A New hope

Chapter 9-breaking the news

Sighing I clean up everything before I make my way out of my room and towards Alessio office, knowing he will still be awake. I walk in without knocking, not caring at all. Perfect, they're both here. Alessio is in his chair on a call, and Gio is sprawled out on the couch against the side of the room, playing what looks like uno on his phone. They both look towards me as I walk into the room. I go to sit on Gio, but he shoves me off him. I grin, but go to sit in another chair not knowing how long Alessio could be on the call for.

( this entire conversation between the three of them is all in Italian, the brothers are used to only speaking in Italian with each other so they revert back to it a lot without even realizing. Which is why they all have slight accents. Italian is their first language with English right behind it.)

About five minutes later Aleesio is done and they both look toward me expectantly. "Can I not come in here whenever I want?" I joke. They're both silent, waiting. "It's about Ciana." I say give up. They both straighten, now suddenly listening. I roll my eyes but continue. " I've noticed that she's in pain, beyond just the face bruise. I first saw it this morning at breakfast, she was holding her left shoulder when she thought you guys weren't looking. She's also using her right hand to eat." I pause, before adding, "she's left-handed."

"You're right, she was eating with her left hand last night." Gio adds.

"She's always been left-handed, I remember that from when she was young, but now that you're saying it she definitely was using her right hand for pretty much everything. Do you know what's wrong?" Aleesio asks, straight to the point.

I nod. "She told me that she had recently dislocated her left shoulder, once last week... and once this morning."

"This morning!" they both exclaim. I nod carefully gauging their reactions.

"She set it herself, didn't she?" Alessio says, piecing it out. I don't say anything but they both mutter some curse words in Italian. "I'm making her wear a shoulder brace for a little while until it heals more." they both grunt in agreement.

"Did she say how it happened?" Gio asks, now sitting completely straight, his game of uno forgotten. I shake my head, "Refused to say anything when I asked" I answer, "that's not it though"

"Good lord, more?" Gio states, staking his head, "our poor girl."

"She was consistent in me not looking at her upper body. I wanted her to show me her shoulder and her ribs. It took me a good ten minutes of convincing her and even then the only way she would show me is if I let her change into one of my shirts and I could only look at that one shoulder, no where else." I said, sighing, knowing that I was not going to like what I said next, " there were multiple bruises old and new on her arm, including a massive one in the shape of a hand print."

Glass shatters, Gio and I both look over to Alessio. In his hand is the remains of a glass, we are both silent as he rolls his tongue around his mouth, staring into the distance. " I fucking knew it" he mumbles. I can see his brain piercing everything together, along with Gios.

"Do we know who has been hurting her?" Gio asks, equally furious.

" It's obvious,"Alessio grumbles, picking glass from his hand. I go to help him but he stops me with a wave of his hand. "It's her kidnappers, Diane and John, it has to be. That bruise on her face is still new, we've all seen a punch bruise, hell we've gotten them from each other and that bruise was the result of one. Plus she's so flinchy. Along with that Diane bitch being wanted for like fifth-teen things, including child endangerment.

I also spoke with the police officer who was with her while she was in the hospital. I never saw the shape the house was in but apparently it was bad, very bad."