[DISCONTINUED] Don't Forget

No Hands (Rewritten)

Alessandro Montella along with his cousins Marco and Dante sat in the den of the Rossi mansion with Claudia, Niccolo, Florentina, Ricardo, Luca, Emiliano, and Simone. The Rossi family had arranged another "informal" meeting with the Montella men at their villa while they were still in town. Emiliano and Luca had positioned their desire for another meeting as an opportunity for the cousins could measure up Alessandro, but their actual plan was to see if they could glean any information from the way the cousins interacted with him. They hoped it could help them figure out who might be the one sabotaging business.

The visitors had already been there for some time and Emiliano and Luca weren't able to gather as much information as they'd hoped. Claudia was more concerned with the wine than she was with the meeting. Niccolo was the most casual with Alessandro, and the rest of the family was already aware that the two of them were on good terms. Ricardo was more involved in conversations with Marco and Dante, speaking about football. Florentina obviously wasn't interested in being there, but awkwardly attempted some small talk with their company.

Meanwhile, Emiliano and Luca were still running interference between Simone and Alessandro. Both of them noticed the way his eyes would linger on her at times, and throughout the night, he'd try to speak with her one-on-one, only to be interrupted by Luca or Emiliano.

"What do you think?" Luca whispered to Simone and Emiliano. "They all interact with the Napoletanos (Neapolitans) differently. I'm looking for signs of discomfort or defensiveness... I only see it from Florentina."

"Hm," Emiliano hummed as he scanned over the room. "Yeah, it makes sense you're looking for that because if they're guilty, they wouldn't be so chill... But they might be chill if they think they've gotten away with what happened in Naples. Niccolo and Alessandro are close. What if they're working together to sabotage us? Ricardo's also over there looking pretty damn comfortable."

Simone nodded in agreement with both of them. She'd made the same observations. However, she was still leaning toward Niccolo as a suspect. There were moments when she saw Niccolo and Alessandro make eye contact and appear to have a nonverbal exchange when they weren't engaged in conversations with others. She wondered what the interactions could be about, but since they occurred more than once that night, she figured they were of some importance.

"Look," she said to Emiliano and Luca when she saw Niccolo and Alessandro having another nonverbal exchange. "I know they're pretty good friends, but why communicate in that way if they're not hiding something."

Luca and Emiliano looked at the two men and tried to decipher what they might be communicating. Alessandro's brows tensed when he looked at Niccolo while it could be seen from Niccolo's side-profile that he was shifting his jaw.

"No idea what the fuck that means, but I'll make it my job to find out what's up with them while I'm here," Emiliano muttered. "We need to wrap this meeting up soon, though, it's been going on long enough."

"I agree," Simone sighed. She was partially relieved that she and Luca would be leaving for Sicily the next day and they'd have a break from the cousins, though she knew she'd miss Emiliano. "I had very different plans for this afternoon... Even prepped and everything."

"Don't even think about it, Emiliano," Luca warned when he looked over to see his brother about to stand up with Simone's hand in his. He knew Emiliano would pull Simone away as he did at the bar the other night. Of the two men, Emiliano was the one who couldn't seem to get enough of Simone's ass, and she knew that her comment would tempt him.

Emiliano's shoulders slacked and he huffed his disappointment.

"Why not, amore mio?" Simone asked Luca softly. "I wanted you to come too."