Here is Chapter 11 finally....please remember to go to Lit to vote and leave comments there also.
I would like to thank hcsd1719 for his help in editing
and offering encouragement. Again, there
are no actual sex scenes, since the main characters are underage. All italics
indicate communication through the mental bond.
These are the finalists in the contest to name the
Miller’s Bakery/Coffee shop, post your choice in the comments and the one
chosen will get an advance read of an upcoming chapter. My favorites so far are: Decadent Desserts
(submitted by FA_JF); The Sweet Indulgence (submitted by 1301866); The Sweet
Life (submitted by MissPrissBliss); Decadent Delights (submitted by Tasha);
Sweet but Sassy (submitted by pixie71).
The complete list of Pack members is on the blog, but
if anyone would like an excel spreadsheet of the ‘cheat sheet’ of Pack members,
please send me an email and I would be happy to provide one for you. I would
like to thank mrtdust1 for his invaluable help in putting the cheat sheet on an
excel spread sheet that can be added to as details are revealed.
Please remember to vote and comment, I appreciate all
comments and feedback. Thank you.
Frank drove to Joe’s house
and walked around the garage to the pool house where Joe was waiting, he
dropped his duffle inside the door and without saying a word they started
running, following a path they had worn down over the last twenty five
years. When they were halfway through
their ten mile run, Joe said, “I was up most of the night trying to sort things
out. I know Charles has to be a part of
it, but I feel like there is someone else involved, so who is it?”
“I could feel your agitation
and was thinking the same thing. Aldo
said something we need to clarify…,” Frank was saying as he was interrupted.
“That the feeling was one of
revenge and it had been festering for years,” finished Joe as he looked at his
brother for confirmation.
Frank stopped running and
said, “Exactly. I was going over who the
Pack has had issues with since Carlo became Alpha and I couldn’t come up with
anybody. There were some small things,
getting contracts for business deals, but in others they got the
contracts. Personally, we’ve had to fire
some employees, but they were human. The
only Pack I could think we’ve had a problem with was Matt and Phil’s, but is
that enough to wage war? I don’t think
so.”
“So the question remains, who
hates our Pack enough to wage war against us and try to kidnap our females, and
more personally come after our daughters?” asked Joe as his eyes started to
turn amber again. “Who would be that
fucking stupid?”
Frank looked at the sky and
said quietly, “Let’s finish our run; we need to be at The School House by 6,
and we need to stop by The Diner and pick up breakfast for everyone.” The brothers continued their run, lost in
their thoughts. Twenty minutes later
they were in the shower room and picked up their conversation as if they had
never stopped.
“I think the answer lies with
the elders. We need to talk to them
after the meeting tonight, even though we are taught Pack history, they know
the true stories behind the official story,” said Joe with a frown on his face.
Frank started laughing and
said, “Okay Paul Harvey, we’ll talk to the elders. Now hurry or we’ll be late.” They hurried through their shower and got
dressed in light silvery-gray polo shirts with a navy blue embroidered Triple C
logo on the left breast and their favorite Lands End Chino shorts in navy. Without speaking they put on construction
boots and gray with navy embroidery Triple C baseball hats, as they were putting
on their watches Frank looked down and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked Joe
as he grabbed his dirty clothes and threw them in the hamper as Frank put his
into the duffle before zipping it closed.
“I realized how often we
dress alike. We hated when Mom would
dress us alike, now we do it all the time,” said Frank as he waited by the
door.
“Blame our mates, they buy
most of our clothes, and you can’t count dressing for work since we work
together,” said Joe making sure everything was turned off. “And Annie and Rose picked out the work
uniforms, including the color and logos.”
“It’s been two years since we
changed the uniforms, and I have to admit it does make us stand out from other
construction companies. Having everyone
dressed in gray t’s with a small logo on the left front and a larger logo on
the back, navy cargo shorts or pants, the baseball hats, and the silver trucks
with the blue Triple C logo. They did a
good job,” said Frank with a smile as they walked to his work truck.
“You forgot the windbreakers,
winter jackets, hoodies and crew-neck sweatshirts,” Joe said as he started
laughing. “To think all of that started
because we mentioned we were thinking of getting new t-shirts for the work
crew.”
