Chapter 17 – One Week Later
MATTEO
ONE WEEK LATER
I haven’t seen her since I left her in her room. Alone. Scared. It’s like I abandoned her, but I know she doesn’t think that way. At least I hope not.
Ms. Greco has told me she’s eating now, even though she still won’t leave her room.
But that’s a start. I’ve asked her to send notes up to Aida, but she’s said Aida won’t read them.
It breaks me that she’s hurting without me there to help her through it.
I can only imagine what they did to her at the club.
I remember the place, seeing that shit when I was a kid. It was a scare tactic the Bianchis used to keep me in line. And at that age, it worked. Though Aida’s safety alone would drive me to do just about anything for those bastards.
Will she ever forgive me when she finds out what happened to her was my damn fault? Maybe her fucked-up father told her already and that’s why she won’t read my notes.
From now on, I’ll do whatever the hell I have to, just to keep her from getting hurt again, no matter who has to die for me to do it.
Ms. Greco managed to clean and wrap the wounds on my back. It fucking burned like acid, all six lashes. The scars won’t be pretty. But the ones inside me, those are far scarier to look at.
I have been stuck here in the basement for the last week. Other than Louis coming to let me have a shower, no one has taken me to the warehouse. I haven’t killed a soul.
For most people, that’d be a good thing, but in my world, it isn’t. A break in routine isn’t good. Agnelo must be planning something.
I have to be ready for whatever that is.
AIDA
His notes lie scattered on my bed. Unopened. I’m too nervous to read them. To feel them. Because I know he’ll make me feel, and I don’t want to feel anything. It’s easier that way.
I smell their breaths. Taste their salty skin upon my tongue.
I force myself to forget. To close my eyes and pretend nothing happened.
That the burn between my legs was nothing but a nightmare.
It didn’t happen. No, it couldn’t have. I made it up.
But when I wake up, they’re still there.
Their hands. Their taunting. There’s no pretending anymore. I can’t hide.
After those men raped me repeatedly, they left me on the cold floor. Naked. Crying. My father walked in, yelling at me for not being dressed, ignoring what he had allowed to happen to his own child. I’m nothing after all. Small. A shell that barely holds a life. He didn’t care. He never does.
I had no clothes. I’m sure he saw what was left of them on the floor. He grabbed a robe from a closet, threw it over my face, and ordered me to put it on as he watched. I shook all over as I did, but I managed to get my hands to work. Somehow.
Those men, they found ways to torture me. To make me want to die. Not only did they use their bodies, but they used objects too. I screamed, but it drowned out with the music.
I was alone. Dying. My soul shriveling. And I knew, right then and there, I was gone. A piece of me unrecovered on that very floor.
My father took me home, threw me on the bed, and left me there. When Ms. Greco found me, she wanted to help me bathe, but I refused. I shouted for her to go. To leave me alone. I’d never yelled at her before.
She cried as she strode away, and I quickly locked the door behind her.
When I went to the bathroom the next day, when I saw those pills in the medicine cabinet, I knew then I had to die.
Not because of what happened but because it’d keep happening.
I knew my father wouldn’t stop. He’d send me back.
He told me in so many words when we first arrived there.
You’ll be working here when I need you to. It’s time you earn this family some money.
I’ll never forget those words. They’ll haunt me, just as much as what those men did.
That’s another reason I can’t bear to read Matteo’s notes or to face him.
I’m sure he knows where I went. He must know what was done to me.
My first time, it was with someone else and in the vilest way. I can’t bear to look at him after that.
How could he want me, knowing what was done to me? He’ll feel obligated to still be with me. I know he will, and I don’t want that.
My door opens, now left unlocked at my father’s command, and Ms. Greco walks in, a tray in hand. “I’ve brought you some food.” She gently places it on my nightstand, tiptoeing away, like she’s afraid to say the wrong thing. It wrecks me to see her this way because of me.
“Wait,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
She turns sharply, walking up to me. “What? No!” Her head shakes, her eyes glistening with tears she won’t shed, adorned with tenderness. “There’s nothing to forgive. Ever.”
“But the way I spoke to you, it was—”
“Normal.” She clasps her lips tightly. “If you ever want to talk, I’m here to listen. I know of that place and what happens there.”
“He sent you there?” My tone drops low with a tightening in my chest.
