Dangerously Delicious

13.

Gianni

Being in Menaggio was beautiful anytime of the year, a place that can bring peace to your troubled mind. As fate would have it, it didn't work for me.
Arriving at the family home days ago I expected my mother to be calm about the situation. She's usually calm when dad sends her to a safe house and makes some silly joke about being Rapunzel for nearly half her life. What I encountered upon my arrival was a frantic, pale, chain smoking mother.
She quit smoking years ago, instantly I grew alarmed, something rattled her.
Her first question when she spotted me was 'Did he get you?'

I frowned and brushed it off as her way of asking if Raizon got to me before things got worse.
After three days of her smoking like a train and her obsession with always having her phone in hand, I decided to actually talk with her. I've never seen her this way.
Giselle Delacourde was all poise and beauty with an Amazonian spirit inside of her. She was the one who taught me to fire my first gun and taught me the distress codes used through the empire. My mother excelled at martial arts and marksmanship. To be the wife of a Mafia Boss, you can't be a wilting flower and to see her that way was unsettling.

My sixth day there after constantly asking her about the reason for her distress, what she revealed to me was mind blowing. I became numb by her statement.

"It's your father. Your real father."

I couldn't speak. Heck what could have I said? I stood before her, frozen with that news. She told me everything without me ever having to ask a question. Watching her then as she told her story of my conception, the hit placed on her head and being born under the Delacourde name. Renith Delacourde saved her and myself, taking me in as his own. For years, this secret have been kept from me and now this man wanted us dead to have a clean slate for his political record.

It has been two weeks and four days since I've left the US and also that long since I've contacted my brother or Stephen. Word is being sent about his and Ari's recovery, all good news but now I feel like a douche for not replying to them. I wanted to be angry at Stephen for keeping such a secret from me and also taking part in a retrieval mission pertaining to Monroe's latest rape victim. If people thought a Mafia Boss was a monster, they haven't met an over-indulgent politician.

Now holed up in the guest house behind the family home, I dialed Stephen's number knowing he'll be awake while I was here in Italy struggling for sleep. Using one of the crypto's phones, I waited for him to answer. I can hear on the other end the connection of our call. We both said nothing to each other. I knew I felt guilty and a bit unsettled but I don't know how he felt. His therapy was going fine but I knew he's resenting the fact of being hindered by crutches. Not to mention the fact of not being able to visit Ari and the aftermath of her waking up.

"I love you. So much," he said finally. I closed my eyes and allowed his words to wash over me.
"I understood the secrecy but why did you get involved? Why did he approach you?" I asked softly.

"G. I can't divulge the specifics unless Raizon undo the code." I can hear the regret in his voice and it angered me. More secrets were being kept from me. It all involved me and yet here I am in Italy oblivious to it all.

"I take it Giselle has told you everything," he continued after I lapse in a tense silence.

"She's here fucking scared out of her mind and smoking, bet her lungs are black as my so called father's heart. I'm just.... it's hard to explain how I feel right now. I did my own research on the man. His public side. He's got everyone fooled that he's the perfect American husband and father. Why haven't Raizon just deal with him appropriately?"

"Politician goes missing during his campaign for senate brings a lot of heat on us. I myself wish we can storm his house and detach his head from his body but hey, a man can dream."