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Chapter 7

A L E X

“You like her?” Sophia breaks me out of my thoughts, halting my mental plotting of ‘how to bring Grace Millers to her knees’ and I realise I never looked away from the Sophia’s bedroom door she exited into, probably minutes ago.

“What?”

“Grace, you like her?” I open my mouth to answer, forgetting how Sophia prefers answering her own question often. She continues before I can find my words, “Everyone likes her, she’s the best! It’s a pity she doesn’t like people so much”

She doesn’t? I want to ask, but I keep the curiosity for later.

Instead, I get myself a coffee and walk around and sit on the stool next to my sister. It’s better I let her do the talking. I’ve never been known to be great at it.

“It was such a task to get her on that flight. You have no idea how stubborn she is!” I do, though I don’t tell her that. I have enough idea when it comes to that girl, far more than my liking of it. “And when she saw the private jet, she just flipped, that was another fifteen minutes of me redoing the entire emotional blackmail. You know you’re my only friend, you know I don’t like anyone, I am only turning 21 once. And the best, if you make me go alone, I’ll never come back.” Sophia finishes her coffee in one last big sip. “That one always worked.”

I wish I had the heart to tell my sister I am not much interested in their teenage drama, but since this is our first face to face conversation in years, and since it is going much better than I could’ve wished for, thanks but no thanks to Grace Millers, I decide to sit for it some more.

To be very honest, I do not hate it so much either. I’ve missed my sister.

“She’s actually lovely,” she continues, and I give her my most reassuring ‘hmm’.

“The best.” she adds, and I’ve started to wonder if she is in love with her. Wait…

“Are you two…”

She looks at me confused and then amused. “What?” she says, fighting a smile. I just raise my eyebrows in suggestion, we both know what I’m asking. What I do not know is *why I want to know. *

She gives me her most bewildered eyes before laughing out loud. “Oh my God, no. I wish we were, but no. She is not, we are not… immune to the male charm, you know.”

“Right.” I roll my eyes at that, but it doesn’t stop her, unfortunately.

“No seriously, the masculine scent, the–”

“Stop, gross.” I push myself off the stool and turn to leave when she starts laughing, but it is such a precious sound that I cannot move.

“...the male strength, the pulling charm, the–”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, you are starved for some XY chromosome.” I say as I lock her in a headlock from behind her, while she continues to laugh at my expense.

She taps herself out and when she spins her stool to face me, the joke is gone from her eyes. She’s instead looking at me very seriously, and for a second I wonder if Grace has already told her about the skinny-dipping.

“No Alex, we are not. We are just friends, and she is single, she’s been for as long as I can remember,” I fail to make the head and tail of this conversation until she sighs loudly and continues, “but that doesn’t mean you can… you know what I mean?”

I do know what she means, and I agree, which begs the question, why do I not say so immediately. When I keep my mouth shut, my jaw clenching for reasons I do not understand, she continues talking.

“She’s my best friend, and you are my brother, and I love you,” as lovely as that sounds, I can’t seem to like the sound of it all, so I let her continue without acknowledgement. “I have come to love you despite everything that you are, and you do, but if you even get close enough for her to know you, see you for who you are, I will lose her, and trust that is not a loss I am ready to deal with.”

I will be lying if I say that doesn’t bruise my ego, but I do not let it show. “What do you mean?” I add a scoff to it to sound nonchalant. “She doesn’t know who I am?”

“Well, no. I mean, she knows that you’re my brother, now.”

“Now?” The word sounds bitter even on my tongue.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t talk much, and I do not like to talk about…”

“Me?” I help her with a straight smile.

“Come on, Alex.” she says, stepping away from me. I don’t want to be upset with my sister who I’m seeing in ages, but she is not helping the more she talks. “You know what I mean, the Moretti family is a reality I have learnt to cope with, but I have not and will never learn to accept it. I definitely do not enjoy talking about it.”

“Right.” I bite out. I know Sophia hates being a part of the criminal world. She has hated it ever since she lost our mother to cancer and watched her father marry another woman instead of helping her cope with the loss. She was 5, she needed a father. She needed a brother at least, but I was made to care for more important things than tending to a child, we had people for that. We never had people for what I was supposed to do. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with her if I had the chance.

“Right, yes, and Grace, well, even if I liked talking about how powerful my family is, and the mafia princess I am, I can never mention it to her.” She says it with such a defeated voice that I am forced to let go of some of my annoyance. “She hates it.”

“It?” I repeat for clarity.

“Yeah. it. All of it.”

She doesn't really explain but for some reason I start to get it. I walk a step closer, my head bowed to meet her eyes so I don't misunderstand this nonsense. "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?"

She nods making me lose shit.

"No."

"Alex,"

"No, Sophie, this is a dangerous game. If she doesn't know she shouldn't be here."

"Alex, please." She sounds so desperate I begin to feel a competely new found hate for Grace Millers in my heart. There is nothing Sophia Moretti can ask for in this world and not get yet what she is asking of me is impossible. And dangerous. "Please, she cannot know Alex." She holds my hand in hers and the rare emotional contact I'm not used to makes me cringe but continues anyway. "It will kill her."

"You think?" I ask her sarcastically, because no matter how far away she has lived from the mafia world, she knows it enough to understand that an ignorant person here is as good as dead. Everyone here is as good as dead.

"Alex, please don't make me regret coming here." There is a warning in her voice, something I've never heard before. It really is important to her. "I know it is dangerous, but it doesn't matter what I think, what matters is what you think. and if you think I'm worth the trouble, you will protect my friend. You will never let her find out who we are."

I get it. Fine, I get it. My sister has lived a life of loss so she has latched on to the first emotionally available person she found that wasn't a part of the Moretti mafia world. I think I understand her obsession , her desperation. I also understand how easy it must be for Grace Millers to take advantage of that.

But I don't tell Sophia what I see. Why should I when I can fix it for her?

At that exact moment, Grace Millers pulls the door to Sophia’s bedroom open and steps out, carrying a duffle bag. Sophia lets go of my hand and steps away, but I stay where I am. Too busy surveying that woman’s face for proof of her lies. She is good, she doesn’t break under my gaze, I give her that. Too bad I do not appreciate it the same.

I pass Sophia and walk up to her. My hand reaches her, taking the bag off her shoulder. "Give me that," I say balancing the bag in one hand and rest of her luggage in the other.

"Follow me, Grace Millers, you'll stay in my beach house."

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