Page 3

Dante

Okay, so I screwed that up. I could not believe my father just barreled in and then Zia told Della exactly what my problem was. It did move my timetable up, so to speak. Pushed my secret longing right outta that closet, didn’t it?

So, I just went with it. What else could I do? I told her how I felt and sealed it with a kiss. It should have worked like a charm, right? Nope. She ran off.

“Dante!”

I looked up to see my dad still standing there. “Si, Papa?”

“The woman ran away from you,” he stated.

I shook my head. “Of course, she did. You and Zia yelling about her and I. What did you expect?”

He scoffed. “I think you need to follow her and explain yourself.”

I blinked at him. “Explain myself? When you and Zia made an outright disturbance over my feelings, pushing me to make a move I don’t think she was ready for.”

My father slowly shook his head. “If you really want her. Simply take her.”

I laughed. “That would be a four letter word starting with a huge R, Papa.”

“I know men today are not used to being in charge. And you know I did not mean it like that. But you have to assert yourself, Dante.”

I reached over to pat him on the arm. “I do when it comes to my job or something of that nature. But with women, it isn’t a good idea to come off as bossy and alpha right out of the gate.”

He rolled his eyes. “Che peccato. Such a pity. My advice is do not mess around with this. Take the lead. Show her.”

I simply nodded my head. If I didn’t openly agree he would go on and on. I wondered what he would think if I told him about Zia. “It is funny though, Papa.”

“What is?” he asked.

“You and Zia agree on this. In fact, she told me about the ole pasta line.”

He shook his head. “The one about eating pasta when it's hot?”

I laughed. “Yeah, that one.”

“Chiudere il becco, don’t be a smart ass, Dante. That is not advice. It’s some silly nonsense.” He motioned to the large hallway. “We have a meeting in the study,” he told me.

“We do?”

Nodding, he sighed. “We will be on video chat with Talon and Liv. And yes, this is about Deacon.”

Of course, it would be about Deacon Walker. My father had to release him under pressure from the Familia Council. They didn’t approve of him holding an FBI agent in a cell. It would draw the wrong kind of attention to the Familia in general. I did know that he vowed to rid the world of this man. Yet, I wasn’t sure if we should involve our family in this any further.

“Can I come?”

We turned to see Della on the stairs.

My father glanced at her then at me.

I shrugged and said, “She is involved, Papa. If she wants to, I think she should be there.”

He gave me a nod then looked up at her. “I apologize for earlier. For my son that is.”

I scoffed.

Della looked from me to him. “Actually, I came to apologize to him.”

My father stared at her then gave her a bow and turned to head down the hallway.

Silence.

We looked at each other.

Della opened her mouth to speak.

I raised my hand at her. “You did nothing wrong, Della. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

A smile crept along her lips as she said, “No, maybe kiss me when we have more privacy.”

I felt surprised. “You aren’t mad at me?”

“No,” she replied. “I am mad at myself.”

“For what?” I asked, still a bit stunned.

“I’ve wanted you to kiss me. Then when you did, I ran away.”

I only heard the wanted you to kiss me part. “You—”

Stepping close, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

This time, she surprised me and I went with it. Again, I experienced sparks, heat and getting lost in someone else. I never had a woman sweep me off my feet before. But as the Italians say maledettamente caldo…Hot Damn. I wrapped my arms around her and the kiss went on. Zia was right, pasta was better when it was hot. I don’t know how many minutes went by but as I opened my eyes I saw someone standing a few feet away in the hall. Pulling away, I stared over Della’s shoulder.

Max stood there, only he purposefully stared at the wall and not at us.

Reluctantly, I stepped away from Della.

She stumbled a little then giggled as she looked a bit dazed.

I chuckled and felt pretty damn good about that. Finally, I looked up at our butler to ask him. “Max? What can I do for you?”

He kept his gaze on the wall as he replied, “Your father sent me to retrieve you and Ms. Granger.”

“You can look at us now, Max,” I told him with a grin.

He slowly turned his head toward us, gave us a bow and then headed back down the wide hallway.

