Lor got back yesterday. She's been gone a whole ass week and I didn't think I'd miss her so much but I realize I honestly can't live without the girl.
The second they got back, they went to sleep. All three Johnson Marino's went to bed without saying a word to Sy and me, not even a hello.
I was offended. Though, now that I think about it, they did deserve at least three hours. And I know Lori and Matteo weren't... doing other things because I walked by their door and could hear Matteo's loud ass snore.
Now we're all eating breakfast.
Lori is unusually quiet, it makes me think something might've happened. Matteo volunteered to take the girls to school today so I'll have the whole day to grill her. He also said he wanted to have a girls' day with just them three so they'll probably be back in time for dinner.
Maria and Seriyah catch up and giggle, Seriyah describes what we've been doing this past week and Maria talks about her adventures at the slopes. Apparently, there was a really cute guy, she went back to that part a lot.
She's going to be just like her mom.
I would say what's going on on this side— on the adults' side of the table— but that's the thing, nothing is going on. I desperately try to make conversation but Lori is so zoned out that I'm left talking to Matteo.
And everyone knows Matteo and I don't have the best relationship.
It is so... awkward.
"So... did you guys see anything funny?"
"Uhm... ah... well, the instructor... never mind, can't tell you that."
Lori furrows her eyebrows.
Usually, Lori would go into the juicy details and talk about every single thing that happened if you simply asked: "How was your trip?"
Matteo would only reply with: "Good."
This has never been a problem before, but before Lori would talk. Matteo is just an awkward guy to talk to. The only people I've seen him have conversations with were— oh... shit, maybe it's me.
Maybe he just doesn't like me. Because the only people I've seen him have conversations with were his friends: Vince, Carlo, Alessandro, and Angie. His relatives: Maria, Seriyah, Lori, and Dario. And his friends' relatives: Every single person related in some way to Angie.
But somehow I'm still not being talked to like these people are.
I should work on my relationship with Matteo, this isn't healthy if something is going on between us. Maybe I pissed him off and he hasn't let go of it.
The conversation flows terribly for Matteo and me and eventually, I give up. He clearly has no motivation in talking to me so I'll leave him alone.
We reach the end of breakfast and the girls leave with Matty. Lori is still at the dining table staring at the fake pot of mixed flowers.
I sit down next to her and place a hand on her shoulder. "Lor?"
She finally looks up, snapping out of her trance and looking around to see the three of them left.
I can see the wall she had up slowly falling down and she breaks. "Lana, I'm scared."
"You can tell me all about it." I rub her back soothingly.
"He... remember five years ago when we fought?" She asks.
"Yes, about Matteo right? I didn't trust him and hated him, I'm over it now. We have children."
"But you were suspicious of him, you thought he had secrets. I knew he had secrets but I trusted him to tell me things when he was ready, I thought it had something to do with trauma." She explains. "Now I see there's more than that, I'm starting to think what we saw five years ago was only the tip of the iceberg."
"What changed?" My hand slowly falls from her back as I process things.
"Our vacation was going great until the night before we traveled home." She starts. "Matteo and Maria went to the slopes to do some last-minute skiing, I decided to make a couple of calls to Johnson Corp. Just to check with business. I brought a paper with me so I could research a potential alliance but I didn't know where it was."
"Yeah," I say, just to let her know I'm listening.
"I checked everywhere and... I found a gun instead."
"Woah..."
"Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think about this before but there were also a lot of guards everywhere, and now that I'm talking, I realize Matteo seemed off. He was too skeptical of his surroundings, too aware."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I think we should investigate, I'm not going to wait around for him to tell me things he never will any longer."
That's when I pause.
Out of all the things she could suggest, why this? She should know by now I don't want to go back to that. My mental health was getting worse each day and I missed people I shouldn't have associated myself with. The pregnancy was draining, there were points where it didn't seem worth it anymore, not until I had Seriyah.
That's when I changed, I started realizing that I actually have a perfect baby girl that I have to take care of and protect, and that wasn't going to happen if I kept thinking of the people from my past.
"Lori... you know I don't want to dwell on the past, not when there's a beautiful future ahead of us," I say.
"I know, but I really don't want to do this alone." She begs, "Please, Lana."
The desperate look in her eyes tells me everything. Lori needs this more than anything, she wants to move on from this and the only way to do that is to find a secret.
But she doesn't know we might find more problems.
"Okay, I'll only do it if we stop right away," I tell her. "We find something, we don't find something. Doesn't matter. As long as we stop and confront Matteo."
"Deal."
We shake on it then I sigh. "I do think this is a terrible idea."
"That's our thing though, terrible ideas." She nudges me.
"Okay, let me go get ready then we'll do this."
>|<|>|<|>|<|>|<
It seems Lori and I are always getting into trouble, no matter what I do to go around it.
We've snuck past the guards, almost got caught a good thousand times, and managed to disguise ourselves as maids. We went to the store to buy a wig and also went to the sketchy prosthetic place in the bad parts of the city.
