Kate

Alessio stared at Sergio, looked to Nash again who had Ellie hugging his legs to avoid seeing everything going on, very slowly he looked back to me, and finally back to Sergio.

You could have heard a pin drop.

"This...this foolery, I've had enough of it." Alessio said slowly, his threatening tone worn down and full of uncertainty now. Thinking I had slept with Nash had enraged him, anyone really had enraged him but Sergio had him shaken? "I'm going to count to three, and if pretty boy doesn't step forward, the real bastard who thought it smart to pull their little baby dἱck out near my wife-"

"I already told you." Sergio insisted again.

He was making this so much worse.

"Sergio, I am warning you." Alessio said and pointed his gun to him. "I am not in the fὑcking mood. You can't even get off in your fὑcking hand. Sit the hell down before I shoot you in the knee and make you sit down."

Sergio cross his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow.

Alessio hesitated and then turned back to me again his agitation and desperation just growing. I couldn't meet his gaze. "Sergio, please, sit down." I said softly. Alessio turned back to Sergio who smirked suddenly.

"You?"

He opened his arms up and motioned his hands inwards towards himself. "Me."

The room was quiet. Alessio was frozen, had I ever seen Alessio frozen with shock and panic? "You son of a bἱtch!" Alessio yelled suddenly just before throwing his gun to the ground and diving across the table and tackling Sergio to the ground.

I screamed. Ugo did not budge from his seat. Pietro was one of the first around the table alongside Aria and myself.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" I wailed as Alessio took swing after swing at Sergio until Sergio rolled on top and took over.

Pietro and Silvano grabbed Sergio and pulled him off of Alessio, Sergio got one good kick to Alessio's face as they pulled him away and Uncle Sammy, another Mafioso, and a somewhat useless Simone were making sure to hold Alessio back after he'd gotten to his feet.

Aria put a hand on Sergio's chest to stand between them and for a brief moment he glanced away from Alessio to her before turning his glare back to him.

"Have you lost your mind!" I yelled to Alessio and then turned to Sergio. "Are you alright." I grabbed a napkin and started to wipe the blood away from his nose. He wasn't even healed from what Ugo had done to him and now this!

He pulled his arm hard from Pietro's grip. "Fine." He snapped and pushed my hand away.

"Just fὑck him again why don't you?" Alessio yelled past the group of men holding him.

"Leave her alone." Sergio warned.

I whirled around to face Alessio with a glare. "Like you have any room to talk!" I scolded.

"Puttanella." Alessio muttered.

"Alessio!" Aria scolded. From behind her Sergio laughed.

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

Alessio broke free from everyone holding him back and got another good swing on Sergio before everyone managed to get between them and pull them apart again.

"Vaffanculo." Sergio panted from behind the wall of people holding him back.

(Fuck you)

Pietro came to Alessio's side muttering into his ear but Alessio seemed to be ignoring him completely. "Vattela a pigliare in culo" Alessio hissed back.

(Go take it up your ass)

"La tua ragazza ha gia fatto." Sergio said smugly and they were instantly at it again. Rolling around on the ground, Alessio was on top and he gave Pietro an elbow to the face when he tried to pull him off and then Sergio was on top.

(Your girlfriend already did)

"Basta!" Ugo finally boomed across the room just after Sergio had forced Alessio's head against the ground. The room stopped completely. I looked up from my position on the ground with them trying to pull them apart and to the head of the table where Ugo had finally stood.

"Scendere di lui." He said to Sergio who let Alessio's head go with another shove and climbed to his feet wordlessly. Alessio sat up and opened his mouth. "Acqua in bocca"

(Get off of him. Don't say a word.)

He closed it.

Pietro put his hand on Alessio's shoulder and I heard him mutter to him before helping him up. "Non ne vale la pana."

(It's not worth the while.)

"Sono arrabbiato come una bestia!" Alessio muttered back to his cousin.

(I'm as angry as a beast.)

Ugo looked at Sergio and then Alessio. Both had swelling bleeding faces and were panting heavily while glaring at each other.

Someone took me by the elbow and pulled me a few steps away from the mayhem. "Kate-pie..." Nash said gently.

Mia and Stacey were at his side. "What's going on?" Stacey demanded. "You cheated on Alessio?"

"I was drinking gin." I defended quickly. "And we didn't sleep together." I revealed but no one seemed to care or maybe they just didn't believe me. I might have had Sergio allowed it. I remembered very little from my drunken gin-scapades, but I was more than certain Sergio and I had not gotten any further than a heated make out session.

"Kate." Stacey groaned. "You're like weeks away from your wedding."

"Am I?"

"You think you're so much better than me? Better than us?" Sergio demanded loudly pulling me away from my conversation with Nash and Stacey. "You're the reason, all your lying and scheming behind her back. You deserve what comes to you. You would have fὑcked Aria had she let you and you know it."

