Chapter 106 - Mrs. Alessandro

"What you guys say about having a movie night tonight? We never had one with our little sister." 

Crist suggested excitedly and it did not take the others even a minute to agree with his out of the blue proposal.

Leo, Crist, and even Daniel started selecting the movies. Domenic, Mark, and Simon were not included in the discussion because according to Leo - "Their tastes in movies are just as weird as their taste in life."

As for why she was not included - well! No idea.

She turned her face to look at Simon with a pout on her face. 

He raised his eyebrows at her as if he could not understand why she was not happy with the current situation.

"This is such a rude way to tell me that I'm not going to get any more answers today." She muttered out with a small scoff.

Simon's lips twitched at her words but he succeeded in holding his smile before he spoke.

"Don't you think it's unfair that you got to know something about the past of our family and you still want to know more while you are not telling us anything about your own past?" 

Emily went silent as she had no answer to his question. She slowly raised her head to look at her brothers and found that they all had become silent just like her.

"You all know that I'm not a big fan of the woman who's known as our mother, right?" 

Her brothers were not expecting her to suddenly ask such a question and to be honest, she did not know where she was going with this question.

She just wanted to show her brothers that she did not only want to be trusted but she also trusted them.

"We have come to realize it in the past few months but we still don't know the main reason. While it's obvious that she wasn't the best mother in this world, we still can't find anything that has made you dislike her so much." 

It was Daniel who answered her question and she could tell that while her brothers were really curious to know the answer, they were also afraid at the same time.

Were they not prepared to find out the real character of the woman who was their mother?

The thought did not succeed in making her back down. She was finally ready to reveal a part of her dark past.

"When I look back at the time when I was just a little child and my mom was as pure and full of love as a mother should be, I can clearly picture those days as the most beautiful moments of my life."

A small smile was visible on her lips as she spoke. While her eyes appeared like she was lost in some faraway world of memories.

The brothers stayed quiet as they listened to their sister telling them about her childhood.

"At that time, she was a hardworking woman and a great mother too. She used to wake up early in the morning, make breakfast for us, get me ready for school, and then she even dropped me at my school. I used to wait for the school day to end so that I can find her waiting outside the school gates. She used to help me with my homework and assignments. And she cuddled me during the nights. Everything was so sweet and warm during those days."

Emily found her eyes becoming heavy as the weight of her memories settled in her heart. She took in a deep breath before she continued.

"It was just a few days before my eighth birthday when she returned home very late at night. She was wobbling on her feet and was covered in a very sour smell. Her face was flushed while she could barely open her eyes. That night, she cried. She hugged me so tightly and cried her heart out. To this day I've no idea what happened to her that day but whatever it was, it made her broke down in front of her little child. That was the first time I saw her crying and in such a bad state."

"A few months after that, she brought a man to our house on her birthday. He was a colleague of hers and according to her words, they were good friends. I was actually happy for her because after her breakdown I finally saw her smiling again. That man was also polite to me. He was not really warm or loving but he wasn't cold either." 

"Was she dating him?" 

It was Leo who asked the question and Emily nodded her head in reply.

"They were together for two years but then they broke up when she found out that he had been cheating on her for a while. That day, I got to once again see the broken side of her. She drank a lot that night after their fight and she cried too, but you know what? I was too scared that day to go any closer to her. I just stood in the shadows as I cried along with her."

Emily stopped to take a deep breath while she fought to keep her tears at bay. The arm that tightened around her shoulders provided her the support of her brother.

"She got depressed after that. It was not really that bad in the starting but it caused many problems at her work since she was not able to put her attention on her job. It took barely five months before she lost her job and that was probably her breaking point."

"She started drinking. I found her drunk every once or twice a week. She was searching for jobs but nothing was working out. I needed to take care of her and the house as she started losing herself in the world of alcohol and misery."

She felt Daniel's hands circling around her small ones and that's when she realized that she was trembling a little.

"Em, you don't have to push yourself." Her second eldest brother whispered into her ear, telling her that they understood.

But she shook her head as she replied with a small smile that did not reach her eyes, "I'm okay. This is still the good part of the story."

She did not realize that her words were like punches through her brothers' hearts. Exactly how bad everything turned out after that?

"Soon after she started bringing men to our house. First, it was on those days when she went to bars to get drunk but then I got to see them almost every other day. I was barely nine years old at that time but the voices that I got to hear during those days succeeded in running my innocence very early."

"At first, she was aware that she had a very young daughter in her house but as time passed, she probably started forgetting about my existence. I always closed myself inside my room to make sure that I won't stumble across her and her new boyfriend making out around the house half-naked. Maybe if I was not so selfish at that time and only thought about myself, I should have realized that she had started taking drugs too."

"But even if I knew, what could have I done to stop her? I was even more helpless than her. Those men who used to visit our house every other day made me so scared that I did not dare to unlock my bedroom door until I was sure that they had left." 

She felt large hands on her knees which pulled her out of her memories. Her eyes landed on the familiar orbs that belonged to Crist as he crouched in front of her, looking at her with so many emotions filling his own eyes.

"Sweetheart, tell me truthfully. Did any of those men try to harm you in any way? You just need to tell us and I swear we will make that person pay." 

The promise was clear in his voice and she knew that he would do exactly what he was telling her.

She tried to smile softly at her brother as she shook her head, "Maybe I was kind of lucky. But other than a few unfortunate incidents during the early days when I was beaten up by two of her boyfriends, nothing much happened after that. I learned to keep myself hidden from them after those first few encounters. Either I hid myself in my room and locked the door or I would run away to the nearby park to wait for them to leave." 

She felt the darkness that immediately took over Crist's eyes as he heard her reply. His fingers around her tightened a little as he tried to calm his emotions.

She knew that the rest of her brothers were feeling no different. But she also knew that at this point in her life, there's nothing that they could do about her past.

"Is that how you learned to run away at every chance you get?" 

Mark's sudden question made her turn to look at the man who was glaring at her with eyes full of disgust and anger.