Frank looked at his brother
before pulling out of his driveway and said, “I’m not sure who was more
surprised when a week later they called a meeting and handed out the new
uniforms, you, me or the work crew.”
“One thing for sure, they
never do anything little,” said Joe with a smile and leaned forward turning up
the volume as ‘Don’t fear the Reaper’, one of their favorite songs came on the
classic rock station. As soon as the
song ended the brothers looked at each other and laughed as Joe said, “Every time
I hear that song, it reminds me of the night our parents forced us to take
Annie and Rose to the movies. Remember,
we’d just gotten our licenses and they said we couldn’t use Dad’s car the
following weekend unless we took the girls to the movies while they went to a
Pack meeting.”
Frank was laughing so hard he
could hardly talk, “And we agreed as long as we could pick the movie. The girls had no idea what ‘Halloween’ was about and you told them
it was a movie about a small town with a really cool Halloween tradition. I can still see them sitting there, with
their mouths hanging open, hands covering their eyes and screaming so loud I
thought my eardrums would shatter.”
“And we knew Carlo was in the
parking lot waiting on us after the movie, and you told him to hide to scare
the girls, they wouldn’t get in the car until we checked the trunk and looked
under it to make sure nobody was going to get us, and you told Carlo to sneak
under the car, and when you got on your hands and knees to look he pulled you
under the car and you screamed ‘Run girls run, he’s got me’, and all they could
see was your legs twitching and you kept screaming, then you stopped and Carlo
dumped his coke so it looked like a pool of blood coming from under the car,”
said Joe laughing so hard he was gasping for breath.
Frank took off his Oakley
sunglasses and wiped his eyes as he remembered looking from under the car
seeing Rose and Annie’s feet as they ran through the parking lot screaming as
loud as they could. After Joe got him
and Carlo out from under the car, the three of them were laughing so hard they
had to sit down. “Remember where we
found them? They were hiding in the
women’s bathroom in the Montgomery Wards next to the theater,” said Frank
laughing. “It took us fifteen minutes to
calm them down so they would get in the car, and they didn’t talk to us the
whole way home.”
“They got us back though,”
said Joe with a smile. “They told their
parents and ours we would take them to Longmeadow
“We talked to them,” said Frank
with a smile. “I distinctly remember
telling them to shut up several times when they started singing and when Rose
said she was hungry; I said ‘Tough luck’ and kept eating my popcorn. When Annie said she was thirsty and wanted
some of your Big Gulp, you told her ‘No’, and drank the whole thing and threw
the cup on the seat.” He glanced at his
brother before he continued, “And when Annie said she had to use the restroom,
you got the cup off the seat and handed it to her and said, ‘Use this’.”
“Damn, we were dicks, weren’t
we? It’s a wonder they accepted us when
we made our declarations,” said Joe with a laugh. “I remember JR came over with his sister and
took them to the restroom and I got irritated when he put his hand on Annie’s
arm when she tripped. I didn’t realize
it was the start of the mating pull and a little over two years later, I’d want
to kill any male that put their hands on her.”
They got quiet as they
thought of their mates and Frank cleared his throat and said, “By the way, I
talked to Sal last night and asked him what’s going on with him and Gabby. He said he has no clue but feels protective
of her and kinda likes her. I told him
to respect her and remember he’s only fifteen years old.”
“Does he know Gabby’s
planning on studying in Italy
Frank sighed loudly and said,
“I didn’t mention it. Gabby still has
two years of high school, then a year of college before she would leave. If they are mates, and I’m thinking they are,
then they’re going to have enough trials to get through and I don’t want to
start worrying Sal from now. I’ll be
right back; Carlo already called the order in.”
He opened the door and walked around the truck and stopped next to Joe’s
window and said, “The question will be will he love her enough to let her
go? I don’t mean let her go to Italy
Joe watched as his brother
walked into The Diner and thought of his own need to be with Annie after he
felt the mating pull. He closed his eyes
thinking back to that time; how possessive he was, how she would sit for hours
on his lap reading a book while he scented her neck, and he remembered several
nights when he slept outside her bedroom window because he couldn’t stand to be
apart from her and he knew without a doubt he wouldn’t have been able to let
Annie go.
