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“Then what is it?” Luca guided me to the table, and that time, I followed.
He scooted in my chair and rounded to sit across from me as I began to speak. “I can’t help but feel a little guilty that while the other girls are being terrified and humiliated, I sit here day after day eating, getting shoulder massages, and taking naps on that cot which is surprisingly comfortable.”
“Two of the three of them have earned a blanket and pillow.”
“Still, they think they are being trained to be trafficked off to God knows where once this nightmare is over. I can’t even imagine how horrified they must be.”
“Maybe as horrified as you were at that club before I could get to you? Definitely less scared than you would have been if I hadn’t gotten there in time.” His words were bitter with restrained anger.
“Luca...”
“Don’t you get it, Mira? I’m doing this for you. I’m trying to teach these girls a lesson because they don’t get it. They think they got away with what they did to you and it’s not right. What they did was fucked up.”
“I know. They shouldn’t have drugged my drink. They were really in the wrong for that. I get it. But they didn’t control what those men were going to do.”
“You really think they didn’t know? That the whole thing wasn’t part of their plan?”
“I don’t know exactly what they were planning, but neither do you.”
Luca stood up angrily, letting the chair screech across the concrete floor as he stormed over to his jacket and pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously as he violently punched buttons on the screen before shoving the phone in my face.
“Here. Take it. Watch.”
I looked at a paused video, but it was too dark to make out anything. “What is this?”
“Footage from your night at the club. I’d hoped you would never need to see this but clearly you’re delusional about that night and need a real reality check.”
He hit play before I could, and I watched the night unfold before my eyes. At first, it was all the normal stuff I remembered. We drank, danced, and laughed, then I watched as Giulietta nodded to Francesca, who poured something into my drink, handing it to Alessia before she handed it to me. They’d all had a hand in drugging me.
My chest grew heavy as I watched myself on the screen. My posture slouched and my movements grew sloppy. I watched the video as I stumbled, as the three girls helped me up and led me over to a rowdy bunch of guys who were all clearly drunk.
I saw myself being handed off to them, trying to push away, but failing. My breath grew ragged, and I wanted to scream at the girl on the phone, to tell her to fight harder, to do something, say something.
I watched the screen in horror as it switched to footage in another location that was unfamiliar to me—even though I could clearly see myself stumbling into the room with the men.
By the time the one man pushed me on the bed and the other started to tug on my clothes, I couldn’t breathe. My eyes blurred with tears I hadn’t even realized were streaming down my face. I pushed the phone into Luca’s hands, desperate for it to stop.
“Turn it off. Turn it off. I don’t want to see any more.”
“No,” he said angrily through clenched teeth. “You need to see the rest.”
He held the phone in front of me and I closed my eyes, turning my head so as to not see as the nightmare unfolded in front of me. Luca firmly gripped my hair, not enough to hurt but enough to force me to face the phone.
I sobbed as one of the men unbuckled his belt. Then, suddenly, the door to the room flew open and I jumped in my chair at the sudden intrusion.
Luca stormed into the room on the screen and shoved one guy into another as they tried to stop him. He punched one and slammed the other’s head into a wall before charging to the bed, scooping my limp body into his arms, and carrying me from the room.
Luca released me and I covered my face as the video ended, sobbing into my hands as my whole body shook.
“I’m sorry,” Luca said softly. Two strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and held me tight as he pulled me onto his lap, just holding me there, softly whispering comforting words.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I’m sorry that I showed you that, but you had to know the truth. You had to know what really almost happened that night and you had to see that those girls were fully culpable in that. They are not some innocent girls that I’m torturing for no reason. I’m doing this in hopes that they will experience their own nightmares so horrible that they never want to do anything like that to anyone else ever again, but I’m mainly doing it because I’m fucking pissed at what they did to you and by our code I can’t kill them violently like I really want to do.”
I lifted my tear-stained face to Luca, and he offered me a gentle, pitiful smile, cradling my face and using his thumbs to softly wipe away the tears.
“I would do anything for you.” His heartfelt declaration took my breath away and I felt the magnetic pull drawing my lips toward his but just before our lips touched, there was a knock on the door.
