Falling for Deceit || WATTYS 2017

39

A/N: Merry soon-to-be Christmas my dear readers! LOL, hope you enjoy my plottwist *mouah hahahaha*

By the way, where are you guys from? I'm half Danish, half English, and I've lived in France for well over eleven years now. Your turn =)

Until the next!

-xoxo, Sophia

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It was four o'clock in the bright summer afternoon when I uncurled from my ball-position on the bed and gently disentangled my arms from sleeping Danny's. He had been playing hide-and-seek with Cornelia all day (in secret of course) and had succumbed to darkness the instant his head had hit the pillow. This would keep him awake all night. What I did not know then, however, was that I wouldn't be here with him. 

I stood and put on a modest knee-length skirt and a baby blue blouse that buttoned up to my collarbone. I arranged my hair in a neat plat, mimicking the fingers' deft movements that Reina had taught me. I stepped into my trusty Mary Janes, testimonies to the woman I had been before I had arrived here. Everything was carried out in a detached and robotical way, but with acute focus on the task to be completed, all the while silent so as not to wake the sleeping child on the bed. For a moment I stood by the bedroom's double doors, my hand hovering above the knob, my eyes trained on the steady rise and fall of my brother's stomach. It was so silent that the sounds of his satiated breathing crashed into my ears like tumultuous waves. I felt a string pull at my heart, at my feet, beckoning back towards the bed, back into sleep's comfortable darkness and away from my brain's apparently insurmountable mission. But I suppressed the urge and pressed the knob down, quietly opening the soundless door and slipping out of the shadows. The light streaming in from the grand windows at the end of the corridor led the way towards the grand foyer's stairs, but I stayed on the same level, crossing the opening and continuing on to the office at the other end. When I was closing in on the room, my eyebrows drew together with confusion. The double doors that were usually kept closed and as tight as nails were left slightly ajar. Soft murmurings filtered through the gap, and as I came up to the doors, my eyes fell on the key hole that had been completely burned through. I looked up and immediately took a step back as the voices suddenly quieted and soft footsteps padded through the room inside. I turned around and dashed back to the end of the wall, turning the corner and taking a deep breath before I slowly pivoted back around. Then, I let my features relax and rounded the corner once more. I didn't have to hide my surprise when I saw Sophia hurrying out of the office in a dashing red ensemble. She looked over when the click of my heels reached her, and the tense expression on her face melted into a pleasant-enough smile, even though the darkness in her eyes made me seriously doubt her good intentions. That and the fact that she had just exited Marco's office and had looked like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. 

"I think that we should keep this quiet-" Fabio stopped short on his way out of the room when he saw me, and his jaw locked tight. My steps faltered slightly as our eyes met and I took in a glimpse of all of that simmering rage that he'd suddenly started forming for me a week ago. But I kept our stares linked as I sped up again and lifted my chin, taking on an air of confidence that I wasn't sure that I felt. But I had the upper hand here. I could decide what to do with this information, I could choose to give over this knowledge to Marco and have them - well, whatever the mafia did with people who snooped around in secret. I gave them both a tight smile then and stopped in front of the dashing siblings, surreptitiously casting a glance down at Fabio's hands, and then his sister's. Both pairs were empty. So whatever had trespassed had been sealed tightly into their memories. 

"Good morning," I smiled, not even letting the apprehension flood to my eyes. I was a perfect mask of composed politeness, as if I'd merely walked in on them sharing a laugh in the hall. Fabio nodded, his eyes narrowing, obviously not catching my ruse one bit. But Sophia seemed to relax, her shoulders drawing down as she recalled that she'd only seen me round the corner mere moments ago. I couldn't have seen or heard anything, of course not. Whether that made her an expert manipulator or just extremely naive, I didn't know.