Now we're here, dressed as pretty goofy maids eavesdropping on Carlo fucking Gambino and Alessandro Bruno.
So... you may be wondering how we got here. I'll give you the whole story.
Lori and I have made it into the fortress but she's too busy looking at family pictures to remember why we're here.
This house really is a fortress though, it's as hard to sneak in as it is to sneak out. The only reason we successfully did it is that Lori knows all the blind spots. She was right though, something's definitely up with Matteo because Angie had the same amount of security and we found some weird shit on him.
"Lori, let's go!" I urge. I don't want to get caught too early on because Lor will just persuade me to do this dumb shit again.
"Ugh, okay fine. Come on, I'll take you to the private wing." Lori motions for me to follow her fast ass. "It's where all the suites are for family and friends, I made you and Seri a room. It's still being built."
"Who's room are we going to first?" I ask.
"We're not going to a room." She smirks. "Matteo found it convenient to move his office into the private wing in case Ria or I needed something from him while he was working. It's easier than walking through this maze of a house to find him."
"Ohhh, so we're going to his office?"
"No, I just decided to bring up his office for no reason." Lori rolls her eyes, sarcasm laced in her tone.
I shake my head. "Whatever."
We make it to the secret room and Lori instantly gets to work. "Look for a key or code, Matteo once told me he used to have a hidden compartment but he kept forgetting how to open it so he switched to keys or codes."
I nod and busy myself with the bookshelves while Lori works on the desk. The office is big, big enough to be a suite. But there are no extra rooms or anything inside the office which confuses me because this whole wing was meant for bedrooms.
"Lori?"
"Yeah, Lan."
"Did this use to be a bedroom?"
"Yeah, Lan." She stops working and looks up at me skeptically. "Where are you going with this?"
"Depends if you can answer this last question." I grin. "Does every suite have a bathroom and closet?"
"There's a secret room." She finally catches on. "Being a detective is actually kind of fun."
"Yup, I think he put the door behind that random wardrobe."
There's a closet in this office but it's not the kind with a door that leads to some pretty walk-in. It's the kind you buy and place in the room. I walk toward it and open the two doors to find a whole bunch of file cabinets.
Lori comes from behind me and starts pushing files and boxes out of the way. After a couple of minutes, we finally come in contact with a door... with a lock. The key must be hidden somewhere—
"Fuck." Lori cuts through my thoughts.
"What?"
"I'm an idiot."
"What?"
"You know that necklace Matteo always wears, the one Dario got him?" Lori asks.
"Fuck."
The necklace with that odd-shaped key.
"So... same time tomorrow?"
I sigh. I said we'd stop but... in all honesty, I'm intrigued. There's this rush I get from all this, maybe that's why Lori and I keep falling into this rhythm. "Alright. Same time after tomorrow. Let's interrogate him tomorrow and depending on what we find, we'll come back."
She claps and jumps. "Good, now let's clean this up and go."
Lori and I get to the floor and start putting files back in the closet when we come across one that says... well It's a Johnson file. I show Lori and she furrows her brows, we open it up and reports on every single Johnson and everyone they know pops up.
Austin Johnson. Rita Johnson. Athena Johnson. Marianne Johnson. Alana Johnson. Kara Rossi. Carter Johnson. Ariana Johnson. Marcus Johnson. Aiden Johnson. Lori Johnson Marino.
Then it goes into depth about our lives and our friendships. Every single thing about us. There are also files for the people we have relationships with. Nai's husband is mentioned and so is her daughter but the names are unknown. The same goes for Dahl.
"What... the fuck." I voice.
"We're taking this with us." Lori sounds distant. "It'll be our evidence."
"For what?"
She gives me a look, everything already momentarily forgotten. "You are unbelievably slow. For our confrontation of course."
Just as we finish putting everything away, we're about to leave but hear footsteps outside. Lori stops her hand on the handle of the door.
"Go dumbass. They're not going to recognize us."
"Oh, yeah. Forgot, my bad. I'm Lorelai Marissa Jacobs Menard, you're Alissa Renai Zoila Jones."
"Got it."
We exit the office, cleaning tools in hand. I forgot to mention we brought a cart here with us, we went for the full look, and we even have gloves on- mainly to not leave fingerprints.
The two men pause and turn around.
That's when I see Carlo Gambino and Alessandro Rossi.
I put on some random accent. "Oh, sorry! Lorelai and I would just like to finish the private wing if that's alright with you."
Carlo smiles gently but Alessandro raises a brow, warily.
"You're good," Carlo assures then they continue down the hall and into a room.
I forgot how big and intimidating this guy was. For a softie, he's probably the scariest looking out of all of them. All of them meaning Vince, Alessandro, Matteo, and Angelo.
Lori turns the other way to go downstairs but I grab her arm and drag her to the room Carlo went to. This girl is truly dumb as fuck, this is the perfect time to hear some crazy shit—
Wait.
