Their Little Saviour

Chapter 30

Sofia

As soon I spotted Emiliano's car, I sprinted over to the passenger side and sat down.

After a few moments of awkward silence Emiliano cleared his throat and spoke up.

"How was school?"

"Fine."

Pfft, Emiliano and small talk. Not a good combo.

"Are you hungry?"

"Kind of..."

"Do you want McDonalds?"

What was he playing at? I glanced over at him. He had a hopeful look on his face. Like he wanted me to say yes.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? You said you were hungry."

"Well you being not- hostile is suspicious."

"What?!"

"You heard me. I don't like it."

"Fine no McDonalds so."

"Okay."

I glanced back at him again and this time he was genuinely frustrated. I think he was trying to bond with me, but I was having none of his bull crap.

After a few more moments of silence....

"I- I'm trying..."

"Trying to do what?" I asked even more confused at this point.

"I'm trying to apologise."

"Oh, it's not that hard. Just say sorry."

"No. Would you think I'd really mean it if I just turned to you and said the word sorry."

"No, not really I guess. So, uhhhh what do you want to do?"

"I- wait a minute."

Emiliano drove further down the road for a few minutes, we ended up at a small little cottage close to a small forest.

"What is this?" I asked in awe.

The cottage was beautiful, like it followed all cottage core standards. It had beautiful flowers growing all around, I could see a small river flowing into a nearby lake and it looked old but new at the same time.

"This is the house we used to stay at during some of our summers...... our mother designed and had it built for us as an escape from the-" Emiliano stopped himself before he could finish his sentence.

"It's beautiful."

"Come inside. Our brothers actually haven't been here in a few years."

I followed Emiliano through the front door. He was so muscular I was afraid he wouldn't fit through the door. He looked so out of place in the cottage. Like a bull in a small, cute China shop.

"How is it in such good condition?"

"We have a caretaker and gardener that don't live far from here."

I walked through the small hallway and peeked all the rooms. There was a picturesque view of the mountain range ahead.

"Why did you bring me here?" I asked snapping out of my dreamy state.

Emiliano stood beside me and gazed out at the view through the window.

"I'll never get tired of this." He sighed wistfully while keeping his focused on the mountains.

"Emiliano." I repeated

"Huh?"

"I asked why have you brought me here?"

"I....... as soon as I heard that Elijah had found you, I came here. This is like the place I come to and try to not think about all the shit that goes down in our family. I decided to bring you here to show you something."

I followed Emiliano into another room. It looked like 4 of the boys had shared this room.

"The twins, Alessandro and I shared this room. When our father started to become more and more unstable I took all of our photo albums and hid them here."

He walked over to a small antique locker and twisted the rotary combination lock to open it. He pulled out a small shoe box and opened the lid. I took it into my own hands and looked inside it was full of photos of all of us, mainly me.

"Why do you still have these?"

"The point I'm making Sofia..... is that even though we might act cold towards you the truth is that we miss you. You've probably heard that a million times from Elijah or Nazaire or anyone of us trying to justify our unjust actions. But it's true. Even though you are living with us now, is different. We don't know you, we just expected us to get our baby little sister back. But now you've grown and we don't know how approach you when we can't even accept the fact that we lost you for years. Then suddenly you are here, in our grasp and we continue to push away. And yes, it is our own fault. It had nothing to do with you personally. These photos are proof. I remember every night when any of us got sad or started to cry Lorenzo would take us here and we would look at these photos of you, and us, and just talk about all the happy memories we had with you. So basically anything you saw on my phone was just..... just a stupid ass mistake. I was drunk and I know that I, I definitely didn't mean a word of what I said. The twins are fucked up so I can't talk about them and only me. But if the twins ever bother you again tell me straight away. Please, I know I messed up but I'll try make it right again. I- I'm sorry."

Even though my sight was blurry from the tears that were about to spill out of my eyes I was still able to jump up and wrap my arms around Emiliano's neck and give him a hug.

He stumbled a few steps back (clearly surprised at my reaction) and wrapped his own arms around my small frame.

"Thank you." I could only mutter out those two words before I burst out into real tears.

Emiliano and I sat in the room for the next half an hour just looking through he pictures in silence. I knew Emiliano was not the kind of guy to just lay out all of his emotions so it would probably be the first and last time I hear him be so ............. I don't know how to explain it.

I just think it's funny because Emiliano is this big tattooed muscular scary looking bear but now I've confirmed that deep deep down he his the biggest softy ever.

I felt like I understood my brothers better now, they are all big stupid idiots. And all I could do was wait until they realise it too.

***

I looked around a few more rooms before heading back to the car. Emiliano locked the door to the cottage and then got into the car. He turned to me slowly and looked my in the eye.

"Don't tell anyone I brought you here. Okay?"

"Why?"

"Don't ask why, but please just promise me."

"Okay whatever I promise."

Emiliano stared at me for a few more seconds to make sure I was not lying about keeping my promise. I guess all my brothers could do that?

The journey home seemed faster than usual and before I knew it I was opening the door to a bunch of unfamiliar faces.

My cousins.

Hey guys, after editing and rereading this chapter I realised how short it is 💀
And I'm not lying when I say I speed wrote 75% of it last night 😭
So sorry : (

I promise promise promise the cousins will be in the next chapter. There is like no way that it won't happen. No excuses 🙅‍♀️

I'll post a chapter next week and then I'll take a one week break for winter holidays :) I might make a character profile during that time but I'm not sure yet.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed these Emiliano scenes. He strayed very far away from his character. So he probably won't be like this again............

Anyway see you guys next week 🫡