“Yes.” She forces out a sigh. To know she went through what I did, it nearly kills me, because no one should have to.
“It was the first place he sent me when my family had no money to give him.” Her brows lower.
“I’m sorry, Aida. I’m here for you.” She strides to the end of the bed, lowering to the edge as I sit up.
“I’ll always be here for you. I love you like you’re my own daughter.
” Her eyes shut and she pulls in a long inhale, tears slipping past her cheeks.
“If there was a way I could’ve taken your place, I would’ve.
I’d give my life for yours and not think twice. ”
It’s my turn to cry, the tears falling faster as I jump off the bed and into her arms. She holds me tightly as we both shed layers of our pain.
All those days, I’ve wanted a mother, I didn’t realize I had one all along.
I inch back so I can peer at her. “I love you like you’re my mom.” I sniffle with a sob. “You’ve always been there for me. Without you, I would’ve died a long time ago.”
“If anything…” She places a palm against my cheek. “You’re the one who saved me.”
“Then I guess we saved each other.” A crestfallen smile glides up my mouth.
“That we did.” She nods, tightening her arms around me. “That we did.”
Minutes trickle by, or maybe seconds, all I know is I’m content, knowing the warmth of a mother I never had. “How did you live through what happened to you…there?” I stare up. “Will I ever be okay?”
“You take it a day at a time. You tell yourself they don’t define you. They’re nothing. You hear me?”
“Yeah.” A heavy sigh causes my shoulders to slump.
“Robby misses you,” she goes on. “He keeps asking about you every second. I guess I’m not good enough.” She rolls her eyes with tearful laughter, and a flicker of one falls out of me too.
“He loves you, you know. Matteo? He’s crazy worried about you.” Her attention scatters to the notes left behind. “You should read them, then you should go see him while you still can.”
My heart leaps. “What do you mean?”
“I just… With your father, time is precious. He may change his mind and send Matteo away or—”
“Or kill him.”
“I don’t even want to think about it because I love that boy too. He’ll always be a little boy to me.” A fond smile grips the edge of her lips. “Go see him. He needs you just as much as you need him.”
“I can’t.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “He’s going to want to know what happened and I don’t have the heart to tell him.”
“I have a feeling he’d be patient and understanding. If you explain that you don’t want to talk, he won’t pressure you. I think he just wants to see you walking and talking for himself.”
My gaze goes downcast, riddled with shame I know I shouldn’t feel, yet I do. The weight of it is heavy. I don’t know how to get rid of it.
“You have us, Aida. You’re not alone in this. Your father doesn’t get to own us.” She raises her chin. “He may think he does, but one day, he’ll realize how wrong he actually was. Every tyrant eventually falls on his own sword.”
“I wish I believed that.”
“You have to believe it. Don’t give up. That’s what he wants.”
I suck in a sharp inhale, wanting to trust that he’ll find damnation one day. But how long can I be patient?
“Hey, look at me.” And I do. “You will be okay. You will survive. Your battle scars may be deep and they still bleed, but you’re a warrior. And warriors don’t give up, no matter how many battles they have to face.”
I let out a quiet sob, closing my eyes, letting the agony envelop me so completely, I can’t see beyond it. My body trembling, I cry with a heavy ache encroached upon my soul.
And she’s there, holding me, like she’s been holding me since I’ve been a little girl, because someone had to. And she doesn’t stop until my tears do too.
I pick up the first folded-up note, written from the same paper I gave him for his drawings. He tore them into squares, folding them up so they’re easily transported to me without my father seeing.
My fingertips tingle as I open his message.
I love you.
With a whimper, I read the next one.
I miss you like crazy. If you can’t see me, I understand. But I needed you to know I won’t stop loving you, no matter what.
Tears slip down onto the paper, pooling at the center. Could he really love me after what they did to me? I pick up the other note.
It’s my fault what happened to you. I’m so damn sorry. I was supposed to kill this young kid and his dad. If I did, they wouldn’t have hurt you, but I couldn’t do it, Aida. Those kid’s eyes, they fucking haunt me.
I still, my hand falling over my mouth as I try to comprehend what he wrote. My family had wanted him to murder a child? Of course he couldn’t! I continue reading the same note.
He was maybe twelve. But they shot them anyway. If I did it, you would’ve never been sent there. I hate myself. I won’t blame you for hating me too.
My chest tightens. It’s not his fault. How could he think that?