Frank opened the rear door of
the truck and placed the box inside before getting behind the wheel of his work
truck. As Frank pulled out of the
parking lot, Joe said quietly, “I wouldn’t have been able to let Annie go
either.” He glanced once more at his
older brother before turning his head to look at the buildings they were
passing without really seeing them. He
cleared his throat before he murmured, “We need to talk to Anthony and Alberto
and tell them we were wrong, we shouldn’t have told them the way we did. They’re our daughter’s mates and we should’ve
respected them enough to tell them in private.
If Pop told me he was taking Annie away from me, I would’ve ripped his
fucking head off.”
“There for a minute, I
thought they were going to, or at least try,” said Frank nodding his head as he
thought back to Anthony and Alberto’s reaction.
“I agree with you, we need to apologize.
Do you think we should pull them to the side at The School House or
maybe take them out to dinner before the meeting tonight?”
“We’ll talk to Carlo, I’m not
sure what he has planned or what time Dante is getting here and he wants us to
go with him to pick them up,” said Joe.
“Either way, we’ll apologize this morning and arrange to go out to
dinner with them and talk things through a little more.”
Frank got quiet and asked,
“Are you having trouble separating little Alberto Moretti who grew up with our
sons and the grown Alberto Moretti who is your daughters mate? When I see Anthony with Sophia, I still see
the four year old little boy who cried when Carlo told him he couldn’t train
with the older boys.”
“But he proved Carlo wrong,
the following week he came to training with Carlo like he usually did and stood
up challenging the older boys and when he beat several of them Carlo had to
give in and start training him,” said Joe with a smile. “He was a determined boy and stood up to his
father, just like he did yesterday.”
“It surprised me how forceful
he was with Carlo, and the power that was coming off of him was almost
overwhelming,” Frank said in amazement.
“Have you really looked at Anthony lately? Damn, the boy is only seventeen, but
physically looks years older. I think
he’s even taller then Vincent and Dominic now, he weighs more and his muscle
definition is unreal. The way he picked
up Scott and threw him surprised me and Scott weighs like 260.”
“Since we’re talking about
him, I want to bring something up,” said Joe as Frank glanced at him. “I think Anthony, Vincent and Dominic should
be moved to the men’s training classes.
They can only practice on each other and I think by keeping them in the
boys training class, we’re holding them back.”
“I was thinking the same
thing, but I think we’ll test all the boys next week for new placements. We’ll have to increase their training anyway
and testing them will give us a better look at their strengths and
weaknesses. I have a feeling a few of
the boys will surprise us,” Frank said as he rubbed his neck. “We’ll talk it over with Carlo, he has the
final say. We’re almost there, anything
else you want to talk about?”
“Well...yeah…Annie and Rose
seemed awfully calm yesterday, almost too calm.
Do you think they’re planning something?” Joe asked turning to look at
his brother.
“I don’t think they’re
planning something, I know they’re planning something,” said Frank with a
laugh. “The problem is, we’ll only know
about it when they’re ready to tell us.
Those two are more sneaky, stubborn and hard-headed then any two women
I’ve ever met.”
Joe started laughing as he
said, “I guess they have to be since they’ve put up with us for the last
twenty-three years, almost twenty-four.”
“Speak for yourself baby
brother,” said Frank as he braked to a stop in front of the gates of The School
House. “You may be hard to get along
with, but I’m not.”
Jeff Mendez, Joel’s father,
stepped out of the guard house and put on his sunglasses as he walked to the
truck, clipboard in hand. He had seen
Frank’s truck coming down the road a half mile away and decided to have a
little fun. He walked to the front of
the truck and wrote the license plate on his clipboard and radioed it to the
control room. Ignoring Joe as he walked
by the passenger side, he continued walking around the truck and saw Frank
watching him in the side view mirror as he walked from the rear of the truck.
“Good morning Gentlemen, May
I see your identifications and may I ask what your business is today at The
School House?” said Jeff in his most professional tone as he stood slightly to
the rear of the drivers side window.
“Well, Mr. Mendez,” said
Frank as he continued to look straight ahead, “If you don’t let me through this
fucking gate, my business will be in seeing how quickly you can run while you
have my foot up your fat ass.”
