tw - slight mention of abuse and rape
Third Person POV
"Rocco, look at the camera baby!"
"C'mon Enzo, stop poking Carlo's face."
"Gi, Tino, stop fighting over your sister please. Put her on the floor next to Carlo."
"There we go! Look at all you pretty babies." Rosalia cheered when she finally got a picture with all three of them looking at the camera. Most of them were smiling in it, all apart from Rocco. But he never smiled when he was asked to, he hated smiling on photos.
"Fina-fucking-lly, can we go now?" A 10 year old Agostino groaned, his shoulders sore from where Bruno was sitting on them. Gosh knows how he thought he'd be able to balance Bruno on his shoulders and hold a wriggling Chiara without dropping one of them. Or hurting himself.
"Bad word!" A 3 year old Bruno gasped looking at both his parents with wide eyes, whilst also tugging the shit out of Tino's hair. As if he was trying to punish him for saying a 'naughty' word.
"Oww, Bruno stop it." Tino groaned, attempting to lift Bruno off of his shoulders. He couldn't get him very far, Bruno was certain on keeping his grip on Tino's hair. Not much would stop him from letting go. Damiano had to keep his laugh down, laughing would only make Tino angrier and encourage Bruno's behaviour.
"I know Bruno, Tino said a very naughty word didn't he." Damiano said, glaring at Agostino as he lifted Bruno off Tino's shoulders and brought him into his own arms. At the sound of his father's voice, Bruno immediately let go of Tino's hair and completely focused on Damiano.
"Yes, I heard him say it!" Bruno exclaimed, buffing out his chest and crossing his arms as Damiano put him on his own two legs. Damiano couldn't help the small smile that spread across his face. It happened regularly when he was around his kids.
"Just to make sure Tino doesn't do it again, I'll let you have one punch at him. Does that sound like a plan, cucciolo?" Damiano said, crouching down to the same height as Bruno. Tino just rolled his eyes, he didn't feel like faking pain right now. He just wanted to go downstairs, away from his annoying, baby siblings.
(little animal)
Damiano should probably be concerned at the look of pure excitement that spread across Bruno's face when he heard he could punch Tino. But he chose to ignore it, it's not like he was innocent either.
Without any warning, no words coming from his mouth whatsoever, Bruno started winding his arm back, warming up for the punch. Then out of nowhere, not only his arm, but his entire body started flying at Tino's leg. Only his arm made contact, and the rest of his body collided with the floor. The poor thing wasn't very coordinated.
"Ow, what was that for?" Tino mock winced, sending an annoyed glare in his fathers direction. Bruno bounced back off the floor with a large grin on his face, please with the efforts he had put into that punch. Just as Damiano was about to respond, his only daughter caught his attention. And the entire room's attention.
"FUUUUCK!" Chiara screamed, putting her entire soul into the exclamation. It was enough to make Rocco and Gi stop wresting in the floor, it caught Rosalia's attention from where she was trying to convince Enzo and Carlo that their pants needed to stay on. It took everything in all of the people above the age of 5 to not start laughing.
"Did I use cor?" Chiara paused, frustrated she couldn't pronounce the world "correctly", well correctly. "Cowectwy" She finished, still frustrated that she couldn't say it properly. But then she turned her head and looked at her Dad with the most innocent and pure look on her face.
Chiara was much more mentally developed then your normal 2 year old, and it was in times like this that Damiano and Rosalia weren't sure if they were grateful for it or not. But before either of them had the oppurtunity to respond, Bruno figured out what just happened.
"BAD WORD!" Bruno said, ducking his head down and preparing to charge at Chiara. Luckily, Damiano intercepted him just in time before any real damage could be done. Handing Bruno to Tino, Damiano focused his attention on his daughter.
"Chiara, fragolina, you know that's a bad word." Damiano said softly, bending down and scooping his younger daughter up into his arms. Rosalia just watched from afar, trying to fight down the guilt that she was feeling. Tonight she was running away with Chiara.
(strawberry)
"But Tino said it." Chiara said with a pout on her face, quickly finding the chain around Damiano's neck to play with. Damiano let out a sigh, he was so close to just letting her off because of the cute look on her face. But he knew it wouldn't be very responsible parenting if he did.
