't 1900! I can't be sold to anyone!" I am full on tantrum right now. Or I would be, if Luka wasn't quickly grabbing me by the sides of my face. 

"You need to stay calm, Katya. Everything that I'm saying is true. But you need to know it. You are not safe. But as long as Marcel nor my father has you, your mother will be safe." 

My mind is racing a mile a minute and I feel like I'm in a dream. 

"What the hell am I going to do?" I whisper. 

Luka grins, an evil, mischievous grin. 

"We're going to get your mother back, and get Marcel out of the way." 

I'm going to try and update more often, because I'm finally getting into the groove of this story :)

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