Young Queen

FORTY FOUR

"Aria, what were you thinking?" Leo asked, running out behind her.

She shrugged, "I was only making an example. We have moles amongst us, so I did what I had to do."

"You just threatened my guards," he furrowed his brows, grabbing her arm.

"Just like you threatened my classmates," she responded, walking towards the car.

"You said you forgave me for that," he said. At this point, she turned back around.

"I did, and I still do. I simply put a stop to the mockery we've had to deal with. I was letting everyone in there know that we do not get stepped on. Truthfully, maybe your method does work," she told him.

"Aria, are you okay?" Dominic asked running out after the couple, followed by Damon and Steven.

She rolled her eyes, "I'm fine. Can we please not make a bigger deal out of this?"

"Not make a bigger deal? You just fucking killed someone!" Damon shouted, throwing his arms up in the air.

"Damon!" Leo shouted, giving him a dirty look.

"I did. I killed someone. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to brunch with my best friends," she told them with a soft smile.

You did what you had to, she kept reminding herself. It was you or him.

"Brunch? There's no way you can be thinking about brunch after what happened in there," Leo looked at her with complete confusion. She couldn't be this calm, not after what she did. He's seen her trauma first hand the past couple of months, there was no way she was okay after this.

She groaned, "Why can't you all let it go?"

"Because we've all seen first hand what happened to you last time you took a life," Damon told her, running his hand through his hair.

"That was then, this is now," she told him. "I did what I had to do."

"I told you I would take care of it," Leo said.

"Let me ask you all one thing - what do you think would have happened if I took a sip of that drink? Do you think I would be running around, la di da, happy and smiling? I would be dead, I would be lying on the ground in there and it would've been too late. You were all so focused on my well-being, on whether or not I was going to have an episode, that you didn't notice the actual threat in front of us. I was almost murdered in there. I did what I had to do," she screamed, her chest heaving up and down. She took a deep breath to calm herself, "You all have to stop treating me like I'm fragile. I'm not a delicate little flower, I have no innocence left in me. That was taken a long time ago."

"You've come such a long way from where you were, sweetheart. I don't want to see you go through that again," Leo said, his heart sinking in his chest.

She grabbed his hand, "You won't. I'm not that person anymore."

Truthfully she hadn't been for a long time, but she didn't mind it. She knew who she was now, that was what mattered.

"You never deserved this life," Dominic said, his voice breaking. "I don't know how I go about watching my daughter become this person, one who has to kill to survive."

"If I never got brought into this life, I wouldn't have met you, or Leo, or Damon, or Steven. I would still be living a lie, sheltered from the world. I don't think I was ever meant to live a normal life," she told him, looking down at the ground. Leo squeezed her hand tighter in comfort.

Steven stood back and watched, his mind racing at what was happening before him. Could it truly be that the Moretti Mafia would be seeing its first-ever woman leader? He had always known Aria was different, her initiation told him that much. She had proven herself the same way Steven had; by taking the life of a Don. However, she didn't know that, and yet she had fallen into her role effortlessly. She had already taken the steps to become a true mafia Don, and he was going to help her get it. Perhaps two leaders were better than one.