“I see you’re as polite as
ever, Mr. Carlucci,” said Jeff with a laugh.
“The two of you are the last on the list; everyone is waiting in the
visitor’s parking lot.”
“Are you joining us?” asked
Frank as he turned to smile at Jeff.
“I’ll be there as soon as my
replacements get here, they’re getting final instructions from Aldo,” said Jeff
scanning the road. “The whole security
team is waiting and we’ve already secured The School House and grounds.”
“Good, here comes Duke and
Jerome,” said Joe as he looked towards the front of The School House. “How are they working out? I know they’re young and only Level 4
Delta’s, but during training they followed directions well and are good
fighters.”
Jeff smiled as he looked at
the young Bellucci’s as they ran down the long driveway. “They’re doing a good job, whatever Aldo or I
have asked them to do they’ve done without hesitation. They want to talk to the two of you; they
want to see if they can pass the Level 1 Beta test. They’ve been studying Martial Arts for the
last year and both graduated from the Police Academy
Frank watched as the iron
gates slowly slid open and the Bellucci’s ran through. Dark brown hair cut in a short military style
topped their 6’1” frames; broad shoulders strained their work shirts and their
light brown eyes were bright with excitement.
“Morning Mr. C, Mr. JC,” they said at the same time before heading into
the guard house and grabbing headsets and radios. They walked out stopping beside Frank’s
truck, hurriedly putting the headsets on and clipping the radios to their
belts.
“Alpha Carlo said you had
sandwiches from The Diner,” said Duke scanning the road. “Mom made us breakfast but we didn’t eat
much, we were too excited.”
“Yeah, we only had 20
pancakes and a couple pounds of sausage,” said Jerome with a shrug as he
adjusted the collar of his brother’s polo shirt.
“Well, we wouldn’t want you
two to starve to death, reach in the back and get four sandwiches each. They’re all the same, Diner Specials,” said
Frank with a smile as Jerome opened the rear door of the truck and got the
sandwiches out.
Joe looked at Duke and said,
“How are your mates doing?”
“Big, round and cranky,” said
Duke with a proud smile. “Emory’s
craving the weirdest shit and gets cranky when she can’t have it, like Chinese
food at 3 in the morning. She’s due in
a little over a month so she’s having a hard time moving around, but Doc said
the little one is healthy and gonna be big, probably around ten pounds by delivery.”
“Nauseous,” said Jerome with
a grimace. “If Cynthia looks at food,
smells food, or even thinks of food she’s hurling, which makes things difficult
because all Emory wants to do is eat.
Mom and Doc both say it should go away soon, but she’s walking around
the house with a trashcan.”
“Rossi’s sells hard ginger
candy; it was the only thing that helped Jody with the morning sickness,” said
Jeff as he patted Jerome on the shoulder.
“Check with Doc first to make sure she won’t have any problems, but it’s
a natural herbal remedy.”
Jerome was silent for several
moments before saying, “Thanks Jeff, Mom’s gonna call Doc this morning. Cyn says if she barfs one more time, I’m cut
off forever and I’d better get real familiar with my right hand.”
The men started to laugh
remembering their mates telling them the same things and Duke said, “Wait a
minute, you’re left handed.”
“I know, but this thing is so
big I need to use both,” said Jerome with a smirk as he cupped his groin.
“I’ve seen that pea-shooter
you’ve got and I’m surprised you’d need two fingers, let alone two hands,” said
Duke rolling his eyes at his younger brother as the men roared with laughter.
“On that note, we’re getting
out of here. You’d better hop in the
truck Jeff, we’re gonna be late,” said Frank as he continued to laugh.
“Everyone’s here for the
meeting so there shouldn’t be anybody else arriving until the youngsters start
arriving at 8:30. I’ll be down around 8
or 8:15 to go over last minute instructions and stay until all the youngsters
arrive,” said Jeff as he opened the rear door of the truck. “If you have any problems, radio it in.”
“Yes, sir,” Duke responded as
Jerome waved before he opened one of the breakfast sandwiches and took a big
bite.
