Tainted Faith

Seventeen: Diciassette [edited 30/03/21]

There was no evidence that morning of Mercello ever having returned from his late night phone call. Liliana tried not to let that irritate her but that feeling of being isolated and cast aside was ever-present. Especially when it was so blatantly obvious that he was keeping secrets from her.

She knew far too well that in their line of work, knowledge was power. So if Marcello wanted to keep secrets from her, so be it; she wouldn't interrogate him. But that didn't mean she had to sit back quietly, and that didn't mean she couldn't interrogate anyone else.

"Giovanni," Liliana drawled as soon as she spotted him in the lounge post-breakfast. Typing on his laptop, Giovanni's expression was sober. "I need to ask you some questions."

"Is this going to take a while?" He grumbled, still typing. He didn't look up from his work and it was clear he was irritated by her arrival. Liliana wanted to be annoyed, but she could empathise with him. It wasn't Giovanni's fault he was confined to babysitting her. At least he now understood her own irritation, and this was only his second day.

"Do you need me to come back later?"

Giovanni sighed and snapped his laptop shut, his dark eyes rising to meet hers as he propped his feet onto the glass table. He nodded at the worn, leather arm chair opposite of him - the one she had seen Sebastiano sitting in the last time she was in here.

"What is it you're wanting to know? I take it it's something to do with Mercello? Or perhaps Angelo?" He asked, sounding bored.

"No, Angelo is still avoiding me," she scoffed. "I don't know what he had expected to happen between us. I suppose I shouldn't have assumed his flirting wasn't innocent."

"Angelo's difficult." Giovani shrugged. Liliana didn't hide her frown as her eyebrows knitted together in thought.

"He just seems childish to me," Liliana murmured.

"Whatever it was that happened between you, I guarantee it had more to do with Marcello than it does you. You can have our mother to thank for that. She's managed to drive a wedge between them both since childhood, and always encouraged whatever animosity or competition there is between them." At her visible surprise, Giovanni shrugged again. "It isn't a secret that our mother isn't fond of Marcello."

"Is that why Gabriella dislikes me so much? Because I'm married to Marcello?" Liliana asked, biting her lip.

From what little she'd seen of Gabriella, Liliana didn't like her. Now for her to learn that Gabriella had intentionally tried to distance Angelo and Marcello as children, she liked her even less. If Gabriella was in fact not Marcello's mother, it would make sense that Gabriella might resent him - or the woman that came before her. Clearly, raising another woman's son had been too much of a challenge for someone such as herself.

Giovanni winced at her deduction.

"There are many reasons why my mother acts the way she does, you being married to Mercello is only one," he revealed. Liliana sighed in discontent. Her brother-in-law sure knew how to drag out an interrogation.

"You men seem to have a lot of secrets." She rolled her eyes and sank lower into the soft leather of the armchair. "Are you enjoying being so vague? Do you all intend to keep me in the dark for the rest of my life?"

Giovanni's only response was a cocky smirk. He crossed his arms, and eyed her in amusement. "I'm afraid for the more personal information you'll have to seek out your husband."

"I find it unlikely he'll want to tell me anything, let alone stay in the same room with me long enough to say it," she commented, shaking her head.