I sat in my room staring outside the huge window with my head resting on the wall. I can't do anything. Last night when I tried to escape Rafael caught me and now 24 hours there is watch on me. I am not even allowed to leave this room.

There was a knock on the door I looked at the entrance to find Connor entering.

Getting up from the window side I directly went to him and landed a hard slap on his right cheek.

I was not just mad at him, I was fuming.

He betrayed me. Not only that he fooled me pretending like he didn't know Rafael.

He stood rooted at his place with jaw clenched "I did deserve that."

"I want to slap the shit out of you right now."

He smiled "I am here to tell you something."

"I am not interested. If you want to give an explanation as to why you used me then please leave."

"I never wanted to hurt you, it just had to be done."

"Of course it had to be done for your Vincent, right?"

"Haze, listen to me. You are not thinking straight."

I scoffed "You really expect me to think straight at this point? My husband turns out to be a mafia leader who has been trying to kill me, my so-called friend is also in the mafia doing the same job as my husband and my Uncle was killed in front of my eyes that too by my husband. After all this you still expect me to think straight?"

He remained silent for a moment then spoke "We aren't trying to kill you."

"Oh really? What do you take me as? A fool?" I snapped.

I continued "The attack in the mall was to be friends with me? Then again an attack at my event was to win my trust. Not just that, you all even went to the extent of stabbing me."

"It wasn't us."

I rolled my eyes "I can't believe you are still lying to me."

"The one who stabbed you wasn't us, Haze. We would never kill you."

"Then who was the one who stabbed me if it wasn't you?"

"Your brother doesn't have one enemy, the thing we are associated with we have plenty. It was one of them who tried to kill you to make your brother weak. The attacks were so that we can get close to you, all the time you were safe. The men were instructed properly, no one would've harmed you."

"You wanted to scare me?"

He sighed then replied "As I said we did it to get close to you, to win your trust. But when you got scared and fell sick, Vincent said we should stop."

I scoffed "And why the hell would Vincent be so kind to me?"

"Haze, he doesn't want to hurt you. He instantly changed the whole plan for you."

"Should I be thankful to Vincent?"

"There are few things about Simon, you don't know. Actually many things."

"I don't want to know, not from you all atleast. I trust him."

"I'll tell you then you can decide who to trust."

I was about to deny again but there was another knock on the door, we looked at the door Rafael entered the room, he looked at me first then at Connor.

"I was searching for you." He said to Connor.

Folding my arms over my chest I looked away from him, I could feel his gaze on me.

"You want something?" His voice came and this time the question was for me.

"Yeah I want to go home please. My home." I replied emphasising on the word 'my home'.

"You very well know I can't do that."

"Then stop asking me stupid questions."

Ha! Take that.

Bitch mode on.

He sighed then looked back at Connor "I have to discuss something."

Before Connor could reply I said "We were in the middle of a conversation which you interrupted, so I guess he can't come with you."

"Haze." Connor tried to stop me but I glared at him making him stop.

Remember bitch mode on.

This time he seemed angry "Connor leave us for a moment."

Connor was about to leave but I held his hand "We need to talk Connor."

He nodded "I'll be outside, first talk to him."

With that he left the room closing the door.

"Stop talking to me like that Hazel." He said finally.

"Like what? Like the way you deserve?"

He was making his way towards me but I flinched stepping back.

Maybe I am acting strong in front of him but I am scared. I am scared of him. After the way he killed Uncle in front of me, I am afraid that he would hurt me too.

He instantly stopped seeing me scared.

"I am not gonna hurt you." He said but I remained at a distance away from him.

"You don't trust me anymore." It wasn't a question he knew I don't.

"P-Please send Connor inside, I-I need to talk to him." I stuttered not looking at him.

He scoffed "You can let him get close to you but you are scared of me?"

I remained quiet.

I need Connor to tell me the truth, to tell me why are you doing this? Why are you killing my family?

I saw his hand turn into a fist but he didn't say anything else, he just left the room. As soon as he left, Connor entered the room completely shocked "What did you say to him? He looked damn pissed."

"Who is Olivia?" I asked directly.

"Okay back to that, so the thing is Olivia and Vincent's love story was a set-up. Olivia is just a member of our gang, Vincent needed to show Simon some memories of them together, you can understand, so he chose her. There was no past where Olivia died, it was just one of Simon's men whom we killed and since the plan of fooling Simon was already there, Olivia's death was set-up by Vincent. We have our men in the police department they took care of the rest."

"She is alive?"

"Of course she is. Every information Simon got till now was already planned out by Vincent. Simon had cameras fixed in Vincent's office, since the day your Uncle came with the proposal of him marrying you, Simon doesn't trust anyone not even his best friend. All the time he had eyes on Vincent. So we had no choice than to mis lead him giving him wrong informations about what Vincent's gonna do next."

Okay so from the very starting Rafael was just fooling everyone.

"You all are doing wrong Connor. This whole thing is completely wrong. Stop killing people and stop Rafael, he's dangerous."

"Wrong? We are wrong? Are you out of your mind? Haze I thought you were nice but you too are talking on behalf of those horrible shits."

"You guys killed our Mom-Dad and you are blaming everything on him? Your leader destroyed our family and Simon took the revenge by killing him. You deserved that."

He scoffed "Bullshit! Who told you this?"

"I trust Simon, Connor."

"Of course he fed this shit inside your head. You want to know the truth I'll tell you. Your brother is a motherfucking coward."

"Shut up Connor. I don't want to hear anything." I almost yelled at him.

I was about to head back to the window side when he spoke again "That means you don't love Vincent enough to trust him?"

I stopped and turned back to him.