As soon as they pulled through
the gates, they started to close and Jeff said quietly, “What’s going on? Aldo was very quiet yesterday afternoon when
he called us back to go over security measures, building plans and re-inventory
the food supply in the safe room. When I
asked what was going on, he shook his head and frowned.”
Frank and Joe looked at each
other before Frank answered, “Everyone will find out tonight Jeff. Right now we’re concentrating on ways to beef
up security at The School House without making it look obvious we are.”
“Well, that’s cryptic as all
fuck,” said Jeff with a frown shaking his head.
“I should be used to it with you Carlucci’s. You haven’t changed since you were in
diapers, always looking at each other before talking or answering questions,
and when you do answer a question it doesn’t make sense.”
“Fuck you, Jeff,” said Joe
with a laugh. “You’re three years older
then us; you could barely wipe your own ass when we were in diapers, and we
make perfect sense.”
“Well, of course you agree
with your brother,” muttered Jeff as Frank and Joe looked at each other
again. “I wouldn’t have expected
anything else out of the two of you, and your youngsters are just as bad.”
“We’ll take that as a
compliment,” Frank said with a smile pulling into the visitor’s parking lot and
parked his truck hood out, ignoring Joe as he rolled his eyes.
“Bout time you got here,”
said Carlo with a frown as he looked at his watch, his new Personal Assistant,
Marco Moretti by his side with a notebook in his hand. “Two more minutes and you would have been
late.” Frank glanced at Carlo
questioningly as Jeff put the box of sandwiches on the folding table.
“Who peed in your Cheerios?”
asked Joe as the men glanced at each other, knowing only Frank and Joe could
talk to Carlo like that. They had been
wondering what was wrong with their Alpha besides his widely known hatred of
waking up early and they eagerly awaited Carlo’s response.
“Don’t start with me,
Carlucci,” said Carlo as he glared at Joe.
“I’m tired, hungry, irritated and horny, and not in that order.”
“This’ll help with the
hunger,” Frank said shoving a sandwich in Carlo’s hand. “But I’m not helping with the horniness;
you’re on your own there.” The men began
to laugh as Carlo glared at Frank.
“And you’re always fucking
irritated in the morning,” Joe stated with a smile as the men laughed louder.
“Fuck you, in fact… fuck you
both,” said Carlo irritably as he continued to glare at the Carlucci’s. “You know I don’t do early mornings, and you
purposely sat at the damn gate running your jaws while I was standing here
starving.” He took a big bite of his
sandwich and let out a groan before saying, “These sandwiches are the only
thing that makes waking up at 5 AM tolerable.”
The men nodded and contented
groans could be heard as they ate The Diner Specials, which consisted of two
sausage patties, six slices of thick-cut hickory smoked bacon, two slices of
thick Canadian bacon, crispy hash browns and scrambled eggs topped with a spicy
Hollandaise sauce in between two pieces of thick sliced Texas Toast. “I ordered enough for everybody to have four
each, so eat up men,” said Carlo as he reached for another sandwich. Ten minutes later all the sandwiches were
gone and Carlo said, “Damn, I should have ordered more, I’m still hungry.”
“Look in the bottom of the
box. I had them put in a tray of pancake
rollups,” Frank said with a smile at the look on Carlo’s face. “I told them to add it to your bill.”
Carlo hurriedly moved to the
table and tore the box apart as he grabbed the foil tray and placed it on the
table. He lifted off the lid inhaling
deeply before grabbing one and taking a big bite before motioning the other men
to get some. “Frank, this is why you’re
second in command,” said Carlo as he glanced at the elder Carlucci
brother. “You anticipate what I need and
take appropriate action.”
“Thanks, but I’m still not
helping with the horniness thing,” said Frank with a blank expression on his
face as Carlo broke into his first smile of the morning.
“I’m not even going to
respond to that,” said Carlo shaking his head.
“Alright gentlemen, now that we’ve been fed, the purpose for our early
morning meeting is to beef up security here at The School House. Aldo said you went over the blueprints of the
school, the grounds and camera placements in the surrounding woods. Did you come up with any new ideas?”
Aldo rolled out the
blueprints for the school and pulled out his ever present notebook before
saying, “One thing we had to consider was since the building and grounds are listed
on the National Register of Historic Places, we can’t change the facade or the
look of the grounds without getting approval to make them historically
accurate. Taking that into
consideration, we did come up with a few ideas.