Della watched him leave. “He is sooo…” She smiled as she shook her head.

“Eccentric? Tall? Spooky?” I asked.

“Maybe?” she replied with a laugh then shrugged her shoulders. “But I’ve never met an actual British butler before. So maybe they are all like that?”

I took her hand and turned us to stroll down the hallway towards the study. “He’s been here since before us kids were born. So, we got used to him, I guess? But he has never changed as far as I can tell.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like he looks exactly the same as when I was five,” I explained with a rueful shake of my head. “Nothing else about him has ever changed either. He never switches gears. Like we used to try everything to get him angry or to get him to laugh. He never does either. He absolutely remains impassive.”

“Well, it’s like those Queen Guards at Buckingham Palace, I guess?”

“Yeah, we've all said that over the years. Seems to be that the only person that affects him at all is Zia.”

“Your aunt?” she asked.

I nodded as I stopped us at the door to grin at her. “We can kiss in privacy later, ok?”

She actually blushed and nodded at me.

Max suddenly appeared next to the double doors and opened them for us.

Looking startled at his sudden appearance, Della looked from him to me.

I chuckled. “Sorry. He does that a lot. Sometimes, I think there's like secret trap doors or tunnels in this house. But I’ve never found any yet.” I tugged her into the study.

We went in and looked around.

Glory and Gio or Legend as he called himself, sat together on the large sofa. Julianna and Romeo sat there as well. All four stared at our joined hands then looked up at us.

I raised my chin up at them.

Legend and Romeo burst into laughter.

Our father sat at the table with the PC and he looked over at them in disapproval.

They noticed this and stopped laughing although their grins remained.

Sitting next to my father was Tito, my cousin. He looked up as a smile appeared on his face and waved at me.

Tito was a large guy just like his brother, Rocky. That’s why they went into bodyguard work. The perfect size for what Tito joked as being Italian Thugs . Not that they were bad guys at all. They were large and muscled. Their father had been the same way, according to Zia. I barely remembered my Uncle Grati though, he died when I was really young. I didn’t know any details about his passing either as it was never spoken about.

I waved back at Tito and asked him, “Where’s your baby brother?” A baby he wasn’t but I always teased him about it.

Tito shook his head. “He’s helping Mama Maria with something.”

“Well damn, who’s guarding the castle then?” I quipped as I pulled out a chair for Della at the table.

“We got plenty of soldiers patrolling,” my father answered. “No worries, figliolol.”

I sat down next to Della.

“Figliolo?” she asked me.

I looked over at her. “It’s an endearment. Like it means kid?”

“Son,” my father cut in. “It means son , Dante.”

“I need to learn Italian,” Della said.

“Sounds like this Italian, needs to learn Italian.” My father dismissively waved his hand at me.

I laughed. “We live in America, Dad .”

“So?” he retorted. “Siamo Italiani e dobbiamo restare fedeli alla nostra eredità, figliolo.”

Della stared at him blankly then looked at me.

I shrugged.

“Oh, no!” my father exclaimed. “You are illiterate.”

I scoffed. “That means I can't read, Papa. I can read.”

“Not Italian, you can’t.”

I laughed again and turned my head to smile at Della.

She smiled back and looked highly entertained by our discussion.

My father looked over at Romeo. “What did I just say?”

“We are Italian and need to stay true to our heritage, son,” Romeo translated it.

Our father raised his hand and triumphantly motioned to Romeo.

“Don’t say it!” I warned him against what he had always told me. Be more like your brothers.

Our father shook his head. “It is true though. Most of your brothers are fluent in Italian. So I do not understand why you are lacking in that.”

I shrugged. “Everyone I know is English speaking, Papa.”

“Except that your family still speaks the old country's language.”

“But why?” I retorted and knew I would regret this question before I could shut my damn self up.

“Why?” Our father exclaimed.

Romeo shook his head at me as did Legend. They both knew this same mistake all too well. Don’t argue with Stephano Descalia. It did you no good in the long run. We all had heard this before. It showed respect for our people, for those who had gone before us. The family members left in the old country in the graveyard.

