Their Little Princess

Chapter Fifty-Two

Elijah opens the car door, as Sandro climbs out of the driver's seat and to the front door.

I slide to the end of the seat, Elijah goes to lift me up but I shake my head.

He steps back with a worried expression and I accept his hand as I climb out. My legs are wobbly from pure exhaustion and pain, he puts an arm around my shoulders to stabilize me, but I step aside the smallest bit to try to regain some sense of independence. Some sense of myself.

When I step into the house, it seems so different. I'm here but not totally present, like I'm looking at everything from a clouded jar. Every aspect of the world is muted. There's little reminders of what the world was like not even a full 12 hours ago: The haphazard monopoly game on the coffee table in the living room, the microwave beeping because no one ever got the chance to take the popcorn out.

But it's so different. Like the last ounce of any hope keeping me going was finally drained. But that hope was what I was holding onto, it's what woke me up in the morning, what let me trust others despite everything I've been through, it's what helped me think someday I could be happy. It's what gave the world around me color no matter how much I went through. If it's gone...Then what do I have to live for?

"I'm sorry, Maddie. I know you're tired, but I have to examine your ribs to make sure they weren't broken again, okay?"

Am I tired? I don't feel tired. I can feel my weight when I walk but I've never felt more alert, if I close my eyes, I may never open them again. He guides me to the couch and I sit down.

"How do you feel?" He asks, sitting behind me on the couch. I don't respond. He doesn't push it, he gets directly to examining my ribs. And it does hurt, but the pain doesn't quite make it to my receptive sensors. Instead, I find my eyes locked on the blank wall on the far side of the room.

He talks to me as he presses down gently on various parts of my ribs, his words don't register though, "...so sorry...warehouse... never meant...when I said...happy you're okay...loss..."

His words run together, they come out as one long jumble of words that I've been hearing for the past 12 hours, it's all anyone keeps saying, that they're sorry, they never meant for me to find out this way, when am I allowed to be tired of hearing it?

He stays sitting for a while after he's done, and I can feel his gaze on me. He stands up finally with a sigh, "Do you want me to help you to your room?"

I shake my head. I do. I want help. But for some reason, I can't bring myself to accept anyone's help. I don't know if it's because I think I don't deserve their help, or if deep down I feel like they don't deserve to care about how they're affecting me now. They don't deserve to care once it's too late.

The last thing I hear him say is "Happy birthday, Maddie."

I walk upstairs and lay down on my bed. I don't know where Millie is, I think I left her at the warehouse. I know she's only a stuffed bear, but I feel like I'm going to fall apart without it right now. Maybe it's not really the bear, maybe it runs much deeper than that. My lip trembles at the threat of tears as my eyes catch mom's small glass rose pendant necklace on my nightstand.

I grab it shakily, and after struggling to still my hands, I clasp it around my neck, letting the cool material touch my skin. I close my hand around it and squeeze my eyes shut, I just want to feel closer to something familiar. Closer to a good place. She wore this necklace in that picture. I didn't cherish that moment enough, I didn't cherish yesterday evening enough, I didn't understand the value of those moments until they were gone, until it was too late. 

I'm no better than my brothers.

.    .    .

I don't even realize I doze off until I'm waking back up.

My room is dark as the sun has already began setting so I click my lamp on. My door is cracked slightly, so I assume one of my brothers came in to check on me at some point. I reach over and turn my lamp on, my eye catches the envelope on the edge. I grab it hesitantly.

It's the envelope Dante dropped at my feet, the envelope is open, meaning Sandro has probably already seen it. The moment my eyes read the first line, I can feel tears threatening to spill, I'm holding my mom's last words in my hands.

Maddie,
When you read this, I'm already certain you'll understand part of what I'm saying, but I'm going to explain it to you anyway. My father owns what is called a mafia, as does your father, Lorenzo. These 'businesses' were passed on to us after our marriages were arranged. I don't have a lot of time left right now, a lot of choices I've made have led me to this point, and when you get this letter, I'll already be dead, Daniel as well. I want you to hate me, but I want you to forgive me as well. Not for my sakes but for yours, I'll already be burning in hell by the time you get this, but I don't want you to carry a grudge for the rest of your life. I'm giving you my business, you are my heiress. I'm not doing this out of spite, I'm doing this because as your mother, I love you in ways a mother will always love her child, I suppose I'm selfish in this way. I've done things that I will never apologize for, But I've never laid a finger on you and just because I couldn't stop Daniel from doing the same doesn't mean that I wouldn't kill the rest of the world to ensure you never have to live with a scratch on you. So I'm giving you money, weapons, and backup to use at your discretion. Take it, and protect yourself. Because the only person you can rely on, the only person you can trust, is yourself. 

My hands are shaking by the time I get to the end of the letter. The last part of the sentence hits me the hardest. If this was last week, even last night, I would've thought that part wasn't true, I would've argued that you can trust family. But I blindly and foolishly trusted both abuelo and Zio Dante, and it got me nothing but pain and betrayal.

There's a knock on the door and it opens as I shakily slide the letter back into the envelope.

Alessandro walks in shortly after knocking, he nods to me before sitting down on my desk chair, "Did you read it?"

I nod, looking down at the cream colored envelope.

"What you did was intelligent," He says, "If you hadn't left the app open, we wouldn't have known to look for you in the building. That wasn't a bad idea."

I feel empty inside to a scary extent, I don't feel the pain, I don't feel anything. For once I want something to hurt, I want to be sad or angry, or feel anything, because I'm scared of this. Like when you have a cold, and you feel like you'll never be able to breathe properly again. That's the kind of fear I have now, but it's so intense. It's a scary thought to think that I may never be able to feel anything again. Because I want to feel happiness. I want to be able to feel sad, and excited, and even pain. I just want to feel like a normal person.

I just want to feel normal.

Sandro's voice breaks through the silence, "Are you okay?"

Am I okay? It seems like such a simple question. I could easily lie and say 'yes'. Maybe I could say 'I will be' but what if I never am? What if I truly have nothing left...

"I don't know."