Jeff you want to explain your idea for the doors?”
“All of the doors are solid
steel with solid steel frames, but we think they could be enforced even
more. If you think about it, the only
thing holding the door is a lock, two brackets and hinge bolts. This is just for demo purposes, the pieces we
would use would be solid steel,” Jeff said as he reached under the table and
pulled out three braces and a piece of wood.
“We put braces on the sides of the door frames, one on the door and if a
threat comes, we insert the bar.”
Frank picked up the braces
while Joe asked, “Have you tried it yet?”
Aldo smiled and said, “We
need to replace the wood doors on the building SMI just bought in town. We tried the first door and broke it down
with one kick then Jeff installed the braces on the second door and it took
almost a half hour to kick the door down and remember that was with cheap
aluminum brackets, a wood door and a wood bar.
It’s a low tech solution, but it works.”
Aldo extracted a paper out of his notebook and said, “Here is the
information and I checked to make sure the screws are solid steel. We figured one setup for each door would be
sufficient.”
“Did you hit it with your
shoulder or just kick it?” asked Frank as he picked up the supply order list
and studied it. “And was it only in one
spot, and what was the location of the kick?”
Aldo saw where Frank was
going and sighed before saying, “We only kicked the door in one spot since the
same person did it and it was about a foot from the lock.”
“Here is my suggestion; we use
three setups for each door. One shoulder
height, one above the lock and one midway between the lock and the floor,” said
Frank as Joe nodded his agreement. “If
we use three setups, the pressure will disperse almost evenly across them,
creating an even stronger barricade.”
“Good job guys,” said Joe
with a smile as he looked at the security team.
“We’ll look over the list and order the strongest ones they have
available. I think we’ll get a wider bracket
for the door since that will be where the most pressure would come from.” Carlo nodded his head as Aldo and Marco made
notes.
“I got this next idea from
the History Channel,” said Aldo with a smile.
“They did a special on Vlad the Impaler and they said he had hundreds if
not thousands of bodies impaled on the road leading up to and surrounding his
castle.”
“Impaling our enemies on
school grounds? A bit drastic but I like
the idea,” said Joe with a wicked smile.
“That definitely would send a message not to fuck with us.”
Aldo grimaced and said, “You’re
a sick fuck Carlucci, I was talking about putting spikes in the shrubbery.”
“Oh, I guess that would work
too,” said Joe with disappointment laced in his voice.
Frank gave his brother a
‘What the fuck is the matter with you’ look and said, “I think I understand
what you’re talking about. We place
spikes inside the shrubbery so if they jump from the top of the wall they get
impaled.”
“Exactly, we measured and
it’s approximately 14’ from the wall to the outer edge of the shrubbery, a
distance easily managed by a full-grown wolf.
Our advantage is the top of the wall has spikes, which means they won’t
be able to get a good foothold so their jumping distance will be cut short,”
Aldo said pointing to the wall. “Last
night in the gym we measured out the distance, put brown boxes in place to
mimic the shrubbery and jumped with the same height and foothold handicap. Most of us were only able to jump around 12’,
the longest was Jerome who jumped 13’.
We could do the same for the outer perimeter, except we place the spikes
against the wall.”
Jeff continued as Aldo
flipped through his notebook looking for something, “We also want to install an
ornamental iron railing in front of the shrubbery. If you remember when the U of MD Arboretum
Members came they recommended a railing to protect the shrubbery since it is
one of the oldest examples of Pyracantha in the state. We have an idea to install it so it won’t
look suspicious.”
Aldo found the paper he was
looking for and said, “We thought the best way would be to publicize it, have
an article in The Herald Mail, The Washington Post and The Baltimore
Carlo glanced to the wall and
said to the four men, “You’re right Aldo,
if we hid the work, it would look suspicious.
Doing it openly and with the press involved makes it seem as though
nothing is wrong.”
“Send the list to Madame
Gina,” said Carlo as Marco and Aldo made notes.
“She’ll contact them to be here for the press conference and we’ll
inform them the contract will be awarded once they submit the designs and
bids. We’ll invite the Arboretum
Members, the Maryland
Frank rolled his eyes as he
said, “What else have you guys thought of?”