"I know Tino did, and now Tino's in a lot of trouble. Because he's not allowed to say bad words either." Damiano explained softly, sending a not very aggressive glare in Tino's direction. But Chiara caught his attention once again when she let out a loud gasp.
"Twouble?" Chiara said, pure fear written all over her face. Her bottom lip started trembling at the idea of her being in trouble, and tears quickly started to form in her eyes. Even at the young age of 2, Chiara was quickly turning into a people pleaser.
"Tino's in trouble, not you fragolina. But if you say it again, you might get in a little bit of trouble, okay?" He explained softly, and he could see the fear evaporate from Chiara's mind. And it relaxed him knowing she wasn't scared anymore.
(strawberry)
"Pinky promise you won't say it again." Damiano said, holding out his pinky finger to Chiara. She quickly and gladly brought her hand out and wrapped her tiny pinky around his.
"Pinky pwomise." She exclaimed gleefully, a big smile coming over her face. And Damiano knew she would rather give up all her barbie dolls then break a pinky promise, and she loved her barbie dolls. So there was no way she was going to say another bad word anytime soon.
"I think people should be getting here now, you want to go see some friends now sweetheart?" Damiano asked, doing a quick sweep of the room with his eyes.
Bruno was now using Tino's body as a jungle gym, whilst Tino was watching (and encouraging) Gi and Rocco's fight on the floor. On the other side of the room, Rosalia had manage to convince Carlo to keep his pants on, he was now in Rosalia's arms, fidgeting with her earrings. But Rosalia just had to convince Enzo to keep his pants on.
"Will fwiends like my dwess?" Chiara said nervously, referring to the Cinderella dress she had one. It was her and Carlo's second birthday party, and they'd both decided to do a dress up theme. Chiara was a Cinderella, whilst Carlo was dressed up as a Prince.
Rocco had decided to be Tarzan, when really he was just looking for an excuse to walk around without a t-shirt on. At four years old, he already thought he was the bees knees.
Bruno had decided to be Sebastian from the Little Mermaid, gosh knows where Rosalia had found a crab costume for him. And Enzo had decided to be Buzz Lightyear.
Rosalia had managed to convince Gi to dress up as Captain Hook, but Gi just wore it for the hook he got to carry around and threaten people with.
It was even more of a miracle to convince Tino to dress up, as at the ripe age of 10 he thought he was 'too cool' for dress ups. The only reason he was dressed up as Aladdin was for the same reason as Rocco, so he could show off his amazing 'abs'.
And Damiano wasn't planning on dressing up, neither was Rosalia. But with a quick pout from Carlo and fake tears from Chiara, their minds were changed. Hence why they were now dressed up as Mickey and Minnie mouse, per Carlo's request.
"What friends, you don't have any of those." Rocco snorted from besides them, Damiano couldn't help but jump a little bit. The kid came out of nowhere. Just as Damiano was about to tell Rocco off, Chiara quickly stood up for herself.
"Milo is my fwiend." She said proudly, her arms crossed against her chest and her chin held high. The look of confidence made a weird feeling pop up in Damiano's chest. Chiara was going to grow up in a house full of boys, she needed to be able to stick up for herself pretty much 24/7.
"Emilio is Carlo's friend, not your friend, dummy." Rocco scoffed with a roll of his eyes.
Damiano decided to sit this one out, see how Chiara would handle it herself. She could get scary if she wanted to, sometimes even he was scared of her. Ironic really, a whole ass mafia boss scared of his two year old daughter.
"Not true! Lolo, Milo and Vani." Chiara shot back, pointing out her three friends. Carlo (her twin brother), Emilio (a family friend her age) and Giovanni (her cousin). Damiano quickly moved his gaze to Rocco. Was it bad that he was finding this entertaining?
"Yeah, fine." Rocco scoffed, rolling his eyes and giving Chiara a very unimpressed look. He knew he'd lost the argument, and there was no way Chiara was going to let go of it.
"Okay, okay. Enzo and Carlo have their pants back on, is everyone else ready to go downstairs?" Rosalia said breathlessly, walking over to everyone with Carlo in one arm and Enzo in the other.
"I think we are all good to go." Damiano said, pressing a quick kiss onto Rosalia's cheek.
With that kiss, Rosalia was overwhelmed with guilt. Chiara was so happy here, running away with her would only ruin things. But she hated it here, and she needed to get Chiara out. But her mental guilt trip was cut off by the front door bell going off, and a squirming Enzo trying to wiggle his way out of her grip.