"You cheated on her?" Nash said to Alessio putting the pieces of this hectic night together.

"Listen rat, I really don't need-"

Nash took a swing at Alessio and yet another brawl broke out.

I tried to grab Nash but no sooner had I pulled Nash away did my uncle tackle Alessio, before I could get to him Silvano had tackled my uncle. It was a mess.

Ugo looked around the room as more kept getting dragged into this mess, he looked back and forth along the room, back to me, to Aria to the brawl of men fighting and yelling, he sighed and put his hand to his head and muttered something to Gia.

"Pietro! Pietro put that plate down!" Stacey yelled at Pietro who proceeded to hit my uncle over the head with the plate as he'd been hanging on Alessio's back. "Tera!" She turned her attention to my cousin who tackled Pietro after Pietro had hit Sammy for attacking Alessio. Aria had her hands on Sergio's chest holding him back from rejoining.

It was a brawl. Literally. Everyone was at everyone's throat.

Ugo and I had the same plan at the same time. We both picked up a glass of wine, it appeared we would need it.

Two hours later I sat on the edge of our bed, Alessio leaned against the dresser a few feet away with an ice pack to cheek. "You have nothing to say?" He said finally breaking a nearly twenty minute streak of silence.

"Have you?"

He lowered the ice pack. "I don't know. I don't know what to think or feel. I know I love you."

"I love you too." I said and immediately had tears in my eyes.

"You have to understand...Aria and I-"

"You were engaged?"

He hesitated for a moment and then sat down on the bed beside me. Not a good sign. "Yes."

"You didn't think maybe that was something you should have told me? I mean hell Alessio, I know you've slept with a lot of women, but you said that all of the girlfriends you'd had were...well you know. Dead. Did you forget the one girlfriend who made it to fiancé? Or did you purposefully neglect to include that little gem?"

"No. I didn't forget."

"Great." I turned my head away. He grabbed my hands and I yanked them away quickly. "Katherine...it wasn't like that...it wasn't like you and me."

I couldn't find it in me to answer. Not a single syllable.

"Aria and I had known each other from birth."

"Did you love her?" I asked still facing the door.

"Yes. I love her." Love. Present tense. "Long before we were born, before we were even thought of our parents who were both wealthy and leading different Mafia's but were good friends made the decision that they would someday align. Aria and I we were nothing short of a business agreement."

"Until you fell in love."

"Try to be understanding. We were both very young. We grew up in a world where we were taught Mafia, and Marriage. That's all we were. All we knew was that life and each other. Yes, we fell in love."

"Well good for you guys." I huffed and stood up. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down.

"It was never real. It was never about her loving me, me loving her, it was just all we knew. From birth, someday we would be together. On the playground, someday we would be together, holidays and weekends and get-togethers all we ever got was some day we would be together. And one day when the hormones flared up enough and their words had pierced us through to the very stem of our brains, we were together."

"We went on that way for a good while. We would fὑck and I would remind her again that someday I would be in charge of everything. We knew it was a business agreement, for all we knew that's all any love was. There was no big proposal, no traveling the world together. When I thought we were getting closer to age, I gave her a ring and told her it was almost time and to invite everyone as we celebrated our great ruling together."

"You were married before?" I groaned.

"No. I don't know who realized first that it wasn't real. I remember she started getting more and more quiet as our families talked more and more about the wedding. One day she lost it. She cussed me out, accused me of never loving her, demanded that I tell her what it was about her I loved..." He trailed off and I suspected the memory was actually a real, painful and raw memory. "I told her she was all I'd ever known, and she ran..." He stopped again and sighed, he looked away from me this time and I really knew how much it hurt. "I caught up with her of course but in the morning she was gone. We both knew it was over I guess."

"Just like that?"

"I don't think I had ever loved her more than the moment we both knew it was over. She'd released me. I would have never..."

"Wonderful." I said and turned my head away.

"I love you Katherine. I told you once before, I don't believe that you ever stop loving someone. And I meant that. I do, I care very, very deeply for Aria, and her life will always be of great value to me. I will protect her as long as I am breathing, but you are my heart, my rose, I can't do this without you Katherine."

We both fell into silence. Painful silence. Finally, he sighed heavily and put the ice pack back to his head. "Does it hurt?" I asked gently and turned back to him. I brought my hand gently along his damaged face.

"Not nearly as much." He said and turned his head away from my touch. "Sergio? Of all the people? It had to be Sergio?"