What the fuck are Carlo and Alessandro even doing in Matteo's house, in his private wing as well.
Guess we'll find out.
That brings me to the end of my story. Lori and I are currently dusting random tables that definitely don't need dusting. So far all we've heard is that Carlo was here with his girl but left her favorite set here on accident. Now she's super pissed so he's looking for it.
"Why does everyone have a girl but me."
"Angelo's still single." Carlo shrugs.
I pause at the mention of Angelo then continue dusting, realizing I'm not alone and one look in my direction would give away I'm eavesdropping. Alessandro notices though and raises a brow.
Alessandro switches from Italian to Spanish. "I think that girl is listening to our conversation."
"Relax, she just wants to clean up."
Lori subtly walks up to me so she could glare without them seeing. I can tell just by her look she's annoyed I'm blowing the cover. At least they switched to a language I can understand. They better not switch again because that's as far as it goes for me unless they go to English.
"Whatever, can we hurry this up?" Alessandro begs. "I want to talk to Valentino."
"Who's Valentino?" Carlo asks.
"The new tech dude Sergio despises, they both have a thing for Mariah." He snorts.
Go, Mariah! I see you've moved on from Matteo.
"Gross, Riah has no good qualities." Carlo jokes. "She's just a sister. We should warn Valentino away. Give Sergio a chance."
"You're cruel."
"I'm kidding."
"But the guy seems cool, he could be the sixth member of our girl squad because he's practically dating someone in the family."
"Yeah, maybe."
I want to laugh because Alessandro just called themselves a girl squad and Carlo didn't even notice.
"Yo, did you finish our work?" Alessandro asks worriedly.
"No... I thought it was your week."
"Maybe Vince did, let's call him."
Carlo pulls out his phone and rings supposedly Vince. "Hey, did you finish boss' work?" A beat of silence goes by. "I'm putting you on speaker, Al is here."
"Yeah, no I didn't. It's Carlo's week."
My heart stops and I try not to reveal any emotion at the sound of his voice. I've come way too far to be still affected by our friendship. I don't think I can stay here any longer. Lori catches on and puts on a fake accent.
"Thank you boys for letting Alissa and I work, we're done!"
"No problem, good night Alissa and Lorelai." Carlo waves but Alessandro raises a brow, he's definitely coming up with something in his head.
I leave the room and the last thing I hear is: "Come on, Cari. You had one job."
>|<|>|<|>|<|>|<
The ride home was silent.
We arrived, an hour and thirty minutes before Matteo is supposed to come home with the girls. Lori and I are silently making chicken soup and caesar salad.
I finish with the salad and see Lori still flavoring the soup. "Lor... we should discuss this before they come home."
She waits a minute before replying. "Yeah, let's talk."
She stirs the soup as I start. "Okay, so let's go from the beginning. We went to Matteo's house, looked around, and had fun... until we saw the files." I say. "How do we feel about that?"
"Yeah, I don't know." She shrugs. "I think I'm confused if anything, I'd like to ask about it but he might lie. It's like the files we saw at Angelo's. Seeing Carlo and Alessandro at his house definitely tells me they're still the power rangers."
"Mhm, about that... I think you should end things with him until he starts telling the truth." I suggest. "This has been unhealthy since the start and I understand he makes you happy but trust me, babe, it's not worth it. He lies to you constantly and I think it's better to end it sooner rather than later because Maria is still young so she'll grow into it but an older Maria would just grow distant."
"I... can't." She leaves the soup and faces me. I don't like the look on her face. It's filled with heartbreak and worries and it's nothing like the bright and fun Lori I'm used to. "We've been through five years and life is happier with him, you don't understand Lana. I can't leave him until I find out more."
"Help me understand then. I don't want you to go through another five years of him lying only to regret it in the end."
"Lana, let's just figure out the files and I'll find a way to get the key from him."
I sigh. "Okay, we'll interrogate him at dinner tomorrow, our brains need rest. Plus, the girls are going to Athena's."
She nods.
When Matteo comes home, we sit at the dinner table and the adults' side is fully quiet. Matteo definitely cares this time because whatever Lori was mad about, she must've told me, and it was bad enough to have me silent.
The girls luckily don't notice but as soon as dinner is done, Matteo leaves to give Lori space. She didn't have to say it for him to get the message. Maria's sad about it but he promises he'll come back tomorrow.
Just before Athena comes to take the girls so we could go on with our plans.
>|<|>|<|>|<|>|<
Hola babies
Word count: 3003
Chapter twenty-four completeeeee
And AND done in a day
Way easier than chapter twenty-three
Anyway, how are you my lovelies?
I'm pretty good ☺️
Thoughts on Matteo?
There are so many time jumps in this but I found it easier than going through the whole day
Feedback/ideas?
Forgot to ask that last chap
I might get gummy worms today 👍👍
I also feel like finishing another chap so twenty-five might finish today as well!!
Okay bye bye my babies
10/22/22