"Last one to the door is a rotten egg!" Rocco screeched the second he heard the bell go off, and suddenly Bruno, Enzo and Rocco had disappeared down the hall.
"C'mon Ki, we don't wanna be rotten eggs do we?" Gi said teasingly, grabbing his younger sister out of his dads arms and quickly dashing off down the hall. Tino was quickly to follow, after he grabbed Carlo out of his mum's arms.
"I suppose we should probably get down there, hey?" Damiano said, walking up to Rosalia and wrapping an arm around her waist. The way she automatically stiffened at his touch didn't go unnoticed, but she managed to put on a fake smile a little too effortlessly.
"Probably." Rosalia said, her voice coated in fake cheeriness. In reality, she wasn't excited for this stupid little party she was throwing for her youngest two children. Her favourite two children to be exact.
But she was so insistent on this party because she saw it as a going away party for Chiara. She knew that taking Chiara away from this family would destroy them, and it was part of the reason why she was taking her away. But maybe this party would ease a tiny bit of the pain, make them hate Rosalia a little less.
"Daaaad! Zia Giula is here!"
⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕
"Oh Emmy, what's wrong baby?" Francesca cooed as a crying Emilio ran up to her. She quickly swept him up into her arms, and Emilio quickly dug his face into his mothers neck. Clearly Francesca wasn't getting an answer from her youngest son right now.
Quickly following behind him was a visibly upset Chiara, a Rocco who looked like he was in pain but didn't want to admit it, and an Andre that looked a mixture of concerned and proud.
"Hey Ki, do you reckon you could tell us what happened to Milo?" A fifteen year old Valentina said from beside her mother, crouching down to Chiara's eye level. She was concerned about her younger brother, Milo didn't cry too often.
"Rocco p-pushed Milo." Chiara managed to say, her bottom lip slowly starting to wobble. It was her fault Milo got pushed by Rocco, and she felt incredibly guilty for it.
"Rocco pushed who?" Rosalia said, stopping in her tracks. She was just walking past, and managed to hear the end of what Chiara said. Then when she saw the pained look on Rocco's face and his slowly reddening cheek, she just became even more confused.
"He was holding Chiara's hand! It was either I punched him or pushed him for touching Chiara!" Rocco huffed, trying to make sense of his actions. If any of his brothers heard what he did, they'd agree with him.
"Rocco, baby, that's no excuse to push someone over or punch one. Especially someone so much younger then you, you could've seriously hurt Milo." Rosalia explained softly, pretending like she didn't find this amusing. It was only a matter of time one of the boys did something overly protective.
"But she's not allowed boyfriends, and they were holding hands." Rocco argued, crossing his hands over his buffed out chest. He was attempting to look stronger and manlier, and he was failing.
"Chiara can hold hands with whoever she wants, and you know that. Now can you tell me how you got that red mark on your cheek?" Rosalia asked softly, reaching out and slowly brushing her fingers over the red mark now sitting on Rocco's cheek. Rocco shot her the best glare he could muster.
"That was me! I punched him for pushing Milo!" Andre said proudly. Rocco was his best friend, there was no doubt about it. But no one could ever push his little brother without feeling the consequences, not even Rocco.
"You two go talk to your fathers and tell them what you've done, they can deal with it." Francesca sighed, and the boys didn't need to be told twice, they were running off to their dads within seconds.
"You okay tesoro?" Rosalia said, squatting down and picking Chiara up in her arms. Chiara immediately busied herself by playing with her mothers necklace.
Chiara simply nodded her head before adding, "Rocco angry." with a small pout on her face. Rosalia just sighed and rubbed Chiara's back, Rocco seemed to be following in Tino's footsteps with his anger issues. Only his seemed to be a teeny bit worse then Tino's.
"I know hun, but he's not angry at you, I promise." Rosalia said, pressing a kiss to Chiara's forehead. Chiara seemed happy with the response and snuggled her head into Rosalia's chest.
"Where's Giovanni and Carlo?" Rosalia asked, Giovanni, Carlo, Emilio and Chiara were usually all together. The parents usually joked that they were inseparable, and that they'd be a bit of trouble when they grew up.
