Kate





"We're not fine."

"Maybe we're not good but we're fine at least, I'm not angry." I whispered across the table to Alessio.

"I didn't ask how you were."

I shushed him and looked down the table to Charlie. She was oblivious to our continuing tension and disagreement. She was watching in stark fascination as the twins swapped things on their plates, despite having the same meals.

"Don't shush me."

"Don't argue with me in front of our daughter."

"I'm not arguing I am merely having a conversation with you Katherine."

"An angry conversation with an angry tone-"

"Yes, I'm angry but I don't have an angry tone."

"And you're scowling. Stop scowling at me. At least pretend it wasn't my skull you were envisioning when crack eggs."

"Oh it wasn't yours I was envisioning."

I frowned and rather than answer took a sip from my wine glass. "We'll talk about it later." I whispered behind my glass. I set it down and forced a great big smile.

"I've given you my answer, what else is there to talk about?"

"So girls." I said loudly, ignoring him. "I'm sorry, you were running so quickly, I didn't catch who was who."

Aria raised a brow at me as if to say just watch. "Didn't our new mommy tell you?" One said, I glanced from her to the other, their curls didn't look any different to me, I didn't see what Aria meant when she said one had tighter curls.

"You can't tell us apart?" The other turned to Aria with big wide eyes. "Mommy, don't you love us?"

Aria sighed.

"They call her Mommy only when they want to torture her." Sergio muttered to me and again I picked up my wine glass to hide my smirk behind it. Kids.

"If you loved us, you'd know, you know, don't you Mommy."

"Oh but of course." Aria said and picked up her glass as well. It looked like she needed it.

"What else is there to talk about?" Alessio asked again and I didn't glance his way.

"I just wanted to hear it from you." I said as pleasantly as possible to the girls.

"Addy." One said and in unison the other said "Emma." They were perfectly in sync. This must mean that was their true identity...or, erm, had they played this game before. I glanced from one to the other trying to tell if they were lying.

"And in twenty minutes you'll be...?"

They sent each other a mischevious look and repeated their, possibly correct, names.

Alessio, in a foul mood spoke up. "I'll have their finger prints run later, why you haven't already thought of it-"

"Because we are a normal happy family who doesn't finger print people in their sleep." Sergio replied, his look of amusement wasn't lost on me. "So brother, how is that cousin of ours? I thought surely he would be here."

"Alive." He grunted. "Far as I know."

Pietro was a bit of a sore subject. It wasn't as though they didn't get along. They got on quite well. Neither had explicitly said it, but Pietro was Alessio's best friend, and vice versa...

It's just that Stacey had this sort of raging fiery hatred for Alessio over a situation I had still not gotten the full details on meaning Pietro had had to make himself scarce around Alessio. There had been so much time, so much time in which I held secrets from Stacey. Big secrets, it was odd being on the outside of things now. It was what I had wanted, what I had demanded, but Pietro had lost a hand for Christ's sake and I still didn't know the story behind it! My big mouth had been singing to glory of having a normal life free of danger for Charlie for so long my ego refused to let me ask for more into the story.

That wasn't my life anymore. I toyed with the food on my plate awkwardly.

"Hm. Fancy a trip to see him while we are in town?" Sergio asked glancing to Aria.

"Oh as though he could hide from me." She snorted.

"How long exactly are you going to be in town?" I asked.

"Couple weeks probably."

"This food is gross." One of the twins said.

"It's lasagna." Alessio said sounding shocked. "Who doesn't like pasta and cheese? What have you been feeding them?" He asked Ari.

She shrugged. "They think everything is gross except ice cream so they say."

"Just wait for dessert." Charlie assured them. "My Daddy makes the best tiramisu!" She said it so matter-of-factly despite our tension, I couldn't help but smile and glance to Alessio. It was nice to see a child proud of their parent, we as parents bragged so often about our children it felt like a treat when they bragged about us. And then the twins chimed in.

"My Daddy makes the best crack." One said, supposedly Addy, with a shrug.

"Oh." Was all I could manage.

"Yeah, he's in jail now. A guy tattled on him. He had to have him popped." Emma continued and for affect Addy smacked her hands together.

Popped!

Jesus, the girls were only about three years older than Charlie and they were discussing these things so casually, I couldn't imagine what they had seen to wind up in the foster system!

"Yeah..." Charlie began and she seemed to calculate her next words very carefully, as if understanding the full weight of them. "You just gotta pop rats like that sometimes."

I choked on a mushroom.

Sergio smacked me on the back several hard times, rather calmly until I managed to spit it into a napkin.

"What?"

They all looked at me like I was the insane one.

"Okay." Aria rose from her seat, looked down at Alessio with an expression I couldn't quite place and clapped her hands together. "What is for dessert?"

