Page 48 of The Devil's Den

Ms. Greco has told me she’s eating now, even though she still won’t leave her room. But that’s a start. I’ve asked her to send notes up to Aida, but she’s said Aida won’t read them. It breaks me that she’s hurting without me there to help her through it. I can only imagine what they did to her at the club.

I remember the place, seeing that shit when I was a kid. It was a scare tactic the Bianchis used to keep me in line. And at that age, it worked. Though Aida’s safety alone would drive me to do just about anything for those bastards.

Will she ever forgive me when she finds out what happened to her was my damn fault? Maybe her fucked-up father told her already and that’s why she won’t read my notes.

From now on, I’ll do whatever the hell I have to, just to keep her from getting hurt again, no matter who has to die for me to do it.

Ms. Greco managed to clean and wrap the wounds on my back. It fucking burned like acid, all six lashes. The scars won’t be pretty. But the ones inside me, those are far scarier to look at.

I have been stuck here in the basement for the last week. Other than Louis coming to let me have a shower, no one has taken me to the warehouse. I haven’t killed a soul.

For most people, that’d be a good thing, but in my world, it isn’t. A break in routine isn’t good. Agnelo must be planning something.

I have to be ready for whatever that is.

* * *

AIDA

His notes lie scattered on my bed. Unopened. I’m too nervous to read them. To feel them. Because I know he’ll make me feel, and I don’t want to feel anything. It’s easier that way.

I smell their breaths. Taste their salty skin upon my tongue. I force myself to forget. To close my eyes and pretend nothing happened. That the burn between my legs was nothing but a nightmare. It didn’t happen. No, it couldn’t have. I made it up. But when I wake up, they’re still there. Their hands. Their taunting. There’s no pretending anymore. I can’t hide.

After those men raped me repeatedly, they left me on the cold floor. Naked. Crying. My father walked in, yelling at me for not being dressed, ignoring what he had allowed to happen to his own child. I’m nothing after all. Small. A shell that barely holds a life. He didn’t care. He never does.

I had no clothes. I’m sure he saw what was left of them on the floor. He grabbed a robe from a closet, threw it over my face, and ordered me to put it on as he watched. I shook all over as I did, but I managed to get my hands to work. Somehow.

Those men, they found ways to torture me. To make me want to die. Not only did they use their bodies, but they used objects too. I screamed, but it drowned out with the music.

I was alone. Dying. My soul shriveling. And I knew, right then and there, I was gone. A piece of me unrecovered on that very floor.

My father took me home, threw me on the bed, and left me there. When Ms. Greco found me, she wanted to help me bathe, but I refused. I shouted for her to go. To leave me alone. I’d never yelled at her before.

She cried as she strode away, and I quickly locked the door behind her. When I went to the bathroom the next day, when I saw those pills in the medicine cabinet, I knew then I had to die. Not because of what happened but because it’d keep happening. I knew my father wouldn’t stop. He’d send me back. He told me in so many words when we first arrived there.

You’ll be working here when I need you to. It’s time you earn this family some money.

I’ll never forget those words. They’ll haunt me, just as much as what those men did. That’s another reason I can’t bear to read Matteo’s notes or to face him. I’m sure he knows where I went. He must know what was done to me. My first time, it was with someone else and in the vilest way. I can’t bear to look at him after that.

How could he want me, knowing what was done to me? He’ll feel obligated to still be with me. I know he will, and I don’t want that.

My door opens, now left unlocked at my father’s command, and Ms. Greco walks in, a tray in hand. “I’ve brought you some food.” She gently places it on my nightstand, tiptoeing away, like she’s afraid to say the wrong thing. It wrecks me to see her this way because of me.

“Wait,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”

She turns sharply, walking up to me. “What? No!” Her head shakes, her eyes glistening with tears she won’t shed, adorned with tenderness. “There’s nothing to forgive. Ever.”

“But the way I spoke to you, it was—”

“Normal.” She clasps her lips tightly. “If you ever want to talk, I’m here to listen. I know of that place and what happens there.”

“He sent you there?” My tone drops low with a tightening in my chest.

“Yes.” She forces out a sigh. To know she went through what I did, it nearly kills me, because no one should have to. “It was the first place he sent me when my family had no money to give him.” Her brows lower. “I’m sorry, Aida. I’m here for you.” She strides to the end of the bed, lowering to the edge as I sit up. “I’ll always be here for you. I love you like you’re my own daughter.” Her eyes shut and she pulls in a long inhale, tears slipping past her cheeks. “If there was a way I could’ve taken your place, I would’ve. I’d give my life for yours and not think twice.”

It’s my turn to cry, the tears falling faster as I jump off the bed and into her arms. She holds me tightly as we both shed layers of our pain.

All those days, I’ve wanted a mother, I didn’t realize I had one all along.

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