AND HER NAME WAS JULIANNA

ONE

"If ya'll don't get ya'll broke ASSES DOWN HERE TO EAT, WE GON HAVE PROBLEMS." 

My brothers and I raced down the spiral of stairs to get to the kitchen, more like them stepping on each other and trying to kill me with size 14 feet.  Ain't no one trynna piss of a 6 month pregnant black woman.

"First!!!!!" I said,  jumping in my mom's angry but slightly amused face.

"Second bitch niggas!" Giovanni yelled in Donte's face, smiling.

 "Ya'll are dumb." was all she had to say.

The kitchen smelled like golden crisp waffles, bacon, eggs, sausage, cappuccino, warm cornetta and so many other international things ya girl don't really know the names to.

 "Fucccck, that shi smells gewwddd mama!" Damien said, kissing my mom on the cheek and dodging her back hand. My hormonal hungry ass brothers start grabbing plates and get all up in my moms face as she's frying the sausage, shooing them away. 

Giovanni is the oldest a young, tall and buff as hell man. Being 6'5, for someone who's only 23 he looks like a whole 40 year old with a oncoming beard he swear is 'coming in' 

Damien is 19, the second oldest and looks just like my dad, being 6'3 with curly light hair, light skin and also buff and with his blackness only 'down there' when you ask him if he's invited to the cookout.

Donte is 17 and my twin, who looks more like my mom with eyelashes that go all the way to f*ckin mars and the most glowing melanin out of all of us. He makes every girl take more than two looks. He's also 6'4 with a full ass beard.

Then there's me, Julianna, 5'4, no beard, baby of the whole family.

"Where's daddy?" I asked my mom as she placed two sausages on my plate from the grill.

 "Girl you already know."

 My dad liked being alone which was weird because he loves our big family and has even bigger ones in Italy, but when you ask my mom she just says "He's a dark man with a lot of dark things baby, sometimes those things corrupt your mind for a second. But your dads got us so it doesn't fill him over the brim."

I looked over to his office door that was down the hall. I looked at the eery gloomy hallway that lead to the dark redwood door that none of us, but my mom could enter. 

"Jewls if you don't eat your bacon, imma take care of it for you" Donte said, reaching a big greasy hand on the sexy bacon on my plate. I slapped his hand, boy you must not know me.

I grabbed the syrup and butter from the table and digged into my waffles. We ate in comforting silence. Then the door opened down the hallway and we knew  'Graveman' was coming. That was my dad's signature name and rumor said that was the last thing they whispered before being killed. They never knew his real name, all of us have fake names actually. Only family knows the real shit.

My dad is a prudential, stalwart man, being a striking 6'8 with a Greek gods built that scares you just looking at his arms, His beard was thick and black with sprinkles of white. His scar on his face goes vertically from his eyebrow going through his eye towards his chin a straight, deep scar. If I didn't know my dad, I'd be scared as fuck. He walks with such vigor and intimidation that would chill you to your bones. 

My mom looked him up and down with that black mom look for being late as he walked to the head of the table to his seat. "Good Morning everyone." 

"M'roning" everyone mumbled with full cheeks. My dad looked at my mom and all that front of being Mr. Tough Guy dispersed as he looked at his wife who is carrying his fifth child. He looked at her for a long moment scared that the air could break. My mom looked back reading his mind, gave him a small smile and kissed him. " Tutto dovrebbre finire bene"  she quietly said to her husband but more to herself and her baby I'm sure.

I looked down and had that familiar sense of trepidation that grew from the back of my heart and filled my every nerve. I looked at my brothers and could tell, they knew too.

"We have yet another message from Christian." my fathers thunderous voice said. Christian was my fathers most trusted private investigator and watched his back through every single thing.

"Gio, I want you to stay away from this one and focus on finishing university, those are your mothers wishes and I don't want to go against them. But you and I will talk later."

Gio gave my mom a sad look and my mom gave him a 'try me' one, he clenched his jaw

 "Okay."

"Damien, Donte and my sweet princesesa,"  I perked up at my nickname. " You all are still in high school so this goes for you. There's a new threat." My brothers looked at my father and I looked at him too with stern eager eyes. We never let our father down. There's no exceptions, no nothing. Whatever it was, I was ready. 

My father took a sip from his espresso and sat his elbow on the table and palmed his hands together.

"There's a new family in town, and they need to be done with."