Alessio

It was late when I left Padre's office and set out onto the grounds. Katherine was already asleep. On the property line from our house to that of the Moretti Mafia, a great ally, there was a single tree, right smack dab in the middle. It both divided and connected us, part on their land, part on ours.

"I thought I might find you here." I directed to Aria.

She was sitting up in the tree. "I hadn't realized I was lost, nor was I looking to be found."

"You're mad at me."

"Nope." She said popping the P.

"Come on Ari." I sighed. "I brought you a Mars bar." I held it up and waved it back and forth. She wasn't biting. "Your favoriteeee." I teased. Still nothing. With a sigh I took out a second one. "Alright, you caught me, I brought two."

(A Mar bar is kind of like a milkyway)

"Fine. I won't push you out of the tree if you come up."

It had been quite some time since I'd climbed this tree. As I made my way up Ari stood and moved further down the thick branch to make room for me. Years of dance and gymnastics made the process look natural and flawless for her. I sat on the branch with my back against the trunk. I wasn't as graceful as Ari. I wouldn't try to deny that.

She laid on the branch perfectly aligning her spine with the splintering wood and let one leg dangle. "What do you want Alessio?" She asked with eyes closed.

"To talk."

She snorted.

"I'm serious Ari."

"You don't want to talk to me right now Alessio."

"Sure I do."

She sat up and the branch beneath us swayed a bit. "No, you don't. Because if you wanted to talk to me you'd have face up to the fact that you neglected to tell me you were getting married." She held up a finger. "You'd have to explain to my why you neglected to stand up for Sergio again." She held up a second finger. "And you'd have to explain to me why you've been in Italy for months and didn't tell me!" She raised a third finger.

"I haven't been here that long. I mean, I guess we moved in awhile ago but we did a lot of traveling before actually staying put here." I offered her one of the Mars bars and she took it begrudgingly. I waited for her to take a bite, knowing the caramel goo would wear down her anger at least slightly. "Sergio is a big boy. He can take care of himself. You weren't there when we went to talk to Padre. Padre just asked him to sit down and Sergio refused, he was incredibly disrespectful."

"Because Ugo has done so much to deserve Sergio's respect."

"Don't. Don't turn this around on my father like it was his fault."

"Isn't it?"

"No. It isn't. He made his own decision."

She snorted. "Not Ugo's fault."

"I didn't say it was fair or right, but it is what it is. This is our family, this is our life, Sergio chose to turn his back on this. That is his fault. He is a coward."

"Have you ever stood up to Ugo?"

"I was taught better than to disrespect my father."

I could practically hear her eye roll. "You were taught to obey. You moved to the states when we didn't want to, you took control of the family when you didn't want to, you're still in it now and don't you dare tell me otherwise because I know you Alessio. You're in it."

"You know how it is Ari. We owe everything to the family. I couldn't just turn my back on them."

"Because you aren't as brave as Sergio."

I frowned. "Stop comparing me to him."

"Why? Because you don't like the way it makes you look?"

"No, because I don't like the way it makes me feel about you when you do it."

She leaned forward, putting both her palms onto the branch and inspected me. There were certain things about Aria I could never get past. That look was one of them.

"Stop sizing me up." I warned.

"Stop making it so easy."

I couldn't help but smirk. The little witch never did change. "I didn't come here to argue."

She leaned back. "Unfortunate."

"I suppose so. I don't want to talk about Sergio anymore either." Or the fact that he was probably hanging by his feet as we spoke.

She looked as though she was in real legitimate pain. When I leaned forward, letting my back come away from the trunk of the tree and went to take her hand she pulled backwards and her look of hurt turned to that of rage. "You're getting married Alessio."

"I know." I muttered.

"Well what the fȕck!" Her voice rose as did her body. Flawlessly on the branch did she stand up. I stood as well but kept a hand on the trunk of the tree to keep myself steady. She always was better at this than me. "How could you neglect to tell me you are getting married?" She demanded.

"You neglected to ask."

"How long have you known each other?"

"Some years."

"So you've been seeing someone for years and never even told me! We write letters, we email, we talk all the fȕcking time and it never once came up? How could you keep me in the dark?"

"Much the same way you kept me in the dark when that shit fiancé of yours was beating you senseless. Honestly Aria have you no respect for yourself? How could you have kept me in the dark?"

"Those are two totally different situations. I at least told you I was seeing him. I would have been happy for you, I would have wanted to meet her and not have her first impression of me being of me tackling you! You would have killed him!"

"I did fȕcking kill him."

She sucked in a breath, called me a fȕcking bastard, and jumped to grab a branch higher and climbed further up the tree.

"Damn Ari don't run somewhere you know I can't follow. That's a coward's way out."

"Suck my clít."

