UPSIDE DOWN

~ 12 ~

Sylvie

I've mastered the art of fake sleeping long ago when I used to try to sneak out in the night for dance practices, but mama would come in and give me a good night kiss every night. 

Slowing down my breath, deepening the air intake, dropping down my eyelids and not moving at all, and after 5 minutes of stillness, shuffle around a little. 

I feel Luca press a kiss on my forehead and I control myself from bursting into a smile, he whispers a quick good night and goes to sleep on the floor holding onto my hand. 

I wait until he's asleep as I slip out of his reach and slowly wheel myself to my room, being careful not to let anyone else in the house notice me. 

I go over to my room, shutting the door gently behind me and opening the laptop that Andrea had ordered, it had arrived today and Andrea had already had someone set it up for me. 

I open it and go to incognito mode, if I am right about this family then the incognito tab won't do much to hide what I', about to search. 

Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes and reminding myself about why exactly I'm doing this, I type in 'the Bernardi family'. 

A bunch of news articles pop up, 'The sudden death of the great business man Leonardo Bernardi', 'Andrea Bernardi, the prime suspect of the mass murder of 15 people at Aubrey Hall'.

And many others claiming that my brothers were involved in multiple murder cases, and sometimes even being the primes suspects. But the one that catches my eye was a recent article, 'Grace Bernardi, former wife of Leonardo Bernardi spotted near a diner on the outskirts of town after 14 years of being mia'. 

This was an hour before mama was presumed dead, an hour before she hung herself. My family members withheld that information, but I heard someone talking about it at the funeral. 

But I know that's not what happened. The bruises around mama's neck were not cause because of a rope, it clearly resembled someone's hands. 

Her sleeves covered enough, but there were bruises on her arm, if you see carefully through the lace of her sleeves, you can see it. 

Everyone is holding some information from me, something about this family just doesn't sit right. And I need to find out what. 

It is not normal to always have a gun, and killing people? What's with that? 

It is not normal to be the primes suspects of more than 20 murders and still not be a murderer, when clearly I've seen two of them kill. 

I can't stop digging deeper and deeper, until I find an old article, almost too old, dated 1975, 'Roberto Bernardi hands over the mafia crown to his youngest son Leonardo Bernardi' 

Mafia? 

I click on that article reading and absorbing every single word that has been typed out. 

"After ruling the Italian mafia for almost 18 years, Roberto Bernardi hands over his title of the 'mafia don' to his youngest son, Leonardo Bernardi. 
Every don of all the existing mafias are here to witness the grand event. Even most of the reporters and public are curious as to why this is such a public announcement. 

The real question that hangs in our minds is. 'will Leonardo be able to handle the title the way Roberto handled it, or will there be circumstances where the entire country has to start living in fear of when it'll be their turn to die?' 

Only the future will be able to tell us folks, but for now, let's look at a few pictures of them rejoicing this moment, forever etched in the mafia history."