No Pants, Lots of Problems

V A L E R I U S ' P O V :

"You know, Valerius. I think you might have me convinced." He slumps in his chair with a slight hint of a smile.

My eyes trail over the computer screen. The Spanish mafia leader, Marco Martinez. I know him well, him and my father are good friends.

"I hope so, Mr. Martinez. The Russians have been out of control for years now. It's time they finally see what they're up against." I say with an edge to my voice. Marco nods in agreement.

"Sounds personal." Marco rises a brown teasingly. I'm glad he can't see me tense behind the screen. "I won't ask questions, I trust you as a son. Just as I trust your papà as a brother." I give a tight-lipped smile and nod shortly.

"T—," I halt when my office door slams open with a bang. My head snaps to the doorframe.

It's Ellie. She runs into my office with a smile on her face and.. no pants.

My face was content for Marco to see but inside I was fuming. Not at Ellie but at my brothers, who (no doubt) are going to run into the room in a matter of seconds.

This call needs to end before things get out of my control.

"Is that Valerius!?" I hear from the other line. Rachel, Marco's wife.

Frustration builds within my chest. I'm not getting off this call anytime soon. Rachel is a talker. I need to find a way to leave without being disrespectful.

Footsteps pound on the ground, no doubt my brothers are coming to clean their mess. Ellie giggles quietly with her hand covering her mouth. She runs and hides in the corner of the room, not seeming to notice me at all.

Well, I'm glad at least she's getting a kick out of this predicament.

"Mrs. Martinez." I smile tightly and she gives me a warm smile back when she sees me.

"Dear, how many times have I told you! Just call me Rachel!" She corrects sweetly. This lady is always too happy.

"Rachel." I fix my mistake and she laughs.

I keep my focus as I hear dumb, dumber and dumbest enter the room panting. . . with Ellie's pants.

Marcello bends down with his hands on his knees. Savino starts coughing and Fabio rests on the doorframe, tired. My jaw ticks. Idiots.

With a smile on her face, Ellie notices me and runs behind my chair. I pretend like nothing is wrong and continue to listen to Rachel ramble away.

As soon as my brothers look around to see where she went their eyes go wide. Not only have we decided not to announce Ellie to all the mafias yet.. they also know not to interrupt me when I'm in a meeting. The anger on my face is as clear as day.

"Is everything alright, Valerius?" Marco asks with a hint of amusement in his voice.

I'm sure he's guessing my brothers are doing something. He knows my family very well.

"Yes. It just seems my brothers have misplaced something. Something they shouldn't have misplaced." I reply calmly.

My brothers looked terrified, knowing that once my meeting was finished they were as good as dust.

"Oh my! Let me see the boys!" Rachel cheers and I glare at Fabio, Savino and Marcello.

Fabio licks his dry lips and the other two stare at each other.

"Yes. Let Mrs. Martinez see you." I agree tightly. They walk towards the camera carefully with looks of terror written all over their faces.

As soon as they come into the screen Rachel's smile gets larger. "You boys look so grown up! I haven't seen you all in like four years! How's everyone been?" She asks excitedly. Marco stares at her with a loving smile, he looks back to me like he knows something is up.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Fabio put a hand over Ellie's mouth and pull her to his side. While the Martinez's were busy talking he bends down to Ellie's height and tries to get her to cooperate with her pants. She was not very happy about that.

Her face scrunches up in disgust and she tries getting away from him. Mar and Savino try not to laugh. Ellie whines.

Well this is just going great.

Just as they try to figure out what is happening, papà walks in. We all look at him, trying to silently tell him to not say anything.

He scans the room and sees the chaos behind my desk. "What happened to Eleonora's pants?" He asks and we all sigh in defeat.

Out of all the people I was expecting to blow it, I was not expecting it to be papà.

"I'm sorry, Valerius but what the hell is going on?" Marco asks in almost, amusement. "And is that your father? How is he?" I can't even wrap my head around what the hell is happening.

I inhale a deep breath and look at Marco. "Just a moment, Mr. Martinez." I say and he nods.

I turn to look at Ellie who is pouting while Fabio tries to keep her from running away again. "Eleonora." I say sternly and she turns to me with an innocent smile. I rise a daring brow at her and she huffs, defeated. "Come here." I demand and she follows my orders.

I snatched her pants off of Fabio and he stands up, finally coming back into the frame for Marco and Rachel to see.

I pick Ellie up and sit her in my lap as I make her stick her feet through the holes of her pants. I know that the Marco and Rachel can see her but at this point it wasn't much of a secret anymore.

"M'sorry papà." She whispers sadly.

I know she knows that she did something wrong. That doesn't mean she's getting off the hook.

This is the part of parenting I dislike the most.

"We'll talk about this later." I say, setting her down onto the floor. "Go find your zio E. I need to talk with your zii." I grit out the last part, directing it towards my brothers. She nods sadly before dragging her feet out of the room.

My heart hurts knowing that she's sad but I can't always be the good guy for her.

"I see now why you scheduled this meeting." Marco says amusingly. I nod my head sharply. I hope I can trust Marco with this.

"This is not how I planned for this meeting to happen but I hope we can still trust you to help us."

"Don't worry, Valerius. Family is important to us just as much as it is to you. We'll help in any way needed. Just give us a call."

I hold back my excitement.

"Goodbye, Marco. I hope to be in contact soon."

"And I with you. Goodbye." He ends the call with a final goodbye to the rest of my family.

As soon as the tab closes, I let out a breath of relief and grab Marcello's arm as he tries to sneak out of the room. I look at him angrily. He awkwardly smiles, trying to back away.

