Although a memoir, this is a horror story, a true horror story. Writing it set me free. I hope that reading it sets others free.
When I was eight, my mom ran away with a man she'd met on vacation. We thought he was our knight in shining armor. It turned out he worked for the Dixie Mafia. For the next six years we traveled the East Coast as he killed and conned his way along. We were forced to participate in his con games and were trained young to be part of his schemes. By the time I was 10, I could steal and drive any car on the road. Such was our education, we were being groomed for higher things, or lower according to how you see it. That six years was a living hell and while it makes for exciting reading, it was a nightmare to us. We were tortured, abused and denied out formal education. In the end, the Mob that had doomed us to this existence had two men hiding in our house, they got the jump on us. At the ripe old age of 14 I watched as they put him on his knees and shot him in the head, effectively ending his reign of terror. To this day I wonder why they didn't kill us all.