"Carlo, Gio, Bruno, Enzo and Angelo were watching a movie inside with Nonna I'm pretty sure." Val added, doing another scope of the yard to find any lone children. As the oldest of them all, she felt a certain responsibility to make sure they were all okay. She'd changed all of their diapers at least once in their lifetime, they're basically in debt to her.
"Yeah, okay. Now I just need to find Gi." Rosalia huffed. As scared as she was, she was kind of excited to get away from the mess of having 7 children. She was excited to have only 1 to look after.
"Gi is playing Uno with Francesco, Dante and Luca." Giulia, Damiano's older sister said, joining the conversation. Her best friend, and Damiano's twin brothers wife, Isabella was following behind her.
"Oh, okay." Rosalia said. Well now she just had to find her oldest and then they'd all be accounted for.
"And Tino, Romeo and Riccardo and sitting over by the swing set gossiping about something. And I think Tino might be ogling poor Camila over there." Isabella added, and Rosalia couldn't decide if that comment made her more relaxed or more stressed. She was leaving tonight, why did her oldest sons love life even concern her? It's not like she'd be around to witness any of it.
"Whatever, I don't care about Tino's love life right now. I actually came over to ask about Val's new boy toy." Giulia asked, wiggling her eyebrows in Val's direction. Val's face went beet red at the mention of it. But before she could ask anything, another voice butted into the conversation.
"What's boy toy?" Chiara asked tiredly, rubbing her eyes as if they just interrupted her nap. They did, but she'd been sleep for 5 minutes.
"It's nothing sweetheart, why don't you go back to sleep, hey?" Rosalia said, gently patting Chiara's hair out of her face. She sleepily nodded and went back to sleep on her mothers shoulder, then all of the attention was back on Val.
⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕
Damiano woke up at around 3 in the morning, immediately sensing that something was wrong. When he heard the cries coming from down the hall, he guessed Carlo was up. And when he didn't feel Rosalia's presence beside in him bed, he presumed she'd already gone to get him back to sleep.
But when five minutes passed and Carlo's cries didn't stop, he figured something was wrong. It was even odder that Chiara didn't start crying either, usually when one started crying the other didn't start long after them.
Within seconds Damiano had managed to pull a top on, and found himself in the twins' shared room.
"Shh Carlo, it's okay." Damiano said, lifting Carlo into his arms and rocking him around. At the comfort of his father, Carlo's cries calmed a little, but his sister was gone. As was his mother.
Damiano took the time to assess what was going on in the room. Chiara wasn't in her cot, and all the drawers in her side of the dresser where pulled out and apparently empty. Walking into the closet, he found the same thing. Most of her clothes were gone.
There was still a chance that Rosalia and Chiara were just downstairs, and he was taking this out of proportion. But he doubted it. He doubted it severely. That's why he quickly pulled his phone out and sent a message to Francesco, Matt and Giuseppe. His brother, brother in law, and best friend, telling them to come over asap.
Fifteen minutes later, Carlo was back asleep. Damiano, Francesco, Matt and Giuseppe were in Damiano's office, making angry phone calls and combing through every last bit of security footage.
But all it showed was Rosalia hurriedly packing herself and Chiara a bag, before jumping into a car with Chiara in her arms.
But they were searching, they had men out in the streets looking all over for the two of them. They were holding onto every last hit of hope they had, that they weren't too late.
But Rosalia and Chiara were already on a plane, heading straight to their new life in Sydney, Australia.
⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕
12 Years Later
12 years. It had been 12 years since Damiano walked into the twins' room to find it empty. It had been twelve years since he had any contact with his ex wife. It had been 12 years since he was able to give his only daughter a hug, and tell her how much he loved her.
And it's safe to say it's been the hardest 12 years of Damiano's life. Sure it'd gotten better every year, the boys slowly adjusting to a life without their mother and without their youngest sister who they'd loved dearly.
The first year was the worse of them all, Carlo wouldn't stop crying he missed his sister so much. He wanted his mother. He needed his mother.
Bruno and Enzo, although they were only 3, they knew something was wrong. They slowly shrank into themselves and shut themselves off.
Rocco flipped out. He'd hurt anything or anyone. He'd break anything he could get his hands on. He couldn't accept the fact that his sister was gone.
Gi, although he was 7 at the time, he'd decided that it was his job to become the mother hen of the family. Somehow he'd managed to skip a year of school, get into med school early, whilst also make sure his siblings were okay.
