Massimo POV

I look over the table at Serena as the room clears out.

Her eyes were glued to the table in front of her with no expression on her face.

I could tell it came naturally for her to switch off her emotions, just like the strongest in the mafia.

One moment she would have a warm look in her eyes then the next her face would be blank with no means of telling if she was feeling at all.

I noticed it a week ago when we were still happy living our fake lives. The faint cloudy look in her gaze when she tried to hide her true feelings from everyone.

Spencer closed the door after the last person left and made his way over to us.

We stayed silent for a moment as Serena seemed to work something out in her mind.

"Tomas is an ally," Her voice finally says, filling the room with the soft sound of her beautiful voice. Her eyes slowly move up to us as we stand across from her in the chair.

"Your fiancé you mean?" I ask with more harshness in my voice than I meant to. Her eyes go hard with deep anger.

"Your brother," She spits back. "Neither of us had a choice in being arranged to marry."

"How do you know he won't betray us?" Spencer interrupts and her eyes move from me over to him.

"Because he was the one who helped me escape his father," She says and her eyes go soft for a moment before they harden once again. "He hates him just as much as everyone in this room."

"The bastard son should hate his father for the misery he has caused the world," I spat with harshness.

Serena's eyes look up at me with sadness.

"Do you know how he came to be?" She asks with curiosity. When I stayed quiet she continued.

"Ricardo met your mother at a meeting between the mafias a year after you were born. He thought it was love at first sight and your mother must have been taken by him as well. They had an affair while everyone else was busy with polite talk. Afterward, life went back to normal.

"Until your mother found out she was pregnant with Ricardo's child. The moment your mother gave birth to the child, your father sent his men to deliver it to Ricardo's doorstep. That was when the two mafias broke the truce. Ricardo claimed to love your mother while your father claimed he forced his wife into having his child."

Her eyes look at me and I tense at the mention of my mother.

I could feel Spencer looking at me but ignored his stare. He knew I had a half-brother out there but never knew who he was or what happened to him.

"How do you know this?" I ask and she gives me a soft smile.

"There's no need to whisper around someone you see as expendable," She says and I feel my heart clench painfully.

"Ricardo saw Tomas as the perfect son when we were younger. A mixture of Italian and Spanish blood made him the perfect way to connect the mafias once he took over the Italians. Ricardo planned to make him the strongest, fastest, and most brutal warrior to prove to your mother that they should imbed the two mafias."

I was silent as I stared down at her. She had a soft expression on her face.

"I was trained alongside Tomas. His father forced us to train until we collapsed. We would fight against each other, whoever lost would be starved for a week. So we fought as if our lives depended on it." She stopped and looked down at the table with her hands tightly together.

"Tomas never won any of the fights. He hated violence and never wanted to hurt me, so he always pulled his punches. His father saw it and knew he would never get the two mafias together by using him. So he had Tomas work in tech to track down people. Meanwhile, I continued my training and started going on missions.

"One time Tomas confronted him about something and Ricardo sent him on a mission with me. We were captured and they planned on killing him but I stopped them. After that Tomas was always there for me. He worked hard in the computer lab to make his father happy because when he wasn't, he would take it out on me in front of Tomas.

"I am not telling you this for shit and giggles. I am telling you this because Tomas is not like his father. He hates him for killing your parents because that was his mother as well. He hates him for the way he abused and raised us. He hates him because he never let us live," She says with a sad huff.

I look over at Spencer and he nudges his head toward the door.

I glance at Serena as she crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her chair with a blank expression on her face once again.

"Thank you for sharing this with us. We just need to discuss this between ourselves before deciding. I will send Joyce in," I say before leaving.

When I am in my office, Spencer lets out a deep breath.

"Sono alcune cose difficili che ha dovuto affrontare," He says and I nod lightly. "Ma ci fidiamo di lei?"

(**It's some tough stuff she has been put through**) (**But do we trust her?**)

"Non ha motivo di mentire," I say and he nods.

