Mio Sole

10 [Sebastian]

pardon the rough sketches, i couldn't find a good reference image for the outfit i had in mind for the second part of this chapter

**June 10th, 4am**

"Dude," Niklaus' voice brings me out of sleep a moment before a pillow comes flying at my head at full speed.

I groan, rolling over so that I'm laying face down on the bed. Or couch, I guess. I must have fallen asleep at Alec's house after our meetup. "Something better be on fire," I grunt out, my voice muffled by the couch cushion.

"Are we not going to talk about 'The Aurora Thing?'"

I roll over, glad to see that at least the lights above the couch are still off. "What Aurora thing?"

"She is Giovanni Romano's daughter," Stefan says from next to Nik. "As in, the Romanos have had a sister for 17 years and none of them told us. Not even Emiliano."

"Again, they likely were not allowed to." Alec's cold voice calls from the other side of the room. His footsteps grow louder as he nears the couch, leaning over the back edge enough that I can see his face. I send him a lopsided grin and he rolls his eyes in response.

"And if what we know about Aurora is true, she didn't even know they existed. I mean, she grew up in foster care, right? And I know you heard her reaction when that lady doing her hair mentioned Gio's reputation. There's no way she knows anything about the mafia," I say.

Alec's eyes narrow as he looks back down towards me. "She is not as innocent as you think."

"And she is not as guilty as you think," Stefan says. Alec's glare turns in his direction. "You saw her reaction too. She had no clue what we were talking about."

"None of this changed the fact that Emiliano didn't tell us," Niklaus interrupts. "He lied to us, actually. He said he was busy this week with 'Archer problems.' Not 'Archer's twin problems.'"

Alec's glare moves to him next. "Do I need to repeat myself?" He asks. "He likely was not allowed to say anything. Just because we're friends with each other does not mean that there isn't tension between all of our mafias. When a fucking mafia princess shows up after 17 years, that's not something you immediately run and tell your family's enemies."

   The room is quiet for a moment as we all digest that. Finally, Stefan says, "It still doesn't make any sense. Even if she's the first woman born into a mafia in decades, tradition is tradition. Shouldn't Giovanni have promised her marriage by now?"

   "It's been 4 days, dude," Nik responds. "Chill. He's probably planning it."

"And are none of you interested in what she meant by 'not knowing her parents were alive?'" Stefan asks. "Or that she didn't know she had brothers? Or why she was in the system in the first place? None of this makes any sense."