Aside from the rustling leaves in the tree as she climbed it was quiet. "Aria." No answer. "I'm going to eat your other candy bar." Still silence. I leaned against the tree trunk and ran my hand along the thick bark where our initials were carved. "Ari, do you believe the legend? About the tree?"

"I stopped believe in fairy tales a long time ago Alessio." She muttered barely loud enough for me to hear her.

I looked up, she was just about four branches higher than me now. I could chase her, but I knew how far that would get us. From experience when Ari decided to run, she didn't come back. As it was right now she hadn't ran, she was giving me the cold shoulder but not quite shutting me out. She could have easily gone five or six branches, so this was something at least. "You'll have to either talk to me or come down eventually."

"I could come down there and throw you out of the tree." She said halfheartedly.

She would too. I sat back down on my designated branch and waited. I knew Ari well enough to know she wasn't about to shut me out, we'd been through too much for that. On the other hand she wasn't the type to swallow her tongue and treat me in silence either. I could only be so lucky. So the fact that she was silence now...well let's just say I was hopeful she didn't have her gun on her today.

I thumped my head against the trunk. "A lot of firsts here." I muttered. "Do you remember your first kiss?"

She snorted. There was a rustle and I knew she'd come down a branch.

"I'm pretty sure it was Pietro's first too." I added on remembering the scene in my mind with a chuckle. Though Pietro was several years older than us he'd devoted so much of his life to the family he had neglected the romantic aspect of life growing up.

"It was." She agreed softly and there was another rustle. "Do you remember when Sergio fell out?"

I was half tempted to ask her not to talk about Sergio, but it wasn't worth setting her off again. "I was just thinking of that today...Padre sort of snapped at him and I couldn't help but think of Sergio growing up..."

"You felt protective of him?"

"Not as much as you seem to...do you remember the first time we-"

She came down to my branch and pulled the candy bar off my lap before climbing back to the one above me again. "Nope. Don't remember that one."

"I have missed you Ari."

She swung down into view, well, half of her did that is. She kept her legs wrapped around the branch above her while she hung upside down with a scowl. "You are getting married and you didn't tell me." She accused.

"We've already had this conversation." I reminded her and she crossed her arms over her upside down chest. "Just some minutes ago. Remember it ended with me telling you I killed your shit fiancé?"

"You're lying."

"Have I ever lied to you? Come here."

"When I was seven you told me rats had glowing red eyes and they go bigger by eating little children's vocal cords because you didn't like my singing."

"Remember that do you? To be fair, you were an awful singer. Come here Ari."

She disappeared for a moment as she pulled herself back up to the branch above and then came back to this branch feet first this time. She sat across from me on the tree, legs crossed and her eye brows pulled together.

I held my hands out to her, we used to do this. Sit face to face, hold hands, and admit things we knew would piss the other off. It started out like a game, which quickly turned into a fight, which somehow turned into a window of communication.

"We are children anymore Alessio. You don't have to hold my hands. I'm not going to run away or smack you."

Is that why we had started this? Not as some sort of intimate gesture of compassion but rather to hold the other at bay. "I kept tabs on you. I have my resources, my men kept an eye on you."

"You shouldn't have done that."

"Funny, I didn't really care. For what it's worth, Pietro told me the same thing. Sometimes I still think the bastard likes you more than me."

"On with it."

"Patience is a virtue darling." She gave me this look, this look that had me wondering again if she had brought a gun out here with her. I was considerably stronger than her but she was far more coordinated than I, fighting in a tree would play much more to her advantage than mine. "I had people watching you and reporting back to me."

"I was telling you things. Unlike you to me. You had no reason to stalk me."

"I had every reason." I said sharply. "You may have told me when you were engaged but you neglected to tell me when he was beating the shit out of you. Haven't you any respect for yourself?"

"You're talking to me Alessio. Don't get all high and mighty on me like you've never let your temper slip and let your fist get the better of you."

"Did I break your wrist? Crack your ribs? Push you down the stairs when you were carrying my child?"

She pushed me. Right out of the fȕcking tree, I barely had time to right myself and land on my feet. "This is why I didn't tell you asshole." She tapped the side of her head with her index finger several times. "You lock these things up in your head and use them as fuel when you go on your annoying little tirades and you want to make sure you cut to the core with your little dramatics. You're cold and cruel and incapable of love just like your father!"

"I'm incapable of love?" I yelled up at her. "You just pushed me out of a fȕcking tree."

"You didn't think maybe throwing a miscarriage in my face was a bit of a dick move? I get it, you didn't like my fiancé. He got himself wasted and wrapped his pretty little mustang around a tree anyway so I guess karma had the last laugh. If you ever mention that again I will cut you."

"If karma is an Italian man going by the name Genovese yeah, he had his laugh." She would cut me, meaning she didn't have her gun on her. Good to know.

"It was an accident. He was wasted. He wrecked." This time it came out far less confident.

