“Who the fuck do you think you are,” spittle hits my face with his fist, “thinking you could rape my sister and get away with it.”

“I didn’t,” I sputter, lifting my hands to protect myself.

“The fuck you didn’t,” he hits me again, “I fucking heard her screaming.”

The last things I hear are Venecia screaming for him to stop and his fist breaking my nose.

VENECIA

Although I don’t make out the words, my body jumps when I hear a man yelling from the woods. Dante is ripped from inside of me, leaving me exposed on the ground. Scrambling to cover myself, I pull my shorts over my ass and use my hands to hold my bra together as I fumble with the zipper.

By the time I stand up, Renzo is straddling Dante and throwing repeated punches to his face. He is already a bloody mess.

“Stop,” the words shrill scream as I run towards them, “Renzo stop.”

Just as I reach them, Renzo throws another punch. The cracking of bone in Dante’s face echoes through the trees around us, and his body goes limp.

Climbing off him, Renzo grabs the front of his shirt and lifts his upper body from the ground as he begins dragging him back to the house.

He’s going to fucking kill him.

“Renzo,” I continue to yell as his drags the near-lifeless body up to the house, “Stop. It’s not what you think. Renzo.”

We are apparently making quite the commotion, because Papa, Ava and Luca are coming down the stairs as we approach.

“What the fuck is going on?” Papa yells while quickly walking towards us.

“This fucking piece of shit had V pinned to the ground in the middle of the woods,” Renzo spits back angrily.

“That’s not what happened,” I cry out as they drag his body up the stairs, “I mean, that is what happened, but…”

“Luca,” Papa yells up to the stairs, “help Renzo get him to the basement.”

His eyes look over me, and I realize that I am covered in dirt and have tears streaming down my face. My appearance pretty much substantiating Renzo’s claims.

“Ava,” he reaches for me, but I pull away, “Please take her upstairs and see that she is okay. You know the number to Doc.”

Before I have a moment to protest, the guys have already disappeared into the house with Dante. Papa is not far behind them.

Ava walks towards me and gently reaches for my hand, “Come on V, let’s get you inside and get you cleaned up.”

I want to scream and make them all listen.

Words won’t leave my mouth, completely overwhelmed it’s like my brain just shuts down. Instead, nothing comes out of me except for giant sobs.

“You’re okay now,” Ava leads me up the stairs, “We’ve all got you.”

After leading me into the bathroom, Ava sits with me on the bathroom floor and holds me while I cry. She tries to comfort me but doesn’t realize that in this moment all my fear is about what is happening to Dante, not what they all think happened to me.

While everything thinks I am naïve, I know very well what types of things happen in that basement. Men go down there. Not everyone comes back up.

My sobs subside as I slowly gain composure over myself. When she realizes I’ve stopped crying, Ava stands and helps me to my feet before turning on the shower, “Let’s get some of this dirt washed off you.”

Her eyes look over my body, taking in how dirty and disheveled I am. A small gasp leaves her mouth when her gaze reaches my thighs.

“Oh sweetheart,” her fixate on the cum both dried and dripping down my thighs, “It’s okay. We’ll call the doc and have him bring over a Plan B for you.”

Peeling off my clothes, she forces me to step into the shower before I respond, “I can’t take that.”