Viola

Chapter 18

Viola's POV 

I nod. Alexi lets me down and I start to walk towards papa following I miei zii (my uncles).

I take a deep breath trying to calm my nerves and failing miserably. 

We all sit down in Papa's office. 

"So, what do you wanna know?" I ask, sitting down and looking at my lap, fidgeting with my fingers out of nervousness 

"Where were you?"
"Who took you ?"
"How are you back?" 
"What'd they do to you?" 

I'm blasted with questions. I blink a few times. 

"I-" I stutter, not knowing who to answer first

"Idioti,"(idiots)Papa says shaking his head. "Ask one question at a time," I hear a few 'sorry,'s. I nod and force a small smile. 

I turn to the person from whom I received the first question.

Zio Giorgio gets up and moves over to me squatting down in front of my chair and grabbing my hands.

"Principessa, where have you been, who had you all this time?" he asks softly. 

"Well, -- I mean everywhere," they all give me a confused look, I sigh. "Leah, she had me all this time, but I never stayed in one place for long. The day that she took me, I woke up in the car with her and a bunch of scary men. I threw a tantrum, that was the first time I got hit. I wouldn't stop crying. I wanted my papa and my brothers," I said throwing a glance towards my now angry looking father. "She had slapped me in the face and said 'get used to living without them, they will never get you back.', I remember how crazy she looked that day. I mean, that woman was never a mother to any of us. She was always off. But, the way she looked from that day forward, until the day that I left, she looked like she snapped, like she had actually lost it. And then-- that's when she started with the drugs and alcohol. Those men were always around doing them with her and drinking. We would move every month or so when she would get word somehow that you guys were nearby. I would be loaded into this compartment under the trunk of her car. They would all smoke and drink while driving, we must've nearly crashed or actually crashed hundreds of times. The smoke would fill up the compartment too, I would cough and cough but nobody seemed to care. When she was drunk or high, a beating would be ten times worse, the men would help her sometimes, at the time, I thought that was bad but, not long afterward,... she met Jack. She seemed happy for a little while, she lost focus on me. She would leave me alone with those men guarding me, making sure I didn't escape while she went out with him. That though, I could handle. So long as I didn't try to escape, the men would mostly leave me alone. Those were the easiest days." I sigh, "But, when she came back the last time, they were married. That's when it got worse.-- He wanted me to call him dad. I refused blankly, telling him that I already had a father, I told him I wanted to go back to my dad. That was the worst beating I had ever gotten. They kidnapped a doctor who fixed me up and whenever they would mess me up too badly, he would come and repair the damage. After a while, they just killed him... right in front of me. Jack said that I had gotten too close with him, that I didn't deserve any friends.-- Robbie, he was just a little old man, this extremely caring and sweet old man. He made sure I was comfortable, he calmed me down even when I could tell he was scared as well, he smiled so surely at me when he would tell me I'd be alright, and the just...," I trail off, I blink noticing that I had been staring blankly through Zio Giorgio 

I look around at the concerned and angry faces "Sorry," I say, wiping the wet streaks off of my cheeks and giving them all a barely-there smile.   

I take a deep breath Gigi (Zio Giorgio- he hates the nickname but he never minded when I would say it) squeezes my hands and gives me a kiss on the forehead before standing up and backing away