Come Fly Away With Me

Principessa Deluca

"Scusami, Maya, possiamo parlare?"
Maya didn't turn around from the lounger where she had been sitting in the garden holding Liam. He had long since fallen asleep but Maya couldn't move. After talking to Andy she had demanded that she be brought back to the villa to be with her son. Liam had been so excited to see her and she hadn't let go of him since. They had walked together throughout the entire grounds twice until he started to rub his eyes and Maya had stopped and let him drift off to sleep. It was only then that Maya had let tears fall. Carina was missing and Maya was to blame. The guilt she was feeling was threatening to crush her, but then she would look down at their son and she could hear Carina in her head telling her to not give up and to make sure that Liam was safe. So she did what she needed as her son slept in her arms, she went for a run in her head.
"Maya?"
"Unless you are here to tell me Carina's been found I really am not in the mood to talk."
"Maya, I'm Carina's cousin, Raphael."
Maya opened her eyes and turned her head, her breath sucking in slightly as she blinked in surprise. Raphael looked uncannily like Andrew Deluca and for a flash of a moment, Maya remembered the beach.
"Uhh, ok..."
"Mi dispiace, by the look on your face, Carina has never shown you a picture of me."
Maya shook her head as Raphael sat down.
"Has Carina told you anything about me or about our family?"
"N-no, not really...she...I never...I'm sorry."
Raphael placed his hand on Maya's arm as she held back tears, realizing that there was an entire part of Carina's life that she knew absolutely nothing about.
"Va bene, she doesn't talk about the past, mostly because of the family business...and what happened to her."
Maya swallowed hard, feeling her breath catch in her throat. In her arms, Liam flutter inhaled as he snuggled himself closer to her.
"Please tell me everything. I need to know."

Carina felt the bumps in the road as they sped along. Her kidnapper had placed the hood over her head and untied her legs before gripping her arm and lifting her up, guiding her out to the car and instructing her to sit. He had buckled her in and then gotten in himself, started the engine and they sped off.
"Is this really necessary? What's the big secret?"
"Va bene Principessa, you want to see?"
He reached over and pulled the hood off of Carina, her hair flying around as she shook her head to try and get it out of her eyes. She turned to look at him and squinted before realizing who he was.
"Tony? Che cazzo?"
"It's been a long time Principessa."
"Stop calling me that. Where are we going?"
"To the dock, he's coming to Malta to see you."
"Tony, don't do this. Let me go. I've left him alone all these years. I don't have anything to do with the business. I'm a respected doctor. I have a family and I live in the US. Let me go por favore."
"Oh yes, we all know about the very famous Doctor Carina Deluca...who married the Olympian woman firefighter and is backed by Grey-Sloan and the Catherine Fox Foundation. Yes Principessa, we know it all. You can thank that wife of yours for this."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Tony cast a sideways glance at Carina, his eyebrow rising as he looked at her.
"Giancomo's wife is Sami Yang. She hates your wife, the kind of hate that our business takes care of, capisce? She told Giancomo that she wants your wife to suffer in heartache and pain and losing you is the greatest heartache and pain that can be inflicted on your gold medal wife."
Carina's lips pursed to a thin line as she narrowed her eyes.
"Cazzate, you forget who I am and the family I come from. I'm not scared of you, or of him, not any more. If Giancomo does even one foolishly stupid thing to me, dio non avra pieta di nessuno di voi, capisce?"
Tony shrugged as he sped along the countryside while Carina turned and looked out the window, her mind churning as she felt herself reaching down to pull up long buried emotions and to shift her mindset about seeing her attacker after so many years.

"Maya, are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"Yeah, my wife, the cute and feisty Italian doctor we all know and love, is a full on mafia princess. Andy, that's like legit her handle in the 'family business', they call her 'Principessa'."
Andy whistled as Maya stared at her through the FaceTime call.
"So what the hell happened? I thought this was about you and that psycho bitch from the Olympics?"
"Well it kinda is...but holy shit is it a twisted road to get here and fuckin a Andy, I'm just mind blown that I had no clue who Carina was before she came to Seattle. Cliff notes version though, Carina's grandfather was a pretty powerful mafia boss in Sicily, like I'm talking massively so. Carina's dad was a brilliant mind so the father made sure he got the best education. When Carina was born, she was literally introduced as 'Principessa Carina Deluca' and everyone knew that hurting her was the equivalent of a death sentence. Flash forward and Carina ran with her cousins, nothing hard core and she's never done anything illegal, but her cousins kind of kept her around them because they knew she was the equivalent of a free pass for whatever shit they got into."
There was a knock on Andy's office door and she held up a finger for Maya to wait as she got up and opened the door.
"I'm on a conference call, can this wait?"
"Yeah, it's just that the Chief just pulled up and is out in the barn."
"Fuck, ok. Tell her I'll be right out. Thanks."
Andy shut the door and went back to her phone, picking it up and staring at Maya.
"I've only got another minute but I want to know.."
"Yeah, the skinny is that this Giancomo was a trusted member of the family and dated Carina's cousin Camille. She and Carina look very similar and used to live together with Gabriella when Carina started med school. Giancomo came over to their apartment drunk one night and went into Carina's room. He got on top of Carina and she woke up and started to push him off but he put his hands around her throat and threatened her. When he was done, he left and went into Camille's room. Gabriella found this out the next morning when she came to get Carina for class and saw her. Carina was terrified and ashamed but Gabriella told Carina's cousin Raphael-who by the way holy FUCK if he isn't the spitting image of Andrew Deluca-and Giancomo was pegged as a dead man walking. That's why he took off to Hawaii. He's had a hard on against Carina and the Deluca family for years but since she never officially outed him and he was able to build his own little empire, he left it alone. Until his wife Sami got the newsletter about me and the Olympics....and she must have shown him the wedding picture I had submitted when we got married that the committee used for the announcement and now here we are in this clusterfuck of shit."
"Jesus H Christ Maya, I don't know how you are holding it together right now."
"Honestly I'm not, but I have a son and learning that my wife is a true mafia princess and Raphael has assured me that the family will turn over hell itself to get Carina back safely is just hitting me different so I'm trying to focus on keeping things as smooth as possible for Liam. But Andy? I'm ready to fucking explode inside and God forbid anything happens to Carina or our babies...I'll spend the rest of my life in jail and you'll have to help my mom and Mason raise Liam. Promise me?"
There was a knock at Andy's office door and a moment later Maya heard Chief Ross' voice. Andy looked up and then at Maya.
"Don't do anything stupid Bishop, that's an order and a request from me to you. Got it?"
She blew Maya a kiss and flashed peace signs before the FaceTime call went dark. Maya set the phone down, walked over to the closet, pulled out one of Carina's tops and laid down on the bed. Curling up on her side, Maya clutched the top to her chest, inhaling her wife's scent as she let the tears of fear she wasn't showing anyone else stream down her face.