The Gang Leaders Stepdaughter

Chapter Thirteen

"Hey" Dante says casually 

"Hi" I say defiantly not casually, "come in" 

We walk in and sit on the couch. The house still doesn't look great but I can't do anything about it now so I decide not to focus on it. 

"What do you wanna do?" I ask him. We're both sitting on the couch in front of the tv, me sitting cross legged and looking hella awkward while Dante just looks perfect and relaxed. 

"Dunno. Do you have any cards?" He asks 

"Yeah" I say and I get up and walk to the shelve thats next to the TV. Me and Mum have game nights every Friday night where we play cards and board games and so I knew where they were. Well actually we used to have game nights every Friday but because Mum keeps going out with Vincent of Friday nights we sometimes switched it to Thursdays. 

We end up playing Slapjack, Uno, James Bond and heaps of others. Then we play monopoly and we are still playing that when Zeke and Alessandro walk in. 

"Hey" Alessandro says and sits down on the couch, 

"Hi" Zeke says unenthusiastically 

"Wanna play?" Dante asks

"Yeah" Alessandro says and sits down on the ground

There's a knock on the door then Mia and Alivia walks in.

"Hey!" Zeke says surprised 

They both are surprised when they see the boys sitting there. Then they look at each other then back at us then they smile, but they both don't seem happy, they seem really sad. 

"Hi" Mia says and sits next to Zeke and starts talking to Zeke about something but I don't really listen.

As soon as they came in I could tell something was majorly wrong. It isn't that they just turned up at my house because that isn't that uncommon, it's just because it looks like they've both been crying and now when they smile I can tell that it's fake. 

Alivia sits down next to me on the floor and leans against the couch. 

"We we're bored so we came round" Mia says smiling and talking to everybody, "but we didn't know you had company" Mia says cheekily looking from me to Dante. I can feel my checks go the  colour of tomatoes. 

"Who's winning?" Alivia asks smiling looking down at the board, thankfully because she took the focus away from my embarrassment. 

"Leah is, I swear she's cheating though" Dante says laughing. I don't say anything for a couple of seconds then I break out of my daze of looking at Alivia and wondering what's wrong and then I reply, 

"Haha no, this is just what skill looks like" I say laughing and gesturing to the game of monopoly

"Hey Alivia, come to my bedroom I need your advice on my book shelve placement" I say and get up to leave pulling Alivia up and making her follow me. It was a bad excuse I know but I was desperate. If I had of said clothes then Mia would of wanted to come which would have made it obvious to the boys that something was up. 

"Sit down" I say and we sit on my bed

Alivia is smiling but I can tell she's so close to breaking down.

"What's wrong?" I ask, I haven't seen Alivia like this since her Mum left.

"N-nothing" She says, she's smiling but now also crying. Then she fully breaks down. She starts crying and lies down on my bed against my pillows. 

"D-dad got really angry when we got home from school. And he tried to hit Mia" Now I start crying and tears keep coming from my eyes. 

"He saw Mia texting Zeke and then he took her phone off her then he was looking at all her text messages and when he saw what they were saying he completely lost it." She puts her hands up to her face and cries more. 

"T-they weren't even saying anything bad, just flirting. It's just he recognised Zeke's last name and then he said that we couldn't hang out with them anymore and then he said that we couldn't hang out with you anymore..." she goes quiet and continues crying. I lie down next to her and pull her into a hug, she whimpers. 

"Alivia, are you hurt?" I already knew the answer but I think she must be way more hurt than I thought she was.

"I- I didn't want Dad to hurt Mia, s-so I h-hit him. Which just made him get more angry. Then he really lost it." She pulls her t-shirt up and her whole stomach is bruised. 

"Oh my god" I whisper. I have never seen anything this bad before, in real life or on tv. 

"We ran out and got a taxi and came straight here. I wasn't sure if you would be here but I thought you wouldn't care if we came in anyway" She says still crying

"Of course not. You can stay here as long as you want to, but I think you should go to the hospital. It looks really bad." I say referring to her stomach. It's even bleeding, I'm not sure where from but I can see little amounts of blood. 

"I can't" She says sadly, "they will ask how it happened and then Dad will find out and even if I try to lie they will be able to tell that it's from another person" 

(Her Dad works at the hospital) 

"Oh, that's true. Well, Mum's coming home tonight. Maybe she can make it better" I say hopeful. I know there won't be much she will be able to do but still, I think somebody should look at Alivia to see if there is any long lasting damage. 

"Alivia?" Alessandro's worried voice says, he opens the door more because I hadn't fully shut it. 

"Alivia what's wrong?" Alessandro asks running over to Alivia and crouching by the bed next to her 

Alivia's shirt was only half pulled back down and so she tries to fully pull it down so that Alessandro won't see anything. 

"Nothing" She says trying to laugh, "we we're watching funny videos and I was laughing heaps and-" 

Alessandro lifts her shirt up just so that he can see her stomach. 

"Alivia" He whispers, "What happened? Who did this to you?" he says starting to get angry but also sadly because he doesn't want to see Alivia in pain. 

"No one, I'm fine" she says and she starts crying again but tying to hide it 

"I'll leave you to it" I say quietly and walk out the door. I feel like their about to have a really deep conversation and I don't want to be there to make it awkward.