"What do you mean gotta pop rats?" I asked, not quite sure I actually wanted an answer.

"Well...you know..." None of the girls fully knew, I could tell that now as they tried to talk in circles about slippers and feeding fish and cannoli, but as they continued my rage only grew. "Omarta." Charlie finally declared.

"Easy now." Sergio said rising with me, he put his hands on my shoulders and tried to ease me back into my seat. In this moment, I was an immobile mountain.

Alessio watched me from across the table with a complacent expression.

"How would you girls feel about eating dessert in bed!" Aria exclaimed and ushered them out of their seats.

"I thought we couldn't eat in our rooms?" One of the twins, I'd lost track of which already, complained.

"Oh but this is a special occasion, a sleepover of course calls for snacks."

"Daddy says no food in my room on account of messes attract rats." Charlie agreed, but certainly didn't argue against getting dessert.

At the mentions of rats my hands on the table twitched. Some how, by the grace of Gods I was able to keep my mouth closed until Aria had swept the girls out of the room and then I uttered a loud "ARE YOU FὑCKING KIDDING ME?"

"What?"

"Our four year old is talking about popping rats!"

"She thinks popping in the action in which a balloon ceases, relax."

"Oh no, don't you dare, don't you fcking dare."

"Con calma."

"Oh I'll con calma you!" I took my plate and threw it at him as though it was a frisbee, he managed to duck easily enough but wasn't able to escape the raining food. "This is exactly what I was worried about, exactly why I didn't want this, why she doesn't have your last name, you put up this charade but nothing ever changes! She's got secret walls, and talking about rats, you won't ever step back from this life."

"I have Katherine." He remained so calm, even despite the lasagna on his shoulder! It made my rage only grow.

"This isn't what I wanted, what we'd agreed to. We would shelter her from this life! Not expose her to it!"

"She's over heard a few things, phone conversations-" He continued and rose to his feet in that slow way only Alessio could that still an entire room, makes all those around simmer back down and submit but not me. Not now.

"I won't have her go through what you went through, what Sergio went through, I won't have our daughter's life in danger! If you can't be a stable and safe person, if you're going to expose her-"

"You'll what?"

"Don't underestimate me."

"Don't over estimate yourself."

"Let's all just-" Sergio began and held a hand out at arms length as though Alessio could dive across the table at any moment.

"You are the one I over estimated. All this I've backed off and I'm not in it anymore it's a bunch of bullshit."

"I'm not leading anything Katherine, Pietro-"

"Is a Goddamned figure head!"

He sighed, impatient and annoyed. "Pietro is lacking some skills, he lacks the guts to make some calls, to pull certain triggers, put motions into play that need done. He is softer than the job can afford. Yes, I help him."

I grabbed a handful of Sergio's lasagna and he let out a hungry complain as I threw it too. "Don't lie! You just couldn't walk away, couldn't give up the power, not even for your daughter."

"I'm no mastermind Katherine, consider me a sort of, shall we say, silent partner."

"For now." I scoffed. "What if he dies?"

"Then we've three dozen other cousins who could take his place.."

"And your father? Don't act like you'll have any choice but to step up! All this talk about leaving it behind for us, you've been lying to my face this whole time, you want another chance, to be a family, you have you family."

"I'm not taking over, I've told you before, I promised." Probably a dozen times in the past, and yet here we were.

"And your word means so much now doesn't it. Our daughter is picking up on things, already. Have you even thought of what it would mean to us? If you did? If you took over here, or there? You want to move Charlie to Italy? I wouldn't allow it, you'd move away from her?"

"If you would listen to me for two fὑcking minutes-"

"Kate." Sergio was more firm this time.

"I wouldn't, I'm not going to Italy, I won't take over. Not ever."

"Bullshit! Family is everything! Your mother will tell you she needs you and you will run to them! To the power! Just you wait and when you do Charlie and I will not be there with you Alessio."

"When my father dies?" Alessio asked just as Aria entered the room again, she looked him up and down, covered in sauce and crossed her arms over her chest with a soft sigh.

"I mean why not? Why settle for being a silent partner here when you can run an entire empire there?" I picked up his whole plate this time.

"Sergio and I arranged this reunion four months ago Katherine." Another deception, he'd known they were coming for months and yet had waited until the day of their arrival to spring it on me! "On the day of our father's funeral."

I stopped completely and turned to Sergio. He gaze flickered down for a moment and then back to meet my eye, he gave a slight nod.

"Your father is dead?" I asked and took a few cautious steps around the table.

"Yes Katherine. My father is dead."

"You didn't tell me, when did you even go to Italy? His funeral, and you're...still here?" I stepped on a stray lasagna noodle and slipped, the plate I'd been holding soared through the air and in another sloppy mess the contents splattered all over me. Giggles behind me assured me the girls had returned to the scene of the crime.