Worshiping Her

chapter sixteen

                    Nicolai Chio

I'm now beyond confused.

I know that Francesca told me that we weren't anything more but friends don't do these things. We spend every waking moment together. We act like a couple in private.

I sit myself up from Francesca's bed and pinch the bridge of my nose. I have so much shit to worry about between waiting to hear back from college applications and not hearing from my parents.

I jolt my head to the door as I heard it twist open. "Franny wake up." I shove her aggressively. She's a hard sleeper. "What do you want?" She turns away from me and puts the covers over her head. "There's someone-," The door swings open. "What the hell?" Lilura covers her eyes. Francesca immediately sprouted up and covered herself with the covers. "Why are you in here? Get out!" She grabbed a pillow and threw it at her sister. "Why are you naked." She looked over at me. "Why are you naked." I guess she put two and two together and quickly left then shut the door behind her.

"Well, now I have to find a lie to tell her, great. I don't want her to get any ideas." Ideas? She popped her lips. "Can you just change?" She wraps her hair in a ponytail and throws on her dress from last night.

"What ideas don't you want her to get?" I question. "That we're together." She tilts her head as if I said something dumb. I guess she hasn't changed her mind. "Hurry up." She walks out of the room.

I search the room for my clothes in a hurry. I wonder how she's gonna play this off.

I make my way out of her room and examine the scene. I can hear Franny and Li talking downstairs. "We share the same bed a lot it's not a big deal" She attempts to convince her sister. "Y'all share the same bed naked?" Li asks suspiciously. "Would you keep your fucking voice down?" Franny whispers.

I feel a tug on my pants and turn around to see Astrid standing there rubbing her tired eyes. "Nico why are they yelling?" The only person that is nice to me in this house is a toddler. I pick her up. "Let's go see shall we." She nods and smiles.

We walk downstairs to meet Li and Franny in the foyer. "I'm 19 years old and don't even live here so even if we were, which we weren't. It's none of your business. She pointed her finger in Lilura's face. "Get your fucking finger out of my face." She pushes Francesca's finger out of her face.

It's too early for this shit. "Can y'all just shut up and be chill? Astrid is right here." I spoke firmly.

                                ☽
            Francesca Romero

I don't think I've ever heard Nicolai raise his voice at me and with his sleepy voice, it's kinda hot.

Lilura pressed her lips together. "You know what? Whatever. I needed to talk to you guys anyways. I went to see jake, got him to talk after hours...and hours of nicely convincing him." She fucking lying. "He didn't tell me who he worked for exactly but he did give me a name." Now I'm interested. Whoever he works for has to be scary as fuck for him to sit through torture for weeks. Not surprised Li was the one to break him. "What's his name?" Nicolai turns his head up at her.

"He is a she. And she goes by The Viper." Well, that's corny. "I haven't told dad yet because I think it's someone on the inside." She begins biting her nails. "Who would be stupid enough to pull some shit like that? There's no way." I laugh. "She has a point though. How come Jake knew your dad's every move?" Astrid lays her head on Nico's chest and he placed his hand on her head. My ovaries. "I can't ask for anyone else's help because of the risk of them being an inside man." She bites her help. "I'm gonna need you guys on this mission." I glance at Nico and try to see what he's thinking. When it comes to my family I'll do anything for them. But me doing this defeats me in trying to change and leave this behind.