Chapter 178: She Doesn't Love Me
Chapter 178: She Doesn't Love Me
Domenico
We were already off the plane and were on our way to the address of her house and it didn't take long to realize why she didn't want us to see that part of her life. Even though this is the second time we have been here in two weeks, I knew this visit had left her stripped bare and vulnerable to the nightmares of her past, her mind the only company she had.
That knowledge was on my mind the entire sprint up her driveway as well as when Gregorio kicked open the cheap door in pair with the useless lock that tried to keep it close. We were already moving inside when we saw her mother passed out on the couch, obviously drunk considering she didn't even stir at the noise.
I was disgusted at how such a pathetic woman couldn't spare someone as beautiful and bright as her daughter, even a little of love, but at least her stepfather wasn't here. It had taken quite literally every last ounce of my control not to kill him when we paid him a visit and have him castrated instead. But I don't like the odd of my patience being tested for a second time.
"Domenico?" Adriano's voice pulled my attention to him, his head jerking to the only bedroom door that was closed.
I knew our girl was on the other side but Gregorio knocked and called out to her, there was no response that echoed her name and that was really what scared me.
"Sweetheart, it is us. Can we come in?" He asked softly but still more than loud enough to hear through the thin walls between.
All we were met with was more silence and it was Adriano who slowly opened the door to see what was happening. Although it was fairly dark, it didn't take me long to realize her bed was completely unoccupied and she wasn't there.
Gosh, my mind instantly snapped to Lucas and her being talking, moving as I shove past my brothers to search the small room. Her bed was bare of its sheet and pillows and I found myself panicking all the way up until I rounded to the other side of her mattress. Then it was sadness that had me falling to my knees and not fear.
"Darling?" My voice broke with the nickname but she didn't even seem to know I was there as I found her crying silent tears, her body shaking and her expression frozen into one of pain.
I knew it was the kind that went far sharper than physical wounds and I hated that thing ever got to this point. Her knees had tucked tight to her chest in what I realized was supposed to be a makeshift bed but I felt how cold and dirty the hardwood was beneath my legs. It was uncomfortable to kneel against yet alone sleep on as though it were a mattress. The significance in her choice didn't go unnoticed by any one of us, my brothers now at my side as well.
"I am going to pick you up, Camilla. Is that okay?" I asked, my hands hovering over her but not touching without permission.
Her state right now was very similar to one of a sub-drop but I knew what we shared a few days ago wasn't the cause of her tears. She was hurting and I just wanted to take it away.
"Hey," I said softly when she still didn't move, forcing myself not to show how scared I am at how quickly everything has changed.
It was clear l was the only one going through hell but unlike me, she didn't deserve a single second of this. She should have parents who could offer her love and support, better yet happy memories she could look back on as an adult and smile about. But the way she was feeling now is something I would never wish upon anyone, let alone a person as deserving as the woman in front of me now.
"I need you to look at me, darling." I didn't want to trigger her by touching without permission but all I wanted to do was hold her in my arms and kiss away her pain until my lips replaced every bad thought in her head.
Adriano and Gregorio let me gently coax her back from whatever state she had fallen into and all I could do was offer a small smile when her tear soaked eyes finally glanced up at me. Her hand reached out and the next second she was in my lap, her body silently shaking from the force of her sobs. Her head had naturally fallen against the cradle of my shoulder as my fingers ran through her hair, my arm holding around her waist and refusing to let go.
"I have got you," I whispered into her ear, although I wasn't even sure she could hear me and I didn't even care if not because if there was even the smallest change I could offer her support, I would take it.
"You don't have to speak but are you hurt, Camilla?" Gregorio asked in front of me, moving a little closer to rub his hand up and down the areas of her back where my arms weren't touching.
The relief I felt when she shook her head no but that didn't change the fact that something was very much wrong. My guesses were on her passed out mother, absent stepfather or both of them.
"You, yo…you…." She tried to speak but she quite literally couldn't manage more than a single word. What she tried to say was muffled by her shoulder but I was too afraid to scare her by pulling back even an inch.
"It is okay," Adriano comforted quietly, kneeling at my right before taking her hand into his.
My heart broke in my chest when I caught sight of her nails, the tips of them pink and so short most of them were bleeding. I couldn't see her other one draped over my neck but I knew the ones hidden would be the same. Nail biting is something I have noticed she always does when she is either anxious or bored but it has never been as bad as it is right now.
This was to the point of actual physical pain and I knew Adriano realized that too as he gently held them between his fingers and lifted them to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. It drew one of the first reactions from her since we entered this room and I was almost surprised when her head lifted slowly from my shoulder to look at me and then at Adriano. Adriano held her gaze as he kept his mouth on her skin, this thumb running across the top of her hand in continuous motions.
"I am s.. sorry." She cried as she hung her head slightly, leaning back into mine and Gregorio's touch across her spine.
I hated that she felt as though this was something she needed to apologize for but I hated even more than I wasn't here for her sooner when she needed me.
"Nothing about this is your fault." I said, kissing her forehead in an attempt to ease the tension from the area.
Hee face was wet with tears and her nose was bright red from her sniffing and her eyes staring up at me even as she continued to cry.
"We are here now and you are not alone, darling." I said as Gregorio brushed some of her hair back from her face so he could play with it to calm her down.
"Whatever happened, I know it hurts. You are allowed to be sad and angry and in pain but you will never be alone."
My hand reached to cup her cheek with my fingers, her face leaning heavily into my touch and allowing me to support her in the way she needed. My thumb wipes away her tears and even though more replaced than second later, I didn't look away from her. Sensory focus is something that had brought her down during her last sub-drop. So while Gregorio plaited her hair and Adriano held her hand, I brushed away her tears and showed her it was safe to leave her nightmare with us.
"S.. she doesn't love me." She gasped as her bottom lip trembled in pain, no doubt referring to the woman who was supposed to be her mother.
"I don't understand what I ever did wrong?"
She sucked in a shuddering breath as though even those few words hurt her to speak. It is because they did, not in the sense of external wounds but in the tightening of her chest and ache of her heart.
"Nothing, sweetheart." Gregorio muttered at her back, kissing her head and keeping his touch there as I watched his eyes close in sadness of his own.
Not being loved in the way one deserves is something all of us knew better. Although we grew in a very different environment, we did everything in our power to disappoint our father by wreaking more havoc than than imaginable.
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