By Sin We Fall

Chapter One

Greta

Early mornings were my favorite in the mansion. There was a gentleness to the morning hours that made me feel at home. After morning yoga in my studio with the french doors open, I would come back to my room to get ready for the day. It was another cloudless spring day outside, sitting at my vintage makeup table looking out to the tropical, exotic garden that was our backyard. The amount of times I tried to talk to people about the water crisis that Las Vegas was contributing to was lost on death ears by now. Picture frames of people I loved adorned the white antique top. The first one was of me and Nevio from a year ago. The second was of me and Aurora, the third was of my best friend Martha. The last one was of Porter, my first dog. I had to put some distance between Aurora and Martha's pictures after Martha kicked Aurora off the cheerleading squad. To be fair, Aurora was only on the squad in the first place to get back at her ex, who was on the football team. It was a big drama that resulted in me playing the mediator between the two, now nemesis. I pulled my hair up in a french twist and checked my gym bag again. My favorite shoes, a ballet pink cardigan and black leotard. Perfect, everything was in place. I walked down to find Nevio, Alessio and Massimo sitting in the kitchen. Nevio was wearing his newly acquainted black leather jacket, did I mention it was sweltering outside? "Good morning, nice jacket," I said. "Nice prairie garment," he returned. I loved vintage flower prints, sue me. We were definitely two sides of the fashion spectrum. "Yeah, well at least I don't look like Grease Lightning in the middle of a heat wave." We were notorious thrifters, I always went for the delicate floral dresses while Nevio always went for the graphic tees. "I was going more for the washed up rockstar look," he said contemplative. "To be a washed up anything you'd actually need to be talented at something," I stated matter of factly. "Um, I'm very talented at ruling a whole fucking empire, if you haven't noticed.'' I made a disbelieving sound to that. Last week Nevio, Massimo and Alessio thought of the grand idea of having a secret party in the middle of the desert. It was twenty minutes away from our house but the gang woke up hungover and lost. "You were lost in your own backyard, if you were leading an army, which you are not, you'd be over a cliff by now," "Any good leader always leads toward the best place, a greater ruler goes even if it's dangerous." Nevio was taking on more responsibilities in the family business, to say it was going to his head would be an understatement. He thought he was bulletproof. Our list of shared activities were dwindling but the thing with twins was, when we were together, we ventured out but when we were separate, we were always trying to get back together. We lived under the same roof and still saw each other every day. But if I was granted to go to New York, all that would change. I'd never been away from Nevio that long, how would I function knowing he wasn't right there for me? The peace treaty with New York was a thing of the past, broken over who knows what. Perhaps one of the guys gave the other a bad look. Honestly, if you thought teenage girls were over dramatic, they had nothing on a mafia man and a bruised ego. So forth, I would be the only one able to visit New York incognito as my identity wasn't plastered over every wanted poster. Still the verdict wasn't final, whether I would be allowed to go or not. The matter was still in deliberation after almost two years. A bunch of hypocrites they were, Nevio had been to New York three times this year to quote on quote, "sooth" over a business deal. From the sounds of it though, Nevio was doing the opposite of soothing. Rather, he was doing what he did best, adding fuel to the fire that was the ever growing conflict between the two sides. Both had an irrevocable pride and was instated on having their way. This was all fine, if it wasn't my fate to go to New York. If Nevio messed up the fragile ground we were standing on, which consisted of both sides ignoring each other. I definitely couldn't go to New York if a war broke out between us. Perhaps that's what dad was trying at, to keep sending Nevio so he would inevitably start a war and dad could deny my wishes on the basis of it being too dangerous.