"Those walls of hospitals, taught me to lose hope. But essence of your love, gave me strength to cope." -archita singh thakur

"Sveglia il, mio sole, we're gonna take you to one of our hospitals to check out those...wounds of yours before the rest of our family shows up." Leonardo's gruff voice whispered in my ear. I groaned and rolled over only to soon realize I was still on the couch as I land on the floor. A slight yelp out of pain from landing on one of my open wounds. (Sveglia il mio sole-wake up, my sunshine)

"Isabella, are you ok!" Leonardo shrieked as he scrambled to my side, kneeling beside me. I nod my head yes, moving as slowly as possible to ease the pain. "May I ask a question?" I ask shyly.

"Just did but go ahead" Ricardo responds with a reassuring smirk on his face. "What do you mean by 'our hospitals' and 'rest of our family shows up'? you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"Oh, dad invested in hospitals a couple times. Now one of them is one of the top 5 hospitals in the country. Everyone there knows him because of his business and investing. Last night dad called his mom, our grandmother, to tell her about you so go ahead and prepare yourself for meeting the entire family on dad's side aunts, uncles, our grandparents, and cousins. Especially our cousins, they are all crazy bastards." He quickly summed it up to me.

The entire family. That sounds like a buttload of people. What if they don't like me?

Before my thoughts could go any further Ricardo interrupted them and told me to go upstairs to get ready quickly. I carefully got up off the floor heading up the stairs to get ready.

I speedily took off the shorts and hoodie. Replacing them with a pair of my black leggings and a simple t-shirt.

I brushed out my long, wavy light brown hair before pulling it into a neat-looking ponytail. Adding my old white shoes as the final touch to my outfit.

"Principessa, are you about ready? We need to leave and be back before the family gets here in 2 hours." My father's voice boomed from downstairs. I grabbed a book from the desk and made my way downstairs, immediately an apple was shoved in front of my face. (Principessa-princess)

"Sorry Isabella but since we let you sleep in you won't have time for breakfast. However, you can eat this on the way to the hospital." Mateo explained, gesturing for me to take the apple in his hand. I happily took the apple from him, instantly causing a cheery smile to appear on his face.

"Finally, we can leave now" Theo cheered, "What took you so long?" he asked begrudgingly. Which earned him a playful smack on the back of his head from Alessandro.

"Sorry I kept you all waiting" I mumbled, taking my first bite of the red apple Mateo had given me.

"There's nothing to be sorry for mio amore, after all we were the ones who decided to let you sleep in. Just ignore Theodore. Now, shall we get going?" Dad reassured me, subtly glaring at Theo. As he grabbed a set of car keys from the key hook thing. What are those things called?

I made a quick mental note to look it up on the all mighty, all knowing website called google later.

"Leonardo you'll be staying behind, I'm sure you know why." Dad stated, his voice void of any emotions, which I have to admit the tone of his voice scared me a little. Weird smiles spread across all their faces giving each other weird looks. Leonardo looked towards me "Sorry I can't go tesoro, but there is some immediate business I have to attend to." I gave Leonardo a smile so that he knew it was ok. It's not like we're doing anything that important, just going to a hospital. Besides I'm sure he isn't looking forward to doing this immediate business. (Tesoro-sweetheart)

Leonardo nodded towards our family before walking out of the room as we all soon left the house, going towards the garage with what seemed to store a hundred million different cars. Why do we need so many cars? Seriously, what's the point in having this many?

We had to be divided into two separate cars since one wasn't enough to hold all of us inside. Me, dad, Ilias, Elijah, and Alessandro went to one. While Ricardo, Theodore, and Mateo went to another. Mateo complained about not being able to ride with us and tried to switch out with one of my brothers but they didn't budge. I ended up being squished between Ilias and Alessandro in the back seat of the car. I'm not complaining though. I've sort of gotten used to being squished between my brothers

I ended up making small talk with Ilias for a little but before he got distracted singing along to shake it off by Taylor Swift. Surprisingly, he isn't that bad at singing. I just read my book for the rest of the drive to the hospital.

We all enter the hospital with me being in the middle of all of my brothers while my dad stoically leads our little group. Mateo holding my left hand and Alessandro holding my right. I can barely see anything over the mountains that are related to me.

Will I ever be that tall? All of my family members (with the exception of Ilias) stand at over 6 feet tall. But even Ilias is taller than me, he told me he's 5'6, on the other hand I'm only 5'0. My growth was stunted due to my lack of eating.

I ran into Ricardo's back as he suddenly stopped walking. Ricardo turned around with his eyebrows raised expecting me to ask him something. "Sorry" I mumble, looking towards the ground as my face heats up with embarrassment. I glance up at him to see if he's angry but his face is still holding it's usual no-emotion look, he mumbles a quick 'mhm' as he turns back around.

Does he not like me?