I bit my lip and nodded. "It didn't mean anything. Nothing at all. He was just...he was there. And I was angry. I just wanted to get even. You hurt me so much." I stopped abruptly and swallowed hard. "I was in shock, and furious, and drunk. Very very drunk. You said you had cheated and I just thought-"

I hadn't even gotten to the part where I told him we didn't actually sleep together before Alessio stood up abruptly suddenly furious again. "But my own fὑcking brother?" He demanded and began pacing feverously across the room.

I watched him quietly walk back and forth. "Your brother?"

He stopped mid step and turned to face me. He stared at me for the longest time and then began pacing again. "Yes Katherine, my brother."

I couldn't help but laugh. His brother. I'd nearly slept with his brother. "Honestly Alessio? A secret fiancé and a brother I didn't even know about? Do I know anything about your life?"

"What? Now it's my fault you slept with him?" He scoffed.

"How could you not tell me?" I demanded too angry to correct him. I wanted him to think we had now, I was so angry I wanted him to think I'd done it. "How? I even asked you about him being related! You didn't think that was perhaps something I might have taken interest in?"

Alessio turned to me and threw his arms open. "He isn't my brother, I mean, he is but he isn't. I don't know. It didn't matter!"

"You mean it didn't matter until I screwed up."

"Yes!" He roared and then turned and put his fist through the wall. "Damn it Katherine!"

We fell into silence for a few moments, Alessio trying to collect himself and I stared at my unpainted toenails. "Maybe we rushed into this. Maybe this was all a mistake."

With his back to me and hand still through the wall he agreed with me. "Maybe it was."

My breath was shaking and I found myself standing, walking, leaving, down the hallway, out the door, into the car our driver used, I was in too much a state of shock to cry.

"Uh-"

I looked up and quickly wiped my eyes. It was a driver I didn't recognize, the guy who'd come to dinner last, seated beside Aria.. "I'm sorry." I said quickly. "Where's Ricco?"

"Unavailable. Where can I take you too Mrs. Genovese?"

"Santoro."

"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the area."

"My last name. It's Santoro."

"Oh. My mistake Miss Santoro. Are you...are you alright?"

At this I suddenly began to cry. "My fiancé cheated on me, lied to me, I cheated on him with his brother. I didn't even know he had a brother, I don't know, I don't know, we can't come back from this." I sobbed.

"Oh. I'm...I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry Miss Santoro."

I cried harder.

"Here, here. Take a drink, you're going to get dehydrated."

He handed me a bottle of water over the window between our seats. I sniffled and tried to force my sobs down to drink.

"I'm sorry. You must think I'm a loon." I said through tears.

"Sounds like enough to work anyone up."

I nodded and took a long drink from the water bottle. I hadn't realized quite how tight my throat had gotten. "I just want to get the hell out of this place."

He kicked the car into drive and pulled out of the long driveway. "Where to?"

"I don't even know. Some place peaceful, away from all of this. I just need to think...and cry." I muttered into my water bottle.

"I know just the place."

"Anywhere I better than here...oh geez, I'm sorry. I'm so worked up I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Kate."

"We all know who you are Miss Santoro." He said and glanced up into the rearview to see me.

"I guess so...I get sort of sick of hearing that sometimes. I mean, wouldn't that freak you out? If so many people you didn't know knew everything about your life? I'm just trying to live a normal life with the man I thought was going to be my husband and there's all these guys here who know all these things and...I'm such a fool. I should've known he was back in. He had you sitting outside the house just waiting for him to need a ride. What a job."

"I don't mind. Really. Just relax. Drink, all that crying is going to dehydrate you and give you a massive headache."

"Thank you, uh, I didn't actually catch your name." I admitted slightly embarrassed.

He glanced at me through the mirror again with a smile. "Dante."

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Ugh, I'm at work and I've been trying to update all day but work stuff and customers and stuff keep pulling me away. Don't this people understand the importance of supplying my Wattpadian's with chapter updates?!

Frankly I couldn't wait until Friday to update anymore so here it issss.

Anyway!

Finally revealed, Kate and Sergio did NOT sleep together.

Finally got a bit of background on Alessio and Aria.

Kate FINALLY learns Alessio has a freaking brotherrrr.

Speaking of brother, little reminder is DANTE is Aria's brother. Abusive little shit he is...runs the Moretti family mafia...odd he'd be driving for the Genovese family hmmmm.

Any particularly out there predictions? Is there any hope for Alessio and Kate yet? I mean, for ONCE we have had some honesty come out...The last chapter got over 1,000 comments! How awesome would it be if we could get that every chapter!

Hope all are staying safe, between the fires, earth quakes, hurricanes, tropical storms, and crazy governments. My area has geographically been unaffected so far, but I follow the stories closely ): I can't even say to keep one place in your thoughts/prayer because there's far too many affected by far too many disasters.

But in any case, hope I could brighten, or ruin (; some days. Don't forget to vote and comment!