"Is that your final answer?" She narrowed her eyes, lips remained sealed. "Would you like to phone a friend? I've got a great answer here, let me help. How about I had people watching you all the time, I'd followed your medical records, since we're on the case of keeping things from each other you didn't even tell me about the pregnancy he ended, I digress. I was following your life, but hadn't had any actual evidence to go on until he was finally stupid enough, or drunk enough, to do his dirty work outside. By the pool. You remember the pool, don't you Ari? The one you were lounging by, cute little green bikini, nice bun on the top of your head, he got a nice fist full of that when he yanked you off the chair, didn't he? As I was saying, that pool, you must remember it because it's the one he almost kicked you into when he wouldn't stop kicking you in the gut. Would have been a real tragedy since you can't swim, wouldn't it have been? Well let's say, for the sake of saying, that when he was stupid enough to hit you outside that I had those little handy dandy cameras in place. And while we're at it let's just say someone would have thought, hm, maybe I outgha forward this video over to Alessio? Tell me Ari, how confident are you in your little "accident" theory? Hm?"

"You-"

"Within fourteen minutes of receiving the footage your fiancé was dead. Yes. Me."

Even In the dark, even from being on the ground I could see her chest heaving. Shit. Maybe I had gone too far. She came down from the tree far more gracefully than I had.

"You – you – you-"

"What Ari. What am I?"

She let out a breath and I made the first moves in closing the space between us while she made half moves to keep it alive. "Power hungry bastard."

"What was I to do? Let him kill you?"

"You-" She bumped into the tree and I put my palm against it to trap her in. "Why?" She whispered.

"You know why."

"Why!" This time it was a yell.

Aria's reaction had nothing to do with her beloved fiancé's death. If we were being honest that was probably a relief. Her reaction wasn't a desperate cry wondering how I could rip her one true love from this world. She wanted to know why I had cared enough to do so. I grabbed her shoulders roughly. "You know why."

She shoved me and then slapped me. Like I said, she was a quick little minx. "You're getting MARRIED!" She yelled and threw her hands into the air.

"So you've said. Several times tonight."

"Then why are you here, talking to me, what business do you have talking to me? Why come out here thinking I was here tonight? What business do you have stepping foot into my life and killing my fiancé?"

"Don't act like this. Don't act like I don't give a damn about you, like I'm not allowed to give a damn about you."

"You don't!"

"Damn it Aria you left me!" I yelled and threw my hands up into the air. "You left the whole God damned country to get away from me!"

"Oh and you made such a show about trying to chase me, didn't you?"

I shook my head. "Don't even go there. I should not have had to chase you. If you wanted to be with me you wouldn't have ran. Don't turn this into something I did."

"If Kate left, you would chase her." She accused.

I opened my mouth and then closed it. Was she right? "Kate wouldn't do that. She wouldn't leave me without a word of notice and no answers."

She was shaking her head like she was being paid to do so. "No warning? No notice? No answers? If you don't understand why I had to leave then you know even less of me than I thought."

"No! I don't fȕcking know!" I yelled and she spun around the curve of the tree and out of my grip quickly. "Damn it Aria. Don't you fȕcking walk away from me." I followed her, she was running back to her family's estate. "We can't just pretend like we're best fȕcking friends and never talk about it Ari. You owe me a God damn explanation."

We must have passed and invisible barrier because suddenly there were eight guards aiming eight guns at me and Ari kept moving.

"Fȕck." I ground out.

Casually strolling behind the wall of guards Dante emerged. "You're on our land Genovese. This is grounds for death, right?"

"Fȕck off Dante." I didn't grace his question with a response. The families had been at peace for years. Even after Aria and I, Dante knew if something happened to me on his land that peace would be wrecked. And should that peace be wrecked so would both of our dynasties. They needed us, and we needed them. "Step aside, I'm trying to talk to Ari."

"Funny. She seems to be running the other direction. I don't believe she is in the mood to talk."

"Move."

"Your conversation is over." He said flatly. "Leave. If your harassment does not cease I am afraid I will have to be forced to renegotiate the terms with your father."

"Harassment?" I snapped. "We were having a fȕcking conversation!"

"I will not tell you again Genovese. You leave my sister the- hell alone." At this he turned around and marched back to the mansion, the wall of guards did not move. All guns remained at the ready.

Bastard. Knowing I was defeated, I turned and stalked back to our own land.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The plot thickens.

Ari was first mentioned, in the briefest of passings possible, in book one.

You've been waiting for literally over a year now. And we finally have the start of some answers. Ari and Alessio WERE together, though most of you assumed that already. Dun dun dunnnn.

ALSO it's been revealed that the scene in which Alessio watched a women get beat, said woman was Ari. Can't remember that particular scene? Look to book two, the bonus chapter after chapter twenty-six.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN.

Vote and comment. I look forward to your freak outs and meld downs (;