Chapter 1

• ARIA
• Selfish, negligent, irresponsible, reckless, are just a few out of the many words I could use to describe the man I call father, but I would save my anger for a later date. Right now, what is more important is dealing with the issue on ground.
• “You told me you were over that,” my mother wailed.
• “Well, I am, but I have to clear the pending debts. You didn’t think they would just disappear did you?” father says nonchalantly.
• My mum and dad are opposites. Mum is selfless and loving, especially when it involves her family. How she managed to fall in love and marry a man like my father is still something that baffles me till date.
• “Two hundred thousand dollars Harry! How the fuck did you manage to gamble such a large sum? What in hell were you thinking?” she screamed.
• “You most definitely wouldn’t be using that tone if the odds had been in my favor,” he says defensively.
• “That’s the problem Harry, the odds never favor you, yet you keep trying. There are a thousand and one things you could have done with that money rather than gamble it away…”
• I listened to the two of them argue non-stop, and I just feel bad for my mum mostly. She doesn’t deserve a man like Harold Edgar, she deserved better. Year in and year out I see her work her ass out to keep the family running while my father goes about pumping large sums into his dirty gambling games with hopes that someday he would ‘hit it big’, and those were his exact words.
• Many times, I wonder why my mum will not just leave his sorry ass. Now we are being threatened by the loan sharks. Can things get any worse?
• There is only so much I and my elder sister Audrey can contribute to the family considering Audrey has been saving up for college, and I earn little to nothing.
• We have lived in penury since I can remember, and it’s all thanks to the man I call father, who doesn’t feel remorse for what he’d just done. We are in this mess because of him. It was his mess, yet we had to somehow find a way to clean it up for him, and frankly speaking, there is absolutely no way we would raise two hundred grand in three weeks.
• We have sold out almost everything we had. The dining set, sound system, washer, and many other things had been auctioned to pay off dad’s previous debts, and even the wall where the TV used to hang now housed an old-fashioned wall clock that only told the time correctly twice a day. The seats in the living room were worn out and tattered, the drapes were faded from years of washing. Nothing about this place can be described as beautiful.
• Audrey tapped her foot on the ground noisily, a sign that she too was irritated, but neither mum nor dad noticed in their heated argument. I notice the lines of worry on her face, and I am sure her thoughts were similar to mine. Audrey is dad’s favorite and she looks just like him while I take after mom. She has his dark curly hair, baby blue eyes and stands at six feet tall, while I take mum’s blonde hair and hazel eyes, and I’m a good six inches shorter than Audrey.
• A sharp knock on the door caused all of us to turn sharply in its direction. The knock sounded a second time, but more impatient.
• “Open up Harry boy, we know you are in there,” a deep voice resounded from the other end of the door, and I feel my heart jump to my mouth. My mom’s eyes widened in horror and Audrey jumped off her seat. My dad is obviously confused, his eyes keep darting from the door to the window, as if thinking of a way of escape.
• “Okay now, I’m coming in,” The voice says, angrily shaking the door knob, and then we hear a loud bang. He was going to kick the door in. One. Two. Three. The door gave way and mum rushes to hug me and Audrey. She is shaking all over, just like me and Audrey.
• Three hefty men pushed their way in. One of them grabbed my dad’s shirt while the second lunged a hard blow into his ribs. My mum screams “Please stop,” tears spilling out of her eyes.
• Our small living room could barely contain all three of them. The shortest of them would be at least six feet and four inches. They looked scary, and very intimidating. Facial hairs that had not been shaved for many months made them look really rough, with tattoos all over their very muscular arms.
• The third man made eye contact with me, he had to be their leader. While my mum and Audrey were wailing as the men continue to throw punches at my father, I didn’t make a sound, but rather stared at them with contempt.
• Their leader is holding a small knife in his left hand and when he starts to walk towards us, my mum shields us behind her. He raised his hands to stop his men from hitting dad, who already had blood running down his nose.
• Their boss reached behind mum to pull me out. I winced at how hard his fingers felt against my skin, but I don’t let him see just how scared I am.
• “Feisty huh?” he smirked.
• “Please, not my daughter,” my mum shrieked “Leave her alone. We will get you your money, I promise,” she wailed.
• “When?” he thunders, still holding me tightly by my arms. I try to wriggle my arms free, but you can guess how that went. I was only succeeding in hurting myself and making him even angrier.
• “Plea...se, ju..st give us time,” mum stutters, hot tears running down her cheeks.
• “Time?” he thunders “Did you just say time? Do I look like a clown to you?” spittle flies from his mouth as he screams at my mum, and at this point, I wish I had superpowers, because only if I possessed that would I be able to overpower these men.
• He turns back to my father and I watched in horror as his knife went flying in father’s direction, only slightly missing his left ear to hit the wall behind him. One slight movement from my father, and that would have been it.
• “I wouldn’t miss a second time,” he warned before letting me go roughly. He picks up the knife again, then grabs my father and hauled him roughly to the floor, placing his left knee on his back with my father’s arms splurged on the hard floor. He drives his knife into my dad’s pinky finger, and father screamed with pain as blood popped from his hands to the already dirty center rug.
• “No..” mum rushes to him, but another man grabs her from behind.
• “You monster, what have you done?” she screeched.
• The boss hissed, then picked up my father’s finger, wrapped it in a little handkerchief, and inserted it into his pockets.
• “I’ll just keep that as a souvenir,” he flashed his rotten teeth, tapping his pockets. “Or maybe I can keep two…” he points the knife at my father’s ring finger.
• “Stop, stop, stop, I have some money,” Audrey screamed. The three men turn to her.
• “Now that’s what I wanna hear,” the boss says in a cocky voice before rising to his feet. Audrey dashed to our room and returns in a flash with her piggy bank. I closed my eyes in pain as I watched her hand it over to the man with shaky hands. Audrey has had that piggy bank since she was a child! And she has been saving up for college since I can remember. Now she was just going to give it all away.
• The man scratched his beards before snatching the piggybank out of Audrey’s arms.
• “How much is in there?” he asks.
• “I’m not sure, maybe ten thousand,” she says.
• The three men start to laugh “Ten grand?” The boss clutched his stomach and laughed even harder.
• “So, what happens to my balance?” he quirks a brow.
• “We’ll raise your money, but please spare my father,” Audrey cries.
• The boss turns to me again, then walks towards me, his eyes sizing me from head to toe. “I like this one,” he declares “I want all that feistiness in my bedroom,”
• I gulped down the bile forming in my throat and scrunched my nose as the smell of cigarette and alcohol in his breath made my stomach churn. I would like to spit in his face, but I’m fully aware of the implications of that.
• He winks at me before making for the door “Three weeks, or you are a dead man Harry boy,” He huffed, whistling to his thugs who followed behind him, carrying my sister’s life savings with them.
• My mum and Audrey rushes to where my dad is laying on the floor, and mum pulls him to hug him to her chest, crying profusely, but my own tears wouldn’t form. I just know I have to think of a way to get us out of this mess.