My Crown

Prologue

"I never wanted this life for you, baby. I'm so sorry." She broke down in tears in front of me.

"It's okay, mama. I don't mind." A lie. I hate it. I am exhausted and starving, but right now I have to tend to my mother's injuries.
"Keep your head down, mija. They won't hurt you if you do." She croaks out, despair in her eyes.

It won't help. These men are savages. My mother has tried to protect me from the cruelty of this world but that's hard to do when we are mafia property. I have seen things no eight-year-old ever should. But this is my life, telling mama would only hurt her more.

"We'll get out one day." She promises as the tears sting her cut cheek. She knows she's lying. The only way out is death. The Morelli's are not known for their compassion or kindness.

I look at my mother, her long black hair is bloody and her eyes are sunken and bloodshot. Her face has been badly beaten; you can't even tell her original complexion. This is not fair.

Mama is a good woman. Her father owed the wrong men too much money so they took his only daughter from him. She was only sixteen then. A beautiful Colombian girl with a bright smile and the world at her feet. Aunty Shakira loves to tell the story. Mama was perfection.

But nothing good survives here. She was hired as a cleaner which is the lowest of jobs. Still, she persevered. She worked harder than anyone else with a smile on her face. Until the men took notice of her.

Twelve years later and here we are. We don't know who my father is, too many men took her to know. She has been used and abused for over a decade. There's nothing left of that smiling beauty. The woman in front of me is broken beyond measure. This is what men do.

I could hear them last night. They came into our room. Mama hides me in the closet when she hears them coming. She used to scream and cry but now she has given up. She doesn't want me to hear it. Instead, I hear their grunts and their laughter. The disgusting things they say about her. I hear their fists connect with her beautiful skin, her quiet whimpers. Her bones breaking.

The other women sit quietly in the corner. They can't do or say anything about it without meeting a worse fate. Mama is their favourite so they leave the others alone and they pretend it doesn't happen. What else can they do? There're no heroes in our world, only survivors.

Today I had to do my work and hers. The mean woman doesn't care the men left her half dead, if mama doesn't work then she is no longer of use. I've seen what they do to women no longer of use. I can't let that happen to mama. She is all I have. Broken as she is.

"Don't let them break you, mija. Always fix your crown..." she slips into unconsciousness before she finishes.
What crown mama? What crown?