(**She has no reason to lie.**)

"L'hai davvero sposata?" He asks with a raised eyebrow.

(**Did you really marry her**)

"Si," I say and stand from my desk to look out the window behind me.

"Why?" He asks behind me now. I let out a deep breath as I try to comb through my thoughts.

"Because she had given up. I could see it on her face before she told me. She stopped running because she was ready for them to catch her. She is not afraid, she is just tired," I look over my shoulder at him. "I am going to give her a reason to keep fighting."

* * *

Serena POV

I hear the door open but don't look up as someone walks in. I watch them in my peripheral as they hesitate near the door before sitting beside me.

"Serena?" I look up at Joyce as she gives me a soft smile.

"Hey," I say and she smiles.

"I... I am so sorry I lied to you. I never thought we would become friends and that I would feel this betrayal in my..." I put a hand up and she stops right away.

"I knew who you were, Joyce."

Her jaw drops open as she looks at me.

"But how?"

"I know everything," I say with sarcasm and she laughs lightly. "But seriously though, you talked for an hour every night with who I am assuming is Spencer on the phone every night. And let me say, nobody from Brooklyn speaks that fluent of Italian."

She broke out in laughter as she bellied forward. A smile broke across my lips as I joined her. The feeling made my life feel normal again for just a few moments.

When we quieted down I turned and faced her completely.

"I know you have questions," I told her and she looked over my face. "Ask away."

"So your parents gave you to Ricardo for money? He's not your dad?"

"No, he is not my father."

"Okay," She says slowly before her eyes go down to my arms. She slowly brought her hand and brushed it across my scared skin under my tattoos. "Were these from Ricardo?"

"Some were from fights when I was nicked. But most were from punishments," I say in almost a whisper.

"Punishments? For what? You were the closest thing he had to an indestructible weapon," She says with shock on her face. I feel my eyes droop tiredly as I give a small reassuring smile.

"Everything useful has to be built, broken down, and reshaped to create a masterpiece," Her eyes meet mine with a sad glimmer. "I was told that with every beating until it was engraved in my ears and my every dream."

"I wish I had known sooner."

"What would you have done? Told me you were in the Italian mafia and your don was planning on kidnapping me before handing me over to my old don?" A smile cracks my lips with a laugh.

"Something like that," Her head moves down, her long blonde hair fanning over her eyes.

I lift a hand and move the hair behind her ear.

"Joyce, I am not mad at you for lying or deceiving me. I am grateful for you," I tell her honestly as her eyes scan me once more. "You showed me life and freedom these past few months. You gave me friendship and the family feeling I have been searching for. You let me feel alive again and gave me the push I needed to stop running."

She leans forward and wraps her arms tightly around my shoulders. I let out a huff of air in surprise before I return the gesture, rubbing up and down her back as she cries on my shoulder.

After a few minutes, she pulls back with her eyes trained on my tattoos.

"At first I got them to hide the obvious scars that people could use to identify me. But then I realized, that the pain let me feel alive. Not only did it hide the ugly but it let me feel something that I was in control of."

"That is why you stayed with Lance, wasn't it? Because he let you feel emotions? Pain?" Her eyes started to water again.

I gave a small nod and she focuses on my arm.

She runs her fingers over the mandala near my bicep, her fingers running around the circles and loops with a look of astonishment. Her fingers run over the bumps of scars that were not forgotten with a gentle touch.

Some were deeper than others and still sensitive to the touch, but I shielded all emotions to not scare her.

"How did you choose such lovely designs?" She asks dropping her hand down.

"In the beginning I chose random ones that hid the most skin. But for the last three years, I have been drawing them myself in my free time. Sometimes it was random doodles to cover harsh marks. Some are meaning full."

I smile at her gently. Her eyes were full of the brightness all over again despite the hard topic. She was just such a bubbly person that I couldn't even imagine her being in this line of work.