15-year-old Sofia De Ricci accidentally kills her mum's abusive boyfriend and lies to everyone about his death. She believes she has no other family until police discover she has 6 brothers who live on the other side of the world!
She has no other c...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Matteo De Ricci:
It's been a few days since the party incident, most of us have tried to be there for Sofia but she constantly trapped herself in her room. I've also become distant lately, from everyone, seeing how Sofia reacted caused something to click in me. She reminded me of my 9-year-old self the day she was taken.
No one except me knows the truth about her kidnapping, I've kept it to myself for over 10 years and don't plan on spilling it to my siblings. The day she was taken the whole family was having a barbeque with a couple of other families. Sofia and I were fed up with the other children and decided to play in the driveway not realizing what was about to happen.
We had a ball and were playing with it when I accidentally kicked it into the road. The house we were at wasn't built by a busy road so Sofia willingly ran onto the road to grab the ball. I walked over just behind her when suddenly someone snatched her and started dragging her into a car. I screamed and begged but these people would let go. Sofia had been pushed into a van and tears were streaming down her face as the men tied her up. I screamed loader hoping to get the attention of my family but no one came, and no one helped.
I continued to scream as the man slammed to door on Sofia. One of the masked men then yelled to the ones holding me, "Someone deal with him he's giving me a headache." And everything happened so fast. One of the men let me go but the other held a firm grip and started to drag me into a dark ally near the houses. He constantly beat me every time I moved. So I accepted it and let this man do what he wanted with me as I lay under him crying and whimpering praying he'd stop soon. After what felt like half an hour he zipped his trousers back up and spat on me before walking away to join the others in the van who drove off with my vulnerable sister in the back.
I lay there for another 2 hours trying to keep myself conscientious but didn't have the strength to run into the house. Sofia was gone because of me, if I'd tried harder maybe she wouldn't have been taken maybe she would have lived her childhood properly not in a fucked up household with fucked up people. It wasn't until a 17-year-old Lorenzo found me, that's when I explained what happened leaving the details about what the man did to me. My parents freaked and everyone at the party started searching for her, the police eventually got involved after we reported her missing but all I remember was crying in Lorenzo's lap the night after it happened I never told him the true reason why I was crying but he was always there, always able to comfort me and never judged me. I spent a few night in the hospital and doctors constantly asked if I was assaulted but every time I denied it so they gave up with that question.
I've never forgotten that day, I wouldn't explain to anyone what happened to me, not my parents, not to the police, not to Lorenzo, and not even to my therapist. But now I can't do anything but blame myself for what Sofia went through. The abuse, the assault everything felt like my fault.
I'd been getting away without eating as everyone had all their attention on Sofia making it easy to get away. I'm sitting in my bathroom after vomiting. I've been sick pretty much every day since the party. Every time I look at my sister it only reminds me of what that man did.
