NICCOLÒ

33. Traitor

"Why are you spying on my boss?" Cee thought for a second her world was imploding. The walls seemed to race inwards, her lungs seemed to shrivel up, the glass shattered; the illusion broken. Everything was falling apart, blasted apart by an explosion, and all she could do was stare, her mind broken.

"What?" she gasped out, her heart hammering faster with every second; Stefano was staring at her with such a cold look in his eye - he knew, he knew, he knew - "I'm not- " - he was going to tell Niccolò - "- a spy."

Stefano looked at her steadily, watched how her eyes darted to her bedside table and back to the incriminating evidence, how her pupils were dilated with fear and how nervous she looked. He lifted his hand to his belt, resting his palm against the cold grip of the gun. "Sit down," he instructed her coolly.

"I'm not a spy," she repeated helplessly, desperately considering running for the door - but he had a gun and she had no excuse; she sat down on her bed, trying not to cry.

"You know what I think," Stefano replied, walking around the bed and shutting the door, trapping her. "I think you got this letter, called the number and they asked you to get something, right? Find something?"

Silently, she nodded, her heart breaking. "What did they ask you to get?" He sounded - not quite angry, but wild; it was a bitter kind of anger, a darkness.

"Financial information and stuff," she mumbled, "but I haven't got it - I didn't steal any information - I wouldn't betray Niccolò like that!" There was silence, following her earnest outpour of emotion; she wouldn't betray Niccolò. She wouldn't do that to him - she couldn't - he protected her now.

"How can I trust you?" Stefano eyed her suspiciously, his thumb ready to flick the safety off at a moment's notice.

"You can't," she admitted truthfully, leaning forward, "but you can come with me - I know what I have to do."

"Which is?" Cee took a deep breath; Stefano was right to be suspicious - she had hidden this from the whole family, but now was the time to put it right.

"I'm going to tell Niccolò the truth - tell him that I hid this from him, that I'm sorry, but I didn't do anything. They have Flo and Angela and I was scared - you can take me to him right now, I won't betray him." Cee kept eye contact with Stefano the entire time; her voice didn't waver once. He had to see that she was telling the truth - he had to know that it was the truth.

It was at that point that Cee realised two things: the first being that the Romanos, despite all their illegal activities, cruel punishments and overprotective paranoia, were the closest thing she'd had to a family in a long time. Leaving her parents and her siblings behind years ago had left a gap: Luca felt like a brother, Flo was her sister and Niccolò - he didn't fit into the family concept but he was the closest she'd ever been to falling for someone. She belonged with them.

The second thing was that Stefano's expression had gone past cold and was now channelling sub-zero Arctic temperatures.

"Did they tell you the story of how I lost my arm?" His voice was dark, controlled. Cee shrank back, suddenly afraid. Something was wrong; she shook her head slowly. "Then I'll tell you."

Stefano reached out, gripping the back of the small chair tucked underneath a desk identical to Niccolò's in the corner of the room; she'd barely even noticed it before. Cee suddenly found the texture of the sheets on her bed fascinating, staring at the soft fabric. The legs of the chair screeched against the floorboards, like nails on a chalkboard or the squeal of tires on tarmac right before a car crash.

"It was supposed to be a routine job," he began, his eyes clouding over slightly, his tone bitter. "A batch delivery - good coke. Good quality." Cee shivered, winding her arms around herself. "See, Anton and I - we're pretty identical. We used to be, at least - if we swapped jobs a couple of times, no one noticed - but on this particular occasion, I didn't realise Anton had stepped in to be on that delivery."