"Where was your mother while this was happening? Did you not have anyone to protect you?"
"No, everyone was afraid of my father's wrath, expecially after the show he put on in the courtyard. No one would stand up to him to protect a run-away. Mother was there, crying but she was there," Alannah said very quietly. "She was just like my father, only not as ruthless, so she watched the whole thing."
Dominic was silent for several long moments. "Parents are supposed to protect their children not harm them, I can't believe that your mother did nothing to try to stop your father!"
"She came into my room later to tell me that I deserved everything I got," Alannah said tonelessly. "She wouldn't even look me in the eyes after I was brought home, save for when she spit in my face and told me that I was dead to her.
"Then one day I found myself in the back of a truck, with a very few of my belongings. I was being taken to a prison for women, they wanted me as far away from them as possible. I was now a stain on their lives. I was sent to the Cozia Monestary near Slbiu. When I found out where I was going, when the truck stopped, I made a run for it. I headed to the docks and became a stow-a-way. At the age of sixteen I was a full fledged run-away
"My body and face were beginning to heal from the vicious beating I received before I ran, although I still had bruises. It made it easier to expalin my situation to captains on the ships when I was caught. I went from place to place, never staying long, until I got to Germany. For the next three years I managed to stay hidden because of Kasey." She said, as her voice broke with emotion "Kasey was more than a friend to me, she took me in, got me a job at the fish market in Nuremberg. I owe Kasey my life, not just because helped me, but because she was the only one who took a chance on me. And now she is dead, Kasey Finch paid for that with her own life." Alannah was crying now, as she remembered the sacrifce her friend made to save her life. "Word of my escape from the truck had reached my father, and he sent his men to find me, and find me they did. Kasey was the one that spotted them, she told me to run, and went to deal with them herself.
"And you know the rest. I met Matias's accomplice on the trip across the ocean, took a passenger-ferry to the Bahamas with Nicolò ….Nicolò" she stopped, and said "Nicolò knew me, he posed as Mr. Giovanni aboard the ship I was on, do you think he could have sent word to my father as to where I was now?"