He is really asking me questions about my love for Rafael, when it's Rafael who betrayed me? And trust Rafael? I trusted Rafael more than my own brother.

"After what he did, I don't have even the slightest faith in him."

"Every story has two sides Haze but Simon told you a lie in this story I'll tell you Vincent's side of the story and the truth." Sliding his hands in the trousers pockets he said "Have a seat."

All I wanted now was to punch him, I remained on my place not moving an inch.

He chuckled "You are really tough to handle. Anyways I'll tell you everything. I have known Vincent since childhood, my father used to work for his father. Then I grew up and started working for Vincent. He was perfect in everything but the thing he wanted to try was something really different from others so he chose brass knuckles and knife for himself and it came out to be a deadly combo Vincent and those brass knuckles and knife."

"If Vincent was with you in a mission no one could ever touch you, he would protect you with his everything. But our leader that is Vincent's father, Antonio Salvatore didn't want him to be a part of this mafia thing so he asked him to go somewhere else to complete his studies and lead a life out of this killing. No one could say 'no' to the leader even Vincent. Vincent worked in the mafia for like 4 years then he left for Italy. At that time, he was 20. He didn't want to leave because there were some serious issues between your Dad and our leader. But he was forced to go."

"What kind of issues?" He didn't reply but looked away from me "Answer me Connor what kind of issues?"

"Your Dad in fact all of them who worked for your family dealt with all illegal businesses. The drugs thing was fine but they sold girls, young girls forced them, raped them Simon included. We didn't want a fight with them so we stayed away from their business but Simon and your Dad did something for which our leader had to kill your Dad. He kidnapped Vincent's sister and tried to sell her to some other country as a sex slave. How could anyone take that? He had to kill your father, Simon wasn't at home that time."

No. Dad can't do that.

Simon can't do that.

Connor is lying, he is definitely lying.

"Your Mom wasn't involved in anything she was innocent so our leader didn't kill him."

He is definitely lying. Mom was found dead with Dad.

Don't believe him Haze.

Don't.

Fucking liar.

"Simon did." He completed.

At that moment my heart almost stopped. I froze at my place completely.

"W-What?"

"He ordered. Your Uncle killed her and blamed everything on us."

"Y-You're l-lying. Why would Simon do that?" My voice was breaking.

"You got an asshole of a bother Haze, he thought your mother didn't save your Dad intentionally so she too deserves to be dead. He didn't want mercy from his enemies."

Why does it make sense whatever he is saying? I never saw them killing my Mom, all I saw was them shooting Dad and after that I fainted. Was it because they never killed Mom?

He scoffed "But we too had few people who betrayed us. A guy named Alberto Romano, our security chief helped Simon to get in our mansion, I was out dealing some business, but the place was far from the city. H-He locked all the entrances after entering our mansion then called Vincent to hear the cries of his family while he tortured each one. He tied our leader and my father, while killed other men. His men took turns on Vincent's sister, Simon included while Vincent was on the call. He wanted him to hear her screams while t-they." He stopped, he couldn't complete the sentence.

"Vincent begged him to let go of her but he didn't he laughed hearing her cries. He blamed her for your Dad's death. Vincent was helplessly listening to her cries, he couldn't do anything from Italy could he? But he did asked me to reach the mansion as fast as I could. But before I could reach and save them everything was already destroyed. Simon killed evryone our leader, Vincent's sister, my D-Dad. My Dad was still alive when I reached but before I could take him for treatment he died. He told me about Simon, that's it."

"He left Mrs. Salvatore alive because he knew he had already broken her from inside and now she was just a lifeless body."

My mind doesn't want to believe in it but my heart says that he is not lying. Every word Connor said was the truth.

"I am sorry Haze but this is your family." I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks.

"To get Simon out of his hiding Vincent had to set up everything. He became friends with Simon because nobody has seen Vincent, he went to all his missions disguised. Vincent became friends with Simon, if he wanted he would've killed him the very first day they met but it wouldn't have caused Simon the pain Vincent went through, death would've been too easy. And to get him out of his hiding again Vincent had to marry you. He will kill all his men and in the end Simon would be all alone."

"Vincent loves you Haze. He loves you a lot that's the reason when he got to know about the scar on your body he went crazy and asked all our men who did it but it wasn't anyone of us it was someone else, Simon has a lot of enemies. At first he hated you because you were Simon's sister but after knowing you even, I couldn't hate you." Coming closer to me he patted my shoulder "He needs you. If you go away from him, he'll again become heartless."

"I've told you Vincent's part of the story, you can decide yourself whom do you wanna trust."

I was still in shock but with my shaky voice I asked "W-What about Dad? Who is he then? Antonio Salvatore was Rafael's Dad, and he is dead. Is Dad a part of this set up too?"

Connor shook his head "No. He never knew anything about the plan."

"So, the thing is he is our leader's brother. He never liked the mafia thing so he left New York and moved to Italy, Vincent went to Italy for his studies and stayed with him but after Antonio Salvatore's death, he calls him Dad. Vincent was ready to take revenge on Simon but he stopped Vincent asking him to stay away from this mafia life. But Vincent was born for this life, mafia is everything to him and after our leader's death it was Vincent, the next leader. Uncle has heart problems so Vincent decided to do everything without him knowing, he doesn't even know Simon's name."

"That's it Haze. This is our whole story and why we are here."

I stumbled back, trying to control myself but how can I after knowing how pathetic my brother is?

"I'll leave now." Saying that Connor left the room.

However hard I try to calm myself saying every word Connor said was a lie but something doesn't allow me to believe Simon. I know he is my brother and I should trust him more than Connor but I am just not able to trust him.

Why is everything so fucked up?