Page 12 of Tito
“Woof, woof! I beg your pardon, counselor.” I scoffed. “I do not resemble a puppy dog!” I picked up my toast and took a huge bite. Then gave him a grin.
They all laughed.
“Maybe a pit bull puppy?” Romeo joked.
I chewed and swallowed, then rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I did follow her around and I admit it. I did fall for her.” I grasped her hand and squeezed it. “But I really couldn’t be sure she would feel the same way about me. Turns out, being a puppy dog actually has its perks.” I smirked at Romeo.
“And…I am sooo happy! Molto bello!” My mother gushed. “Not about the puppy nonsense. But I wanted my Tito to have his happy ever after! Rocky found his and now you. I wonder if Francie…”
“Mama, she is awfully young,” I interrupted her musing over my baby sister.
“Ha!” my mother exclaimed. “I met your father at about that same age.”
I shook my head at her. “These days, most people don’t get married at like twelve.” I scoffed.
“Twelve?” she retorted. “Bambino, I was eighteen and your father was twenty-two.” She raised her chin up and said, “Your little sister is twenty-three, Tito. You are going to have to see her as an adult, a full grown woman that will fall in love too. Justlike you have.” She beamed at me. “You now have a happy ever after.”
“I do but you can see why we need to get past this first, right?” I asked her. “We need to find out the truth about this if we can. If it were me, it would be something I needed to know too.”
Julianna nodded. “I agree. I grew up without my sister and I always wondered why. But it was obvious that O was a cruel person. Look at what she did to her own family.”
“Yes, we can all agree on that,” I said. “But what she did back then was too calculated to be just something she did for kicks. I was there when the Walkers were here. I listened to Jared and Liv’s stories about Ophelia. She caused a lot of misery, but it all had been meticulously planned out too. This had been done the same way. Why else would she break from her crime syndicate to go back east? It was very intentional and well thought out.”
“Yes, it was,” Romeo agreed. “She kills your nanny then takes a job as your family’s new nanny. Then she nabs Valencia…Valen.” He smiled at Valencia.
“She set out to deliberately take her,” Julianna agreed. “It wasn’t like she was obsessed and did it on the fly. I mean she was only with us for a few weeks.”
“So how the hell are you gonna get this past my father?” Romeo asked me.
“You can't pass it by him,” my mother said.
We all looked over at her.
“Mama, we can’t keep it from him,” I told her.
“Oh, dio mio! I know that. If you did and he found out? He would flip his lid. Talk about an eruption from Volcano Stephano.” She shook her head. “He is bad enough on a good day. Let alone if he found that out.”
“Then what do you mean?” Romeo asked her.
“You tell him, but you do not allow him to make it a kill mission.”
“Mama, I don’t think that’s possible,” I said. “You don’t disallow Uncle Stephano to do anything.”
“And this is about revenge for Papa,” Romeo added. “Deacon tried to kill Legend, Tito and Rocky when he had his men attack that limo on the freeway.”
“Si, I know he wants this Deacon dead,” my mother agreed. “I know all the sins he has committed, but this is about Valen’s future. She needs this. She needs answers.” She looked up at Julianna and added, “They both need it.”
“That doesn’t mean that Uncle Stephano will agree to just let the man go free.” I shook my head.
“It's a hard thing,” my mother replied. “His war plans up against the future of a young girl. So maybe, we just don’t tell him.”
Valencia stood from her chair as she looked upset. “This is why I said we cannot go. Why I can’t secretly meet Deacon. I refuse to be a problem for others. To be the cause of an argument. Especially between Stephano and the rest of you.”
“And what if it is a trap?” a voice came from the entryway.
We all knew the voice only too well as we reluctantly turned to look at Uncle Stephano.
With his suit neat and as a sharp pin, he wore a smirk on his lips. Crossing his arms over his chest, he asked, “After all I have done to keep us safe, you plan to trust this killer while keeping this from me?”
