Until We Meet Again (HIATUS)

Chapter 25

Antonio POV

When my parents told us that everyone was coming in town, I was excited to see everyone, but worried about how Mia would react to some many new people. She has adjusted so well to being with everyone and accepted all the new changes, but I knew there had to be a negative outcome from her abuse mentally that we have not experienced yet. My parents knew it too.

When everyone got here, she was a bit nervous and would cling to us just in case, but soon realized that no one was going to hurt her. Once she got over that clinging phase, she would be laughing and doing what children her age usually do it was so reassuring that maybe everything would be okay.

Unfortunately, my parents and I knew that when our family left that it could be a disaster. We were correct. I think Mia knew something was off when she woke up yesterday morning as the boys weren't as happy as they usually were when she entered the room. They still played with her and did what they have been doing the past week, but you could tell they were savoring the moments.

After dinner, is when everyone had to say goodbye. All of the aunts and uncles started saying goodbye to us while Mia was finishing her dinner so they could help load some of the baggage once she finished. Her breaking pointed happened when she wanted Luca and Emilio to go outside with her to play some basketball and they said they had to leave.

She was so confused on why they were leaving but nodded her heading in understanding. We all saw the tears that left her eyes. She didn't realize that everyone was leaving until she asked some of our other cousins to play with her and they told her the same thing.

We couldn't predict the next thing that happened which was her degrading herself and saying she was a bad girl and didn't deserve them. We were all shocked at what was happening as some of the words she used were quite vulgar. Nonno didn't miss a step and called for Mia, but she took a step back shaking her head. He continued to coo at her and a few seconds later ran into his arms asking what she did wrong and how could she fix it. He was trying his best to reassure her that she did nothing wrong.

I looked at everyone and we were just watching Nonno holding Mia trying to give her every ounce of comfort he could muster. Everyone had some amount of tears in their eyes watching the youngest having a breakdown due to the past trauma she had to endure. I could tell my dad was blaming himself over not finding her sooner. Hell, I was blaming myself as well, but I knew that it wouldn't do anything for her to blame ourselves. My uncles squeezed my dad's shoulder probably trying to reassure him that we did not do that to her.

Once Nonno got her to calm down, Alessandro and Marcello went up to her and showed her a way for her to talk everyone with anyone's phone. About 30 minutes later of convincing she didn't do anything wrong and that everyone wanted her, she finally left everyone leave. But she was so exhausted from crying that she fell asleep tightly gripping our dad's shirt like he would leave.

She was supposed to sleep with Enzo that night, but she craved our parents affection and we all knew she needed them. With that, our parents went to bed leaving us with our own thought.

"I wish my little angel never had to go through that" Leo said as he watched our parents go upstairs.

"I can't wait to get my hands on the people who abused her. They'll be wishing I was merciful..." Vince said walking off to the gym to cool down.

"What can we do?" Rocco asked looking at Santi as if he had all the answers.

"We can't do much, but surround her with a good environment while supporting her dreams and thoughts as they come. Her age is both great for progress and hinderance--" Santi replies