Abandoned to the Mafia, I Rose as the Don’s Most Trusted Lawyer Chapter 07
At the university’s freshman convocation, I took the stage as the youngest student representative.
Marcus, Noah, and George were all in the audience.
The three of them wore well–fitted suits, and their hair had been carefully styled.
Anyone who had never seen them before might have mistaken them for ordinary corporate executives.
I had no idea how my parents found out about the ceremony.
Halfway through, they suddenly rushed toward the stage, crying and shouting.
Marcus stepped forward and blocked them immediately.
George and Noah moved in from either side and stopped them in the aisle.
“No one is ruining Erin’s ceremony today.”
By the time I finished my speech and stepped off the stage, my parents were being held to one side.
“Erin!”
Mom tore herself free from George and lunged toward me.
“I’m your mother. I’ve thought about you every day for the past three years. I finally found you.”
I took a step back and looked at her calmly.
She clearly hadn’t been doing well.
Her hair had started turning gray, and deep lines had formed around her eyes.
Only her gaze remained unchanged.
She looked emotional, but beneath it, she was calculating what she could get from me. The disgust in her eyes had never disappeared.
“Erin, please save your father. He owes a lot of money. Those people said they were going to break his hands.”
I turned toward Dad.
His eyes held the same calculation and disgust as hers.
“Erin, I know I was wrong. You’re capable now. Help me take care of the debt.”
I couldn’t understand how they could say any of this as though it were perfectly natural.
“So?”
I took a step closer.
“What exactly do you think a fifteen–year–old can do?
Do you want to sell me again to pay off another gambling debt?”
Dad’s face twisted with anger.
He raised his hand to hit me, but Claire suddenly rushed forward and grabbed his arm.
“Dad, don’t be angry with Erin.”
Claire turned to me.
The first emotion in her eyes was unmistakable jealousy.
A second later, she buried it beneath a carefully rehearsed look of hurt.
“Erin, no matter what happened, he’s still your father. How can you humiliate him in front of all these people?”
Looking at the three of them standing together, I found the whole scene grotesquely absurd.
When they abandoned me, they had insisted over and over that I wasn’t part of their family.
Now that they had discovered I was useful, they were desperate to claim me as their daughter again.
I glanced at Marcus. He understood immediately, stepped between us, and let me walk away without another word.
After the ceremony, Marcus reserved a private dining room at a restaurant.
The moment I opened the door, Noah fired a party popper.
“Congratulations! Our little lawyer is officially a college student!”
Confetti showered over my hair and shoulders.
George laughed beside him.
“I told you from the beginning. Erin is a genius.”
Only three years had passed.
But more had changed in those three years than in the
first twelve years of my life combined.
Halfway through dinner, Marcus picked up his phone, his face suddenly darkening.
“They’ll do anything to get their hands on money.”
He turned the screen toward me.
On the livestream, my parents and Claire were sitting before the camera, sobbing as they accused me of abandoning them.