I raised my hand at him. “I will take lessons alongside Della.”

Our father stared at me. “Do not patronize me, son.”

I shook my head and took my cell phone from my pocket. Tapping the screen, I scrolled then found it. Tapping it again, I waited.

“Now is not the time to entertain yourself, Dante,” he scolded.

I chuckled and read the Italian on the screen, “Studierò tutto quello che avrò tempo.”

Della leaned over and read it aloud in English, “I will study as much as I have time for.”

He shook his head at me. “Using a phone translator.” He tisked in disgust.

“Hello?”

We all looked up to see Talon on the PC screen.

“Hello, Mr. Walker,” our father greeted him.

“We followed the tracker you had on Deacon,” Talon reported. “We wanted to see where his lair was. We’ve been following him for days. So we could get more evidence against him and find out if he has more up his sleeve for the Walkers. Then to also see if he still has any troops under him. He traveled to Virginia via an SUV with a driver and 2 guards. He rented a few hotel rooms along the way. He did visit Quantico, then he flew to Washington. We are disappointed to say that he did go into the Federal Building. So, it seems he is still an agent. After a few days, he flew back to New Orleans.”

“And?”

“Then we lost him,” Liv replied from next to her brother Talon.

“How?”

“He was in plain sight then all of the sudden, he went off on an exit, we followed and the signal blipped out. We know he likes to go literally underground but there wasn’t any sign of that in the area.”

Della spoke up as she asked, “Don’t tell me…it’s at Williams Boulevard, off the LA 49, alongside Canal Number 3.”

“Yeah!” Liv replied. “That was the exact spot.”

“You know where he’s hiding?” my father asked as he looked over at Della.

“I think I do.” She nodded. “It’s near the Metairie.”

“That again?” Romeo asked.

“Yes, but across from it is a huge plantation house,” Della explained.

“Yeah, where we took down a couple of his snipers,” Talon said.

“Yes, but behind that is his lair, as you call it.” Della looked around at everyone in the room as she went on, “O explained it to me when I asked her why we had these underground places by saying she had business enemies. That some were vicious. So we needed the guards too.”

“You do know that she lied about that, right?” Glory finally broke her silence.

Della nodded. “Yeah, I know now. I realize she never told me the truth about anything.”

“Ok, so back to his lair?” Talon asked.

“There is a huge triple garage behind that house,” Della explained. “It has an underground entrance.”

“Damn,” Talon said. “We missed that.”

“But be careful,” Della warned. “You need the code. See, when you drive into the garage, you park on the X then someone needs to get out and go over to the far wall on the right side. There are tool racks there. Behind the hanging power saw is a number pad.”

“Wow,” I commented. “Sounds like Inspector Gadget or something.”

My father scoffed and shook his head at me.

Della chuckled. “I never thought of that So after you punch it in, the car lowers below ground.”

“Just like the carwash in Ramton,” Liv exclaimed.

“The carwash?” I asked.

“Yeah, it was very clever,” Liv explained. “Only it led to a tunnel that went on for at least three miles. Same idea but no code.”

“So, what is the code?” our father asked Della.

She bit at her lip and said, “I don’t know.”

Everyone stared at her.

Looking nervous at their stares, Della shrugged. “I always stayed in the car. It had nothing to do with me, really. Besides, I remember Deacon saying they changed all their codes every time they left for a new place. So even if I knew, it wouldn’t help now.”

“Talk about paranoia,” I commented.

“No, not really,” Talon said from the screen. “It helps him now, doesn't it?”

“Just crack it,” our father suggested.

“No!” Della exclaimed in a panicked voice. “That will get you killed.” She again looked around at everyone. “If you get the code wrong…” She shook her head. “It becomes a death trap. The garage locks down and it fills with gas.”

“Wear oxygen masks,” Romeo suggested.

Della shook her head. “No, it is set to blow you up by some ignition device that kicks in within three minutes. You’d better break out before that.”

“Well, damn,” I snorted. “I was just joking before, but maybe he IS inspector Gadget.”