Trusting My Brothers

Chapter 19

Waking up at 6:00am as usual, I feel someones arms around my waist. As I start to freak out, I remember what happened last night. I told my brothers a little about my past after having a nightmare that woke them up.

Groaning, I remove Fabiano's arms as sneakily as I could and make my way to the bathroom to change into my workout clothes. After getting dressed, I walk out of my room and close the door as quietly as I could. None of my brothers looked like they were up yet, which was good. I kind of feel bad for waking them up in the middle of the night but its not like I could help it.

Finally getting to the gym, I first do my warmup stretches so I'm not as sore as I usually would be. Then, I run on the treadmill for about thirty minutes, lift five sets of ten, and finally start on the punching bag. One thing that I need to practice is not moving my hips a lot when I punch because that is a huge tell in boxing. I continue punching and kicking the bag for a while until I see movement in the corner of my eye. I turn to see Matteo holding his phone up.

"Matteo, what are you doing?" I asked, confused.

He smirks while holding up his phone. "I think that the others should see what you're doing, don't you think?"

"Give me that phone." I said in a threatening voice.

"I don't think so." And with that, he runs out of the room and goes downstairs. I start chasing him right away, almost running into a wall in the process. He ran into the kitchen, me following him, and I see all my brothers sitting there. Crap.

"Matteo, why don't you be a good brother and delete the video?" I say in a sweet tone.

"Nope. Brothers, come gather around to see what our sweet sorellina was doing." Matteo said.

All my brother turn to his phone and watch the video of me punching the crap out of the bag. They could clearly see that it wasn't my first time working out or fighting. After the video was done, they all turned to me.

"Why were you in the gym?" asked Savio.

"I want to gain more muscle. Plus I had nothing better to do."

"How long have you been working out?" Luca said.

"Ever since I got here. I would wake up early and go to the gym while you guys were still asleep." I say, continuing to lie.

"Why are you lying about how long you have been working out? I can damn well see that you know what you are doing." Lorenzo points out. Damn it. I might as well admit part of the truth. What is the worst that could happen?

"Fine, I've been working out for about a month. It was the only way to get away from my parents. They may have neglected me, but they were also very strict. Happy now?" I say. lying again.

He nods. "Thank you for being honest." If only he knew...

"Boys, you have school. Bambina, we all have to go, but Nico has the day off, so he will be staying with you." Savio states.

"Okay. Have a good day." I say with false sincerity and they left. To be honest, I still don't trust them fully. Yes, they apologized, but sometimes it takes more than that. I was abused for over 8 years and sorry wasn't going to cut it, even is they didn't know. Last night, they were talking about how their dad neglected them, but did he also hit them? Did he put them through the same hell I went through with mom? 

All I know was that last night was a moment of weakness. I should have never let my guards down, even a little. But I couldn't control it; I was still really tired, my mind wasn't in the right state, and my brothers basically staged an intervention. I could tell on everyone's face last night that they felt sorry for me, yet they didn't know the full story. Now that I think about it, I hated the pity looks they were giving me. I wished they looked at me with any other expression.