Luciano's Daughter

Chapter Five

    The next day, Luciano noticed the girl's behaviour was even more bizarre than normal. During the first half of the meeting her normally light tanned skin looked pale and she would flinch every time someone spoke. And when everyone came back from their lunch break she came back wearing a dark blue scarf that covered her neck and appeared to look like she was having some trouble breathing. Something just didn't seem right. He took an empty piece of paper and wrote a message asking for her to meet him in the alley that was right beside the meeting building. He folded the paper up into a paper air plane and threw it toward the girl. Everyone was paying attention to the topic they were discussing so they didn't notice the paper air plane.

   The paper air plane landed on top of Andorra's notebook, startling her a little. She slowly grabbed the paper air plane and saw there was a note in it. The note read 'Meet me in the alleyway near the building after the meeting- Luciano.'

   Why would Luciano want to meet her in an alleyway? What if he was still mad about the necklace? Was he going to kill her? She shook her head a little, blocking out the thoughts and went back to paying attention during the rest of the meeting.

   As soon as the meeting ended, Giovanna quickly shoved her stuff into her backpack and headed into the alleyway. Luciano wasn't there yet so she decided to wait for him. Five minutes later, he showed up.

  "Ciao Andorra." He greeted the girl with a grin.

   "Hola senyor Vargas," She replied, in a raspy voice before she started coughing. Something was clearly not right. Luciano walked up to the girl and kneel down in front of her. He took one of his black gloves off of his hand, and placed his hand on her forehead, then on her cheek with a concerned look on his face. The girl flinched at the contact, letting out a small whimper.

  The girl didn't have a fever and she didn't look sick. But if she wasn't sick then what was wrong? His eyes looked down at the scarf and reached toward it. But before he could take it off, the girl grabbed a hold of his wrist, eyes tearing up.

   "Si us plau, no em faci mal." She cried, tears falling down her face.

  "It's-a okay. I'm not-a going to-a hurt you-a." Luciano reassured, softly as he took the scarf off. His eyes widened as he saw there were bruises around her neck and multiple scratch marks, dried blood stuck to her skin. Someone had strangled her.

  "We're-a going to-a the hospital okay-a." He told the girl, putting the scarf back on the girl.

  "Everything looks-a fine-a Mr. Vargas. Everything should heal in about a week or so." The doctor, Mr. Bianchi said as he examined Andorra's eyes before writing something down in his clipboard. Mr. Bianchi was one of the few doctors in Italy that knew of their existence. He was a tall man in his late fifties with salt and pepper hair and was wearing black rimmed glasses. "All you need to do is change the bandages twice a day and to help with the pain have her on a liquid and soft food diet and give her some pain medication." The man ripped the piece of paper from his clipboard and handed it to Luciano.

  Luciano nodded his head as he took the paper. He thanked the doctor then leaving the room with Andorra following behind. He helped her into his car, which was a black Ferrari and got in the driver's seat. He turned his head to the side to face the girl. "Who-a did this too-a you?" He asked.

  Andorra hesitated for a few moments before responding, contemplating on whether or not to tell him anything. "An-Andres."

   Luciano was speechless. He couldn't believe that Andres Fernandez Carriedo would actually harm a child. His own little sister no less. Sure, most of them were crazy but they would never harm a child in any way. Keeping his anger in check, he gave the girl a soft smile.

   "Andorra, I'm-a give you two-a choices. One you-a can stay in your-a hotel room or-a two you-a can live-a with me-a."

  "I w-wan't t-to live with y-you."

Translation:

(Catalan) Si us plau, no em faci mal - Please don't hurt me.