"Don't feel bad, sole, he's like that with everyone. Ricardo-or well-a lot of us might not show it well, but believe me that everyone in our family loves you. It's just none of us really show our emotions well. Never and I mean never, ever doubt any of our love for you." Mateo whispered reassuringly in my ear as his grasp on my hand tightened a little. (Sole-sunshine)

Our family, that has a nice ring to it. A smile graces my lips. Along with a weird feeling of warmth in my heart.

The reason we stopped walking was because we had skipped the entire line of people at the front desk and marched right up to the secretary.

"Mr. Romano w-what can I do for y-you today?" the secretary stuttered. My father waved his hand in a motion for me to come next to him. I hurriedly went to the spot next to him. The secretary looked to be in her late 40s with her dark brown hair, pulled into a low panytail, having hints of grey showing through. Why does everyone look so scared? Is it just because he's rich?

"I want my daughter, Isabella Romano, seen by the best doctor you have in this place and a VIP room now." Dad commanded without any emotion or hesitation in his voice.

"Y-yes, sir, right away. Please follow me sir."

Dad took hold of my hand as we all followed behind the nurse. We stopped in front of a large door with a sign that had VIP 302 on it. "Right in here, M-Mr. Romano a doctor will be in right away." The nurse told us, opening the door, before practically running away. People here are weird.

We all went inside this VIP room. Why we need a VIP room, I have no Idea. My mouth dropped at the looks of it. It looks more like a hotel room than a hospital room.

The rest of my family looked unamused. Theo didn't hesitate to lay down on the couch with his feet hanging off the end. "They need bigger couches." he stated nonchalantly. Actually being in the room made the realization hit me that a unknown person was about to see all the scars that I've been able to keep hidden for so long.

Before my thoughts could go on for any longer there was a quite knock on the door. It's fine Isabella, everything is going to be ok, no matter what happens.

Alessandro said a quick 'come in' and a woman who looked to be in her mid 30s came in along with a young female nurse, who seemed to be in early 20s, behind her. The doctor herself had blonde hair that was pulled into a professional high ponytail with kind green eyes. Although she looked scared she still had a smile on her face.

The nurse's hair was ombre that started black at the top and faded in to a red pulled into a messy bun. Her eyes being a dark blue color.

"Hi, I'm Doctor Hannah Merritt this" she made a gesture towards the nurse behind her "Is Nurse Kaia Philips. I'm here to see a Isabella Romano, is that correct?"

"Yes, I want you to give her a full body examination." Dad stated looking towards me.

"Yes of course. I'll get started right away Mr. Romano, Isabella would you like them to step out the room?"

My eyes shot open as everyone started looking at me. I looked to my father who was giving me a look that said 'whatever you want us to do.' I thought it over for a minute, giving a nod of my head. Signaling for them to step out of the room. Dad gave all my brothers a signal to exit the room. Theo, of course, protested leaving the room while muttering cuss words under his breath.

Mateo gave me a quick hug "If you need us we'll be right outside that door, ok?" I nodded. Dad was the last one to leave the room whispering something that I couldn't hear into the doctors ear, that made of a look of terror appear on her face, before leaving the room.

As he exited the room both of their bodies visibly relaxed. "Alright first things, please step into the bathroom and change into the hospital gown, please. And then we can start your examination." Doctor Merritt announced while Nurse Kaia handed me a blue hospital gown. I stepped into the bathroom stripping myself of the casual and quite comfortable clothes I had on. Switching them out for the hospital gown I had been given.

I stepped out of the bathroom feeling more and more nervous with each step. I laid down onto the uncomfortable hospital bed. And just like that the examination started.

The doctor became more and more horrified as she continued examining the young girl. It was clear this was abuse.

One thought kept ringing through her head. What the hell happened to this poor girl?

After what felt like an eternity, the examination was finally finished. "Alright Isabella we're going to speak with your father and brothers for a minute. Afterwards I'm going to come back and treat your wounds, ok?"

Isabella nodded her head trying hard to keep the tears in her eyes at bay.

The doctor and nurse both stepped out of the room. Kaia finding it very difficult to not cry.

They both walked over to the men who were waiting not very patiently outside the door. Once the group of men saw her coming they immediately turned their full attention to her. The mafia boss speaking first.

"How bad is it?"

"We found many bruises covering her body, open scars with broken glass embedded inside of them, she has 2 broken ribs and 4 bruised ones, many derogatory words that have scared over, and" Doctor Hannah took a pause before finishing her sentence. "There was scaring around the vaginal area indicating repeated rape." Hannah finally finished looking down towards the floor. As Kaia, who couldn't hold her tears back anymore took her leave.

Her words sunk into the group of men. The normally loudest ones becoming completely silent. They all knew it was going to be bad but not this bad. How were they supposed to help her? On the outside they all looked completely unfazed by the news, completely uncaring, but on the inside they were all crying, screaming their eyes out trying very hard not to picture what their principessa preziosa went through. (principessa preziosa-precious princess)