I notice papà left the room so it's now only me and my brothers.

"Come cazzo ha fatto un bambina di cinque anni a superare voi tre!" How the fuck did a five-year-old outrun you three! I grumble in a deadly manner.

"It was Marcello!" Fabio shouts and Mar gasps while putting a hand on his heart.

"NO! It was Fabio! I swear!" Marcello yells back. I turn to Fabio expectantly, waiting for the truth.

"Well.. you see. She did have pants. We were looking at some uhm pictures on Marcello's phone. Then she had no pants.. and she was gone. Marcello went to find pants. He came back. We found Ellie and she ran. Marcello fell on his face, trying to get her. Savino ran and fell on top of Mar. Then by the time we were all up she was long gone." Fabio said sheepishly. They all look anywhere but my eyes.

Fucking idiots.

I rub my forehead, trying to rid myself of a headache.

"The only reason I'm not beating the shit out of you three is because I don't want Ellie asking why her zii's faces look smashed in. You could have potentially ruined a deal for me. One that puts Ellie's life on the line." I say coldly. They all look down, guilty. "Don't you fucking idiots ever listen when I speak? I told you all that I would be in a meeting." They smiled uncomfortably- meaning that they weren't listening when I told them.

"Sorry—"

"You know instead of me taking away your ability to walk I'll give you something easier." They relax. "Every morning from four a.m to eight a.m you will have training for a week and I want each of you to scrub at least two torture rooms each. They should be completely clean of blood when you're done. I better not hear one complaint." They all look at me with wide eyes.

These three can barely make a bed except maybe Savino. This week will be hell for them. I'm counting on that.

"Va-" Marcello starts desperately but my deadly glare shuts him up.

I hear them all groan in defeat as I walk out of the room. They can complain all they want but this is all their fault.

Sure, we may be allies with the Spanish but with what happened today, they could have backed out and that would be bad for Ellie. We need everyone we can get. This is all for Ellie.

I walk around the house to where I believe Enzo would be. I finally enter the guest room where he is staying. I find him working on his laptop with Ellie leaning sadly into his side. She knows I'm not very happy with her.

A knife twists in my chest. I hate seeing her upset.

As much as I want to let her off, I know she still needs to be reprimanded or she'll never understand right and wrong. That's the difficult part. I don't want her to feel like she did when I first found her. I don't want to scare her.

"Eleonora." I call out and both her and Enzo look up at me. "Come here." I command but with some softness still in my tone. "Please." I add so she doesn't get scared away.

She moves away from Enzo and slides her way down the bed and over to me. "Come on, the full name?" Enzo says to me and raises his eyebrows. I roll my eyes and look down to Ellie.

"Follow me." I command and try avoiding looking at her as she drags her feet behind me.

Trust me, little devil, this is hurting me a lot more than it's hurting you.

We get to the bottom of the staircase and I bend down to her level. I move her chin so she can look into my eyes. Her sad blue eyes meet mine. I almost drop the whole plan right then. She sniffles sadly.

Stay strong, Valerius. Stay strong.

I sit her on the bottom step. "You're going to sit here and think about what you did wrong and then when I come back in, you will tell me why you acted like you did. No talking to anyone." I tell her sternly but it pains me to say. I feel terrible inside.

It's odd how I can kill a man with my bare hands without a second thought but this tiny child can make me want to cry just by reprimanding her.

She nods softly and looks down with tears burrowing in her eyes. I bite my tongue before walking away and going into the room next to the stairs, that we rarely use, so I can still see her.

About five minutes later Enzo comes down and looks at Ellie on the steps in concern. "What's wrong, arachidi?" He questions with concern but she just looks away in silence. Her lip wobbles.

Shit. Don't cry. I can't be strong if she cries.

"Don't." I say and shake my head at him. Enzo snaps his head to me and walks over with a questioning glance. He sits next to me on the couch. "It hurts more when you look. Avoid any and all eye contact." I say, my eyes following anywhere but to Ellie. "It's easier that way."

I watch as Enzo holds his gaze on Ellie and I forcefully turn his head away from her. "Don't. Look." I deadpan, noticing the hurt look in his eyes.

"You're right. That does hurt." Enzo whispers in shock. I nod my head quickly. "What did she even do?" I almost laugh.

"She was running around the house without pants on. She came into my office while I was in a meeting with Marco. Those three idiots were chasing her everywhere." I repeat the story that was told to me.

I see Enzo fighting a smile. "They are fucking idiots aren't they?" He muses, shaking his head.

"I don't know what fucking gene made them so damn stupid." I say humorously.

It's truly amazing what their brains come up with.

"Mamma's." Enzo deadpans and I let out a short laugh.

Before anything else could be said, the timer on my phone goes off. "Oh, thank fuck." I mutter under my breath. I swear I could have seen Enzo smile for just a moment.

I turn off the timer and walk over to Ellie. She picks her head up and looks at me with teary eyes. "I'm sorry, papà." She sniffles. I hold my breath. "So sorry." A lone tear runs down her cheek and what follows is a cracked sob. I scoop her up, holding her to my chest.

My heart splits in half.

"It's okay, baby. You are forgiven." She buries her head into the crook of my neck. I hold her closer. "How about we talk about what made you hate those pants so much." I rub her head softly.

"Uh-huh..," She mumbles into my neck, nodding slowly. I rub up and down her back.

Before walking upstairs I look to Enzo and send him a short nod. He nods back with a glint in his eyes. I walked upstairs with Ellie in my arms.

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