Sufferable Acceptance

Thirty-Five

Theo

The longer Amelia and my dad were in his office the more nervous I got. I leaned against the wall waiting for one of them to open the door. I was surprised to see Amelia running out. I tried to follow her, but after she threw me to the ground I realized that something bad had happened. I ran to my dad's office to see what he said to her.

From the living room Alfie saw Amelia running out of the house, and followed me to my dad's office.

"Dad, what the hell was that?" I yelled. "Where the hell is Amelia going?"

Dad looked up at me, and he looked defeated. He handed a few photos from the table and handed them to Alfie.

"Shit!" Alfie yelled.

I grabbed the photos from Alfie and saw Dominic and Xavier Barboza sitting at dinner. Alfie looked at me, and then at Dad.

"Did you show her these?" He asked him.

"I didn't have a choice. She was going to find out eventually. I wanted to give her some time to process, but then she just ran out." He said.

Alfie looked at me with panic on his face.

"This isn't good." He said.

"Dad, you should have warned me!" I said. "Alfie what is she going to do now that she knows he's working with Barboza?" I asked.

"Hopefully she goes to confront Dominic and not her dad." He said.

Lorenzo interrupted our conversation, "Wait a minute. Theo, you know? For how long?" He asked.

"Alfie told me when she first started working. I forced it out of him. She doesn't know I know. I was waiting for her to tell me, but that plan is over." I explained.

Alfie handed back the photos and ran out of the room.

"Theo let's go! We have to find her before she does something stupid!" He yelled.

I ran out of the office and found Alfie grabbing car keys. I let Alfie drive us into the city as I tried calling Amelia. She sent me to voicemail four times. I gave up, and called Charlie.

"Hello?" Charlie picked up.

"Charlie, are you following Dominic right now?"

"What, why?" He asked.

"Just tell me!" I shouted.

"No Gio, and I left him around 6. Last time we saw him was when he was at the bookstore." He explained.

"Was he with anybody?" I asked.

"No, it looked like he was alone. None of his men were with him." He said.

I hung up, and told Alfie to get to the bookstore as fast as he could.

*****

Amelia

I stared Dominic down, neither of us moving. After moments of standing still Dominic looked out the window.

"Well that didn't take long. You've only been here, what, 10 minutes?" Dominic said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Your back-up. They got here in record time." He said as he nodded his head toward the window.

From the corner of the street I saw Alfie getting out of his car, and running towards the bookstore. Not wanting Alfie involved in this, I started to leave the bookstore.

"Amelia..." Dominic said, "if you come to your senses, and realize what a mistake working for the Romanos is, we would be happy to have you join us. Your father misses you very much." He spoke.