Everlasting Bonds - COMPLETE

Chapter 71

POV: Lark 

I walked into the hospital around 8 the next morning with a vase of pink lilies in my hand.

It had taken some convincing for the guys to let me do this by myself, but eventually, they agreed. As long as I checked in with them every 30 minutes. I couldn't blame them though. Not after what they had gone through when I didn't come back to the apartment yesterday.

I saw through the window that Nicola was awake and I knocked on her door to announce my presence.

If Colt had been with me I think all suspicion would have been wiped away once he saw the way she looked at me.

It was complete adoration and it brought tears to my eyes.

"How did you sleep?", I asked as I sat down in the chair next to her.

"I slept well, all things considered". Her voice was raspy and the finger-shaped bruises on her neck seemed to be the reason.

"I'm sorry I didn't stay last night".

"Don't be silly", she admonished. "I was unconscious, and you don't owe me anything. Your note was perfect and I appreciated knowing that you had come to see me".

There was so much I wanted to know. So many fuzzy answers that I needed her to make clear. "What happened to you?", I blurted out.

She sighed then, a labored sound. "There's so much to tell you Emilia", she whispered as she grabbed my hand. "I will start at the beginning". She started crying and I knew that this story wasn't one with a happy ending.

"As you know, Giovanni was my brother. Growing up, our father favored me in every way. I was given the best clothes, sent to the best schools, and afforded the most praise. Gio was always resentful of that and he took it out on me. When we were kids it started as pulled hair or stolen toys. As we got older he became different and the lack of love from my father turned him cruel. On my sixteenth birthday, my father brought me into his office and explained where all of our money and fancy things had come from. Up until that point he had only told me he was a businessman. And I believed him because he was my father and because I was naïve".

I squeezed her hand in an attempt to encourage her to keep going. She smiled at me before continuing.

"When he told me what he really did for a living. What my whole family did... I felt sick. I told him I wanted no part of it and threatened to go to the police if he didn't stop. I was such a stupid child back then. I thought that if my father loved me he'd listen. For the first time in my life, I disappointed him and felt what it was like to physically experience his anger. He had never hit me before. I think the shock of it hurt more than the actual slap.

"I ran away that night. I had just been told that my family was a part of the mafia and I thought I was going to be able to hide from them", she laughed then. A sad and broken sound. "I quickly realized I had nowhere to go and stowed away on a train that was heading north towards Florence. And I met a boy. A beautiful boy with dark, golden hair and hazel eyes. He found me crying in the bathroom and sat with me for the entire train ride. When he asked me if I had a place to stay, I couldn't answer him. He offered to take me back to his place and let me stay with his family for however long I wanted".