Saving my broken Girl

I was the daughter of a powerful Mafia Capo, but behind the grand estate doors, my parents treated me like a defective asset.

My only comfort in this brutal world was a stray kitten named Tangerine.

When my mother found out, she threw my kitten into a dumpster, and my father whipped my back with a heavy metal belt buckle for daring to shed a tear.

I fled to the Syndicate Academy for sanctuary, only to find everyone staring at me in terror.

My mother had weaponized our family's power.

She broadcasted forged medical documents to the entire underworld, diagnosing me with severe schizophrenia and violent delusions.

"She is completely detached from reality," my mother lied to the public.

No one believed my bloody wounds, and the Academy ordered me to be sent back to my abusers to be locked away forever.

I wasn't sick, I was just terrified of them.

Why did a system built on "honor" protect monsters who gaslit their own blood and called it discipline?

Stripped of all hope, I threw myself off the roof of the Academy to escape them.

But my story didn't end when my broken body hit the cold cobblestones.

Floating above my own corpse, I watched Dante, the most ruthless boss in the Syndicate, pick up my fractured phone.

He uncovered the truth, rescued my surviving kitten, and turned his lethal gaze toward my parents.

"I will protect your truth, even if I have to burn this whole city to the ground."

Chapter 1

Anya POV

The veal bled into the porcelain.

My mother had ordered the meat prepared al sangue—barely seared—and the juices, thin and pink, seeped across the white plate like a slow bruise. I watched a single drop slide down the rim and pool against the gold filigree. The sight made my stomach clench, a tight fist of nausea pressing up under my ribs.

My hidden phone vibrated. The buzz traveled through my thigh and up into my chest, a second heartbeat.

I slipped my hand into the pocket of my dress, thumb sliding across the cracked screen. One message. A kitchen boy from our estate, the only servant who still slipped me scraps for the kitten when no one was watching.

Your mother found the orange kitten. I heard her order the guards to dispose of it in a dumpster inside rival territory. I'm so sorry, miss. Run, or you will lose the only thing you love.

My breath stopped.

Not slowed. Stopped. The air locked in my throat, trapped there like a bird with broken wings. The red fluid on the plate blurred and doubled. I stared at it, unblinking, and behind my eyes I saw orange fur, small paws, a round belly that purred against my chest in the dark.

Tangerine.

The fork in my hand rattled against the porcelain rim. Sharp. Brittle. The sound cut through the dining hall like a bone snapping. My fingers convulsed around the silver handle, knuckles straining white. I could feel the tendons in my wrist pulling tight, the ache spreading up into my forearm.

Above us, the patriarch's portrait stared down from its gilded frame. Painted eyes, hollow and black, fixed on my straining fingers. He had built this Syndicate on blood and fear. His descendants had perfected it.

No one spoke.

The silence wasn't empty. It was a living thing—thick, cold, pressing in from all sides. It settled on my shoulders like a weighted coat. I could feel it in my eardrums, a low pressure that made every small sound too loud: the clink of silver against china, the wet shift of my mother's tongue against her teeth.

Camilla slammed down her wine glass.

The crystal base cracked. A hairline fracture snaked up the stem, and a bead of deep red Cabernet slid down the side like blood from a wound.

"Stop that trembling." Her voice sliced through the silence. She didn't look at my face—she looked at my shaking fingers, her upper lip curling back from her teeth. "You pathetic stray. Your depression. Your anxiety." She spat the words like they tasted foul. "Fabricated diseases. Weakness. You bring shame to this bloodline before our honored guest."

I didn't look at the guest. I don't remember who it was. Some associate. Some uncle. It didn't matter. They were all the same.

My legs pushed against the floor. The chair groaned, oak against polish, and the sound echoed through the cavernous hall like a warning.

"I need to go." My voice came out wrong—scraped raw, barely a whisper. Every word burned in my throat.