And Tino, well he was Tino. Sure he got angry, sure he got mad, but he was Tino. He was always okay, he was always ready to work. That's what the future Head of the Italian Mafia had to do.
And Damiano, well it's safe to say he hadn't had a rest day in those 12 years. Not a minute went past where he didn't think about Chiara. Not a day went past where he didn't follow up on a possible lead on her whereabouts.
And this day, the 12th anniversary since her disappearance was no different. He'd spent the day in the office, dedicating his entire day to finding where Chiara was. To bringing her home, away from his bitch of an ex wife.
He could only hope that Rosalia was treating her well, if she still even had custody of her that is. Had Rosalia introduced a step father into Chiara's life? Was that the man she grew up viewing as a father? Could she even remember a thing about them?
Those were a handful of the thoughts that replayed through his head every second of every day. And today was no different, but now, as he walked through the front door of his home, he had to focus on his sons for a little. He would never come home this early on a normal day, but today wasn't normal.
Yesterday was Carlo's 14th birthday, and it was Chiara's as well, although she wasn't here to celebrate it with them.
They'd thrown some type of party for Carlo, Rocco organised it and insisted it was whatever 14 year olds were doing these days. Damiano had no clue, as hard as he tried, he could never keep up with what kids were doing these days.
He put his stuff on the kitchen bench, the smell of spaghetti bolognese overwhelming his senses. Clearly Gi had already cooked dinner, and Damiano would come and grab a bowl of it after. After he'd gone around and checked on all of his sons.
Assuming that they were all hidden up in there rooms, Damiano started heading in the direction of the stairs. But the sound of shooting coming from the television in the living room, clearly someone got sick of their room.
When he walked into the room, he found Carlo, Bruno and Enzo sitting in the living room, all of them engrossed with whatever was on the TV.
"Hey, what are you watching?" Damiano said, walking around the back of the couch and focusing on the television as well. He took a quick second to assess the three boys spread out across the room.
Carlo was stretched out across the couch directly opposite the TV. And from what Damiano could see, he looked somewhat okay. He was just happy that he wasn't holed up in his room, and was down here spending time with his family.
Enzo and Bruno were spread out on seperate beanbags, and pretty much looked the exact same. Well, considering they are identical twins, they do look the same. But the both also looked okay. As okay as they could be around this time of year.
"The Avengers." Carlo mumbled, now bouncing his eyes between the TV and the phone that he had pulled out of nowhere.
"Cool, you know where all your brothers are?" Damiano asked. If anything, these were the three that he was least worried about today. Okay maybe Carlo, but he was extremely worried about Rocco.
"Uh yeah, they're all in the gym doing something. Rocco was pissing me off so I came out here instead." Enzo mumbled, not breaking his gaze away from the television. Damiano started slowly nodding his head. Rocco pissing someone off? Okay, that wasn't anything new.
"Okay, I'm gonna go check on them and then I'll come back out and watch this with you. Sound like a plan?" Damiano asked, not expecting a massive response from them. He'd struggle to get one on a good day, let alone when there's something interesting on the TV.
"Yeah, whatever." Bruno replied, and Damiano walked away really feeling the love from his three youngest sons.
Whilst on the other side of the world, in Sydney, Australia, the sun was just starting to rise.
"Where the fuck is our breakfast, bitch?" Rosalia shouted as she stormed down the stairs into Chiara's pathetic excuse of a room.
Chiara shot out of bed in a hurry, ignoring the aches of protest coming from her ribs and other areas. She couldn't have slept in, she knew better then that. But she did, she slept in and now she'd receive the punishment for it.
"Mama," Chiara began, Rosalia was always nicer on her when she called her that, "I'm so sorry, I promise I'll go up and do it right now." Chiara pleaded, but it didn't work.
"John! Come down here and deal with the whore, won't ya?!" Rosalia yelled, storming back up the stairs in search of her boyfriend.
Chiara gulped, and started mentally preparing for what she knew was coming for her.
A/N
hi my beautiful babies, here's the prologue!
and although this is technically the edited version, there's still bound to be errors and things that don't make sense! just point them out and i'll be sure to fix them :)
what are the thoughts on the prologue?
i'm not sure when the proper chapters will start to come out, but i'll be sure to let you know!
hope you're all doing well :)))
lots of love,
tilly xo