(1922)
Florence, Italy

After the assassination of Don Salvatore Verratti, Megara knew that she would be the next one to be swimming with the fishes, had she not run off from her home. She had feared this day would come, and she had seen the dirty looks her uncle Vincent had been sending to her father. Megara was still young, and she was not fully aware of the danger surrounding her, on that very awful night, so she ran back inside and tried to take her sister with her.

Her father had made sure to teach her the basic skills of survival, influence, power, and to always let people underestimate you. Don Salvatore just had not taken his time to let his daughter know, how she would survive without her family.

Megara mindlessly sneaked into her sister’s room and grabbed her gently from her bed and held her close to herself. She feared she would wake her and that she would start crying and getting the attention from the murderers in her home, and with a frantic look down on her, after a moment of silence, she let out a sigh of relief and began on the journey that would take them to safety.

The piercing sound of a gunshot down the hallway made her stop in her tracks. Her heart was pumping in all its glory and her ears kept ringing even longer after that. She stood still, almost glued to the ground and the only thing that brought her back to the reality was the screaming of her sister. Frantically she covered her mouth with her hand and started calming her down by rocking her from side to side and humming quietly into her ear. If someone had been there to see the episode, they could not have been sure whether she was trying to her sister, or if she was trying to calm herself, and if someone had asked her about it now, Megara would not have been able to answer the question. Every nerve in her body, was telling her to just give up, every time she took a step, she felt like all she even wanted to do was to go and throw herself into her bed and to just forget about the world, but her being her, made her react in the situation the way she did. Some would say she reacted the wrong way, acted the wrong way, some would say that she did the right thing, but Megara did not care what was right or what was wrong. All she cared about was the person in her arms, and how she would not live on with the guilt on her conscience, if she had not done what she had done that day. 

“Shhh, mi amore, shhh.”

Megara kept rocking her back and forth, but she would not stop crying, and she did everything there was to do, everything that her mother had done to her when she was the little one. Megara’s arms started aching a bit, holding the weight of her sister, now she was not calling her sister fat, but she definitely had a lot of strong muscle. She kissed her forehead and bent down to place her forehead against hers, and kept her close to her, while she quietly began humming the melody to fa la ninna. In any other situation she would have sung as well, but her fear went all the way down the throat and made her choke on her own words.

Megara whimpered while holding Marissa in her arms, she was scared and close to crying and giving up. Megara decided it was time to move on, but she was not sure how to. Their home would be overcrowded with people now and she was not sure who of those she could actually trust. Marissa’s eyes slowly opened up and she seemed to be a little shocked of the situation, but the pleadings of her older sister for her to shut up worked, and she was now dead silent.

They held a long eye contact, people would have said they seemed to communicate by mind, but all Megara did was sending a weak smile and whispering that it would be okay. Marissa was awake now, so Megara quietly sat her on the ground to go check for their escape route. She looked out the window and watched as every light in their neighboring homes turned on, on shift, to figure out where all the noise was coming from.

Megara slowly opened up the window to see if it would be too long for her to jump, and she felt a lump in her throat by the thought of having to jump with her sister. Shaking her head to herself, Megara closed the window again, picked up her sister and had to go the rough way. Through the house.

She stood in front of the door for a few moments and pressed her ear against the cold wood, listening to any sounds coming their direction and she held her breath while slowly tugging down the handle. This door was especially known for its creaking, but fortunately Megara knew exactly how to open it up, without making too much sound. The hallway was dark and empty, but she heard some noises from another room, and hear heart sunk down when realizing that it was her own room, and that they were probably only in there for a single job. To get her killed.

Megara paid it no more mind, she hurried down the hallway and down the stairs, checking every corner on the way. She had to let Marissa walk on her own for a bit, but Megara did not let go of the little one’s hand for even a slight moment. The light in the kitchen was on, and Megara stopped dead in her tracks. The door was close by, but she had to find out who the voices speaking where. Marissa was almost running out, right in front of them, but a hard pull from her bigger sister got her pulled back, out of sight.

Megara hugged her sister, silently assuring her it would be alright. She gently picked her up, while moving a step closer to the kitchen. The sound of a loud crash made every hair on her body rise and she murmured into her sister’s ear.

“Mari, shh, non aver paura.”

Her sister nodded her head but seemed to notice that Megara was quite out of it. She placed her tiny hand on her bigger sister’s cheek and looked into her eyes, while sending her a huge smile. Megara envied the power and calmness that possessed the 4-year-old girl in her arms and she quickly kissed the girl’s cheek.

The crashing from the kitchen made her heart drop even lower and suddenly she started to hear yelling. The voice of her uncle stood through significantly and all her nerves in her body started raging while listening to him put out the reasonings for killing her father. 

“Meggy, andiamo!”

Marissa pointed towards the door and kept trying to get down from her sister grib, but Megara only held tighter around her. She sent her a stern look and made her shut up, but when the shouting from the kitchen stopped, she feared her uncle would be coming out in matter of seconds.
Megara no longer cared of the fear of getting caught, she knew she had to be fast, and to be fast she had to run. She pulled the front door open just as the kitchen door opened, and she even felt the tears run down her cheeks all along with the adrenaline in her veins. She did not stop or turn to look at what she had once called family, because she knew that even a single second of distraction would lead to their doom. Instead she ran. And she kept running, she was not sure of to where, but she knew she would be okay, cause her sister was with her and her sister was alive.