At that moment, my mom’s hands flew from under the counter with the gun in her hand. She pointed over the counter and it was the last mistake she’d ever make in her life. A flurry of gunshots filled the silence of the store and I watched my mom’s body shake over and over as a litany of bullets sunk into her. Her chest, stomach, even her face—nothing was safe, and she fell straight backward and smashed to the ground. Blood poured out of her and created a giant, crimson pool on the ground, an image blurred only by the tears rising to my eyes.
I clasped my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming as I burned the image of my dead mother into my brain.
“Gianni. Go get the body,” Angelo said.
“Yes sir,” a much younger voice, I assumed Gianni, called out.
The only sound after that were footsteps getting closer to me and I felt like I was going to throw up from fear. There was nothing large enough to hide behind and the counter was totally open. As soon as someone came around that corner, they were going to see me, and they were probably going to kill me.
I heard the squeak of the swing door that separated the front of the store from behind the counter, and then someone stepped into view. His eyes locked into mine instantly, and even though I knew it wouldn’t help, I continued to scoot backward, mostly just writhing in place.
“What is it?”Angelo asked.
Gianni looked down at me, briefly forcing me to focus on him instead of my poor mother. He wasn’t much older than me by my guess—twelve or thirteen maybe—and behind his eyes I could see a hesitation. He had black hair that was straight at the root and curled at the tips, bright blue eyes, and a striking, square jaw. If it weren’t for the serene look he was giving me, he’d be terrifying, but there was something calming about him that I couldn’t explain.
“Gianni!” Angelo barked, snapping Gianni’s attention up. “What is it?”
Gianni looked back down at me. “I think there might be money under here,” he said.
Angelo clicked his teeth. “Check.”
Gianni bent down and started to crawl under the counter. He got closer to me, and it was taking everything I had not to scream out. “Shh,” Gianni whispered, barely audibly. “I won’t hurt you, but stay quiet.” I nodded and then he said, “Is there money?” I pointed a finger over to where my mom usually kept her safe of petty cash. Gianni nodded, then reached over and grabbed the case and climbed from under the counter. He set it on top and flipped the lid open. “It’s not much.”
“Fine,” Angelo said. “Get her body. Try not to smear the blood.” Gianni walked over to my mom’s body and pulled her up out of the pool of her blood. He tossed me an apologetic look as he carefully moved her, doing his best not to smear any of the crimson remains, and then he eventually dragged her body out of my eyesight. “You two, get rid of it. Split it to make it harder to find. Gianni, grab the money. Let’s go.”
Not only did Gianni come back behind the counter for the case of petty cash, but he yanked the cash register up from its supports and lifted it as well. He was surprisingly strong for someone so young. As he braced the cash register up, the bottom of his button-up shirt lifted from the hem of his pants and I could see all manner of scars, burns, and bruises. He walked away with the mechanisms in hand, and then I heard the bell of the cleaners jingle a few times before the place returned to silence.
Tears rained down my cheeks in a continuous stream, though I was still too afraid to make any noise. My eyes and nose started to burn with how much I was sobbing, but I refused to let any sound come out of my mouth. I was terrified that if I moved or made even the smallest sound, those men would come back and they would kill me.
At least Angelo would. Gianni could have ratted me out, but he lied and it saved my life.
The shop got darker and darker as night fell, and soon it was so dark I could barely see. No one came into the shop, and I continued to wait. My stomach growled from hunger and my head was pounding from crying. My eyes were drifting shut against my will when the jingle of the door made me go rigid.
“Philippa?!” a familiar voice screamed. “Philippa!” Footsteps pounded towards me and before a dark figure stepped behind the counter. It ducked down and I saw my dad’s face, covered in anguish, mixed with relief as he laid his eyes on me. “Mio angelo.” He reached out and grabbed me, pulling me out from under the corner and into a bear hug. “Oh, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Papa,” I whimpered. “Mama’s…”
“I know, baby, but everything is going to be okay from now on, okay? You’re going to be safe.”
Those were the words he said, and I was foolish to believe them. He carried me out of the store and drove me almost an hour outside of Chicago to a giant estate that was nestled in the valley of the rolling hills of a Chicago suburb. We passed through a wrought-iron gate and drove up to the front door where my dad parked and pulled me out of the car. We walked up the stairs and through the door, into a room where a few people were waiting that shook me to my core.
Angelo, the man who had murdered my mom, and Gianni, his son who had saved me, alongside two boys who were younger than Gianni, but looked related.
Angelo stepped forward and I started to shake as tears came to my eyes. “Hello little Philippa,” that evil voice said. “You’re going to work for my family from now on.”
“You swear nothing will happen to her?” my father asked.
“A deal’s a deal,” Angelo said, before looking me up and down. “Although, what a shame. She’s beautiful just like her mother.”
3
Gianni
Every ounce of my body stung as I limped my way down the hallway. It was a blessing on its own that my legs were actually keeping me upright, given the fact that my father had smashed a bat into them repeatedly, with the expressed desire of breaking them. My ribs were sore from my father shoving all manner of noxious smells under my nose until I was puking, and the repeated retching left a strain in my torso. My arms were weak, my head was clammy, and my eyes were blurry. I had to make it up two flights of stairs from the basement to the second level where my bedroom was, but that was going to be quite the haul with as little as I could move.
In a weird way, I had to thank the fact that my dad probably wanted to bring me to the brink of death without pushing me over. If he didn’t have me, he wouldn’t have anyone to torture. At least I was alive and breathing, albeit barely. I’d only have a day, maybe two, to rest before my father came looking for me to shove me into some task or another, and he would have no sympathy for the fact that he’d beat me to within an inch of my life. I had no time to waste getting upstairs, so I dragged myself along, using the wall for support as I moved, and tried to push away the pounding in my head, at least until I could get upstairs.
The final leg of my journey was a difficult one. The bottom level of the estate was a large catacomb of rooms of no use, with thin, winding cement hallways, and must and murk wafting off the walls. None of the smells that made the way into my nose were even half as bad as anything my father had forced on me, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t start to turn my stomach. I’d begun associating the smell of that basement with my torture. Mold and wet concrete forever haunted my nightmares and would always shove me back into these rooms where my father exercised his twisted hobby.
