The Ones Who Failed Us

Chapter 19

Leo, Elijah, and Alessandro exchanged looks amongst each other looking shocked. Alessandro finally broke the silence with one question.

"Who told you that?"

I rolled my eyes and answered, "I figured it out and told Teddy. Don't even try denying it unless you'd rather me not tell you anything."

"Okay, fine. We're the Italian Mafia," Leo admitted.

Elijah and Alessandro sent scowls his way, obviously annoyed how quickly he gave in. "What?" Leo asked. "They're not stupid. What's the point in keeping it from them when they already know?"

Alessandro let out a sigh and sat back in his chair looking defeated. "How do you feel about us being the leaders of the Italian Mafia?"

I didn't know how to answer. A part of me was relieved because their power and influence in the world could provide me enough protection to prevent him from finding me, or at least stall him. On the other hand, my brothers were criminals. I don't know much about the activities of the Italian Mafia, but the Russians engaged in human trafficking. If my brothers did that too, then I would never be able to look at them the same. To me, that was the vilest act a Mafia could be a part of, and I refused to be in a family with ties to human trafficking.

Instead of expressing how I was truly feeling, I shrugged my shoulders and said, "It's fine, I guess, but I do have a few questions."

"Okay, that's fair," Alessandro said. "I'll answer everything to the best of my ability."

I shook my head and laughed dryly. "No, Alessandro. You will answer everything I ask, and there will be no vague answers. Either you tell me here or I'll just find out myself."

"Wait," Elijah interrupted. "You wanted to tell us something. Why don't we start with that, and then you can ask your questions?"

"No," I answered. "If you answer my questions fully, then I'll tell you everything. Any vague answers, and I might leave a thing or two out."

Alessandro, Elijah, and Leo looked at each other, unsure of how to continue. In Italian, Leo said to them, "We should tell them everything. Whatever they're hiding from us made Ava do that job for The Cobras. If we don't get answers soon, Ava might do something like this again, and that's the last thing we need."

"What if everything is too much, though?" Elijah asked in Italian. "They've already been through a lot. We don't want to add more to their trauma by telling them everything we do with the Mafia."

"We're not some porcelain dolls who will break," I said in Italian. "We're perfectly fine."

We're far from fine, but eventually we would be fine.

I smirked as I saw my brother's eyes widen when they realized I understood and spoke Italian perfectly.

"You know Italian?" Alessandro asked.

"We're fluent in five languages," Teddy answered. "But, yes. Italian is one of them."

The five of sat in silence as my older brothers thought about every piece of information they might have said in Italian while we were around.

"You heard about one of our employees getting shot," Alessandro realized.

"That is correct," I said.

Alessandro looked at Teddy and then me. "Why did you hide knowing Italian from us?"

"Your business seemed sketchy," I explained. "I thought keeping our fluency in Italian a secret would give us an advantage and it did."