𝑹𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏

C H A P T E R 11

RAVEN

This was it. This was how my life was going to be from now on. I sit across from Damon, watching the tv show that was on the seat in front of me. Dimitri had gone to the bathroom not too long ago.

That was a while ago.

Weird.

Dom had insisted that I go home and pack all my belongings. He had already sent a letter to my school and my workplace telling them both that I would not be coming back.

It was now eleven am, which meant that we were close to arriving. The intercom came on a second after, announcing that we would be landing soon.

Dimitri came out of the bathroom a second after, saying that he was just talking to Domenico on the phone.

The jet landed safely and we were escorted out of the airport. A black hooded car stood tall, two bodyguards on either side of the car door. We all entered the car, now driving to my apartment. I gave them the directions and we soon arrived outside the complex.

Damon and Dimitri walked on either side of me while the guards walked behind us. My apartment door soon came into view. I took out my key and unlocked the door.

As soon as I pushed the door to go inside, Dimitri had already gone into the kitchen checking the fridge for food while Damon sat in my living area, resting his foot on my coffee table and turning the tv on.

"Come on in, why don't you," I mumbled, heading to my bedroom. The first thing I did was start packing all my clothes. I packed all my shoes and went to the drawer to take out all the pictures and tapes that reminded me I once had a mother.

How I wish time could freeze.

We could just go back in time and relive memories of our loved ones. I wish I could go back at and look at her face while she was happy. Matteo just had to come along and ruin it for me. All the anger that was in me was slowly turning into poison.

But then I met my brothers and I couldn't be anymore happier.

I wondered what would have happened if my mother hadn't died and I didn't meet my brothers. Would I have still been hiding from Alessandro?

~~~

The flight didn't seem as long as the first one considering we were riding a jet. At the moment, Damon was giving me a tour of my new home. I had already gone to my room and settled my stuff inside.

So far, the house was three stories high, rooms filled with multiple things to do. The house had a large basement where I wasn't allowed to go to, the third floor where my eldest brothers were handling their works, and of course I wasn't allowed to go there either. The second floor had all of our rooms while the first floor held the kitchen, dining room, living area, and other rooms.

I sat on my bed after the tour and decided to take a little nap. In between my nap, I heard the shutter of a camera going off. I peeled my eyes open and was met with the faces of Theo and Tobias smiling.

"I'm keeping this picture and framing it," I heard Theo say, looking down at the photo.

"What are you guys doing in here?" I inquired groggily.

"Dom sent us to bring you down for dinner because he doesn't want you to go back to sleep on an empty stomach. And he wanted to talk to you," Tobias laughed.

I groaned but agreed after they persuaded me that they would do anything for a week. They all seemed to be afraid of Dom. Not me though.

Upon entering the dining room, I saw Dom at the head of the table with my other brothers except Luca surrounding him in their seats. I Sat beside Lorenzo, now seeing that Theo and Tobias sat across from me. We began eating after Luca arrived from another of his fights.

After dinner, I was called to Dom's office. I knocked on his door and awaited his call to come in. He answered and I walked in. I saw Luca, Lorenzo, and Luciano sitting on a couch in the far corner of the office while Damon, Theo, and Tobias sat on the other couch in the opposite corner of the office. Dimitri stood behind Dom and I felt all their eyes on me. I sit in the chair in front of Dom's desk and looked at him.

"I want the truth," he said rather calmly.

I looked at him confused at what truth he wanted.

"Truth?"

"Yes, the truth. I want to know why we couldn't find you for years. And I wanna know why you were living by yourself when you're still seventeen. You're supposed to be living in an orphanage or with a foster family. Why just why?"

I chuckled slightly at his last comment, "The second one I can tell but for the first one I can't. The reason why I was living by myself was that my mother died, which you already knew and I did have a foster family but they were kinda abusive, so I had to run away." I half lied.

Technically it was the truth but with a twist but they probably didn't need to know that. I saw Dom looking at me weirdly as if he had figured out I was telling a lie.

"When you say abusive, what do you mean?" I saw him take a glance behind me to one of my Brothers before settling his eyes back on mine.

I looked down, not daring to say anything. It's not like I didn't want to tell them but saying it would bring back bad memories, which I wasn't so fond of.

"It's okay if you don't wanna talk about it. I don't wanna pressure you or anything. It's completely up to you,".

I looked at him, then at Dimitri and it hit me, if I didn't tell them now, this would probably be eating me alive. I needed to say something.

I opened my mouth to speak, "I lived with my foster father after mom died. There was where I meet Avianna and Jax. We were the only children that lived in that house. Everything was fine until his friend started showing up often. He would come around, and ask us to do something, and when we didn't he threatened to kill us. A few weeks after him being there, our foster father started threatening us as well about how we were a burden."

I knew I was twisting some details of my story but I had to make it believable. Alessandro deserved this. For all the suffering and pain.

I looked at my lap, tears now threatening to fall from my eyes. "He started hitting us when he didn't get his way or would force us to help him with his 'work'. He still wasn't satisfied. After a few years of being there, we found out that he wasn't just a businessman as we thought, but was a killer, a cold-blooded killer. We weren't even allowed to go anywhere except for school," then I saw it, my lap was now wet from my tears.

"I was tortured, every day, and no one helped me," I whispered meekly.

"We would've done something‐." I cut him off, slowly looking up, avoiding their gaze.

"No, they would have killed anyone who tried to help me escape," I mumbled, tears streaming down my cheek.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," I heard Luca say.

My head whipped around and the first thing I saw was the tears that fought hard to stay in Luca's eyes.

"No need to be sorry, it's all in the past now." I whimpered.

"Did they ever touch you?" Lorenzo ask me, a look of anger trying to subside on his face. I shake my head in a 'no' manner and hear him release a sigh of relief.

"Everything's gonna be okay, you know that, right?" Luca told me.

"Yeah," maybe, just maybe everything was gonna go fine.

I hope.

~~~