Page 36 of Little Deer
“You’ll answer it if you want to walk out of here,” Nico threatens, getting to his feet.
“Threaten her again, and it will be me you deal with,” Alonzo snarls, stepping behind her.
“Let me make this clear one more time,” Rori says frigidly. “I am here to help Sienna. I don’t give a flying fuck who you are, Armani. You are the least scary thing to me right now. I am putting my own life at risk being here in the first place, and nowyou want to threaten me because I won’t give you the secrets that you haven’t earned or have any right to?” Her gaze slides around the room, landing on all of us. “Fuck you all.” Then she storms out, the door slams behind her.
The room is silent, and no one moves or speaks.
Finally, Alonzo is the one to break it. “The only reason that we know about the fucking chameleons is because of Rori. Without her, we’d never know who they were or if they were here until it was too fucking late. She saved Sienna. She saved Gia. That alone should earn her your fucking respect. Don’t fucking question her again. Question her, you question me, and you wouldn’t dare do that considering we’re here to help with this entire fuck up. We found the women in this room. We got them away from the clutches of their family. We have lost men helping this fight you fucking started when you took Gia. We’re putting our lives on the line to clean up this entire situation. Don’t fucking disrespect Rori again.” Then he storms out.
I look at Nico, his face dark, angry, but there’s a flash of something else. Regret? Maybe, but he’s too prideful ever to admit it.
The rest of us, while we like Rori, we all know that we’ve never one hundred percent trusted her. There are too many unknowns, but clearly Alonzo does.
“He’s right,” I say quietly. “Everything else aside, Rori is the one who has told us of a new potential problem, so right now, we need to take what she gives us and work with it. Everything else we can figure out later, but if we piss her off now, alienate her, we can’t rely on her to help us and be on our side, if shit hits the fan. And we need her.”
“You also sound fractured as a group,” Lucy adds quietly. “I’m only speaking as an outsider. You might have a common goal, but it’s not really working together if you all feel pulled in different directions.”
“Lucy is right. We’ve had so much coming at us, it’s high stress, and everyone is at each other’s throats over stupid things,” Sienna agrees. “Which is how we make mistakes. How people become divided and people die.”
“We need to make a list,” Amara agrees. “Line it all out. Determine what needs to be done for each problem and create a plan. What do we know? What don’t we? There’s also the fact that I have a sister out there somewhere that they are all probably still trying to find, too.”
“I freaked out over the journal, but we need to keep pushing forward,” Gia states firmly. Her eyes land on Nico, determination clear. “And you need to stop babying me too. I have to be strong. I’ll fall apart later, and then you can put me back together. No more getting pissed at each other. No more threatening people. No more being an asshole.” She turns her head and looks at Pietro. “Whether we like it or not, we’re all family now—either through blood, marriage, or choice. I didn’t have a family growing up. Because the De Lucas are not my family. They are the people who hurt me and blamed me for things outside of my control. Now, we need to be the ones to fuck that all up, and put this city back to rights. Shut down the other families operations if we have to. We have to find our final sister and cousin. Then we figure out what our new normal is.”
Pietro smiles at her. “You are right,cara mia. You are very right.” His eyes move over all the women, including Lucy and Kida. “We are lucky men to have such strong women on our side. So it’s time that we do what you say. We make a new plan, and we end this once and for all.”
“I need something to write on,” Amara declares. She looks up at Lazaro. “Any whiteboards around here?”
“Oh, she’s gonna put that big brain of hers to use,” Alessio teases lightly, grinning at her. He looks at Nico expectantly.
Nico gives him an exasperated stare. “Do I look like I know if we have that shit? Someone ask Sofia, she’ll know.”
“We don’t need to waste time,” Amara huffs. “Pen? Paper? And Nico, I need your desk, so you need to move. Go snuggle up with your wife and apologize.” Lucy chokes on a laugh at Nico’s face when Amara rounds the desk and shoos him away with a wave of her hand, and starts moving things around. Nico, wisely, doesn’t say a word, and instead moves to grab Gia and hauls her deeper into the room.
“I love her,” Lucy murmurs.
I’m not sure if she meant that for me or Kida, but I answer anyway. “We all do,cerbiatta.”
“I’m just impressed that she was able to do that without crying,” Kida murmurs back. “I might be courageous, but I don’t know that I’m enough to mess with the Don’s desk.”
I chuckle. She has a point. Especially now that Amara has taken it over.
“Alright, everyone, start talking and tell me what we know. I’m going to make a sheet for each of them,” Amara orders.
Everyone starts talking, and I take the time to turn to Lucy. “Are you alright, Lucy? I know that was a lot.”
“I’m mostly just confused about what’s going on, but maybe Amara’s way will help me understand how she’s setting this up.” She looks up at me. “But I also don’t feel like I really want to know. I want to run the other way and bury my head in the sand.”
I chuckle. “A natural reaction. I’ll explain more after we’re done, I promise.”
“Is it always like this?”
“Like what?”
“So many people coming after you at once for something? Being upset at each other and distrusting each other?”
“No, this is definitely abnormal. This is the first time we’ve come to this side of the world to ally with someone. Despite all being part of the same organization, in Europe things run very differently from Western countries. We have our problems back home, but the majority of them are solved quickly.”
“And all of this is because Nico kidnapped Gia?”