Jeff pointed to the portico
and said, “Once they realize they can’t get in through the first floor, the
logical thing is to try and go in the second story windows. Security is usually tighter on the first
floors and most people don’t protect the upper windows, so we want to give them
a surprise on the portico roof.”
“It can’t be anything big,
something as simple as a piece of plywood painted black with nails protruding
through it,” said Aldo shrugging his shoulder.
“We can cover it with tar paper to look like the existing roof.” Frank, Joe and Carlo nodded their heads in
agreement.
“Now to the security
cameras,” said Aldo looking into the woods.
“The outer 500’ of the perimeter is covered but we should extend it out
further. They’ll expect cameras close to
the grounds, so the new cameras need to be concealed even more. They will be running towards the school, so I
suggest we place the cameras the same way.”
“Sneaky, I like it,” said Joe
with a smile. “By positioning them that
way, we see which direction they’re going.
I suggest we re-arrange some of the landscape to funnel them where we
want them to go. When we run as wolves,
we naturally go the way of least resistance.”
Carlo nodded his head and
said, “We’ll have the whole Pack help in doing this, the men and older ones can
move the larger rocks while the women and younger ones move the smaller rocks
and plant shrubbery to make it look natural.
I trust the women’s judgement in landscaping better then ours. Even the little ones can help; they can throw
rocks around to make it look natural.
Frank, plan for us to do this the day of the next Full Moon Ceremony.”
Aldo dug into another folder
and pulled more papers, “Here are the latest cameras available. They’re wireless and can be hidden almost
anywhere, and some are available in rock decoys, hollowed out logs and there is
one designed in a birds nest.”
Carlo picked up the papers
and thumbed through them before saying, “It’s 6:45, let’s take a look at the
shrubbery and portico before the youngsters arrive. I was going to have us go into the woods and
plan what we are doing, but we will do that tomorrow. Frank, Joe, Carmelo and I have something to
do this afternoon.” The men hurried and
cleared the papers off the table before dismantling it and bringing it inside,
as Carlo, Frank, Joe, Carmelo, Marco, Aldo and Jeff walked to the perimeter
wall Carlo’s phone rang.
“Rossi here,” answered Carlo
motioning for Frank and Joe to stay while the others kept walking. “Yes, I understand…you haven’t found
anything?... yes, he’ll be here this afternoon…he’s picking up his new
Gulfstream…official reception Thursday evening here...yes, I’ll have Gina
contact your secretary, we’ll talk Thursday.”
Carlo sighed as he looked at
Frank and Joe and said, “Dante’s visit is already making its way through the
Alpha Council after the email I sent.
President Roberts will be here to greet him officially on Thursday and
wants to have a small reception. Since
he’ll be here in a couple of days, he’s cancelling the teleconference this
afternoon, which is good because we have too much to do.”
*****
“Hurry up; you’re going to be
late. Breakfast is ready and your
cousins should be here soon,” shouted Rose as she walked into the kitchen. She opened the fridge taking out pitchers of
milk and orange juice and placed them next to the warming trays which contained
hash browns, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and waffles. “What am I forgetting?” she mumbled to
herself and hearing the timer go off she smiled and turned around pulling the
biscuits out of the oven placing them in a basket. Lost in her thoughts wondering how things
were going at The School House, the sound of the mud room door opening startled
her but she relaxed as she scented her sister, nephews and niece entering her
home. Glancing at the alarm panel on the
wall, she saw Annie had reset the alarm and relaxed once again as she put the
sausage gravy the boys loved so much next to the biscuits on the breakfast bar.
Annie walked into the kitchen
rolling her eyes as she approached Rose and gave her a hug before she sighed
and said quietly, “I’m so glad it’s your week to cook, they would have been
eating cereal if it was my turn. I never
thought I was going to get Maria out of the house and the boys were almost as
bad.”
Rose said with a smile, “I’m
exhausted, Sophia’s been up since 5 fixing her hair and trying to pick out what
shoes to wear, the boys have been whispering back and forth about something and
being very secretive. They’re up to
something, I know it.”
Before Annie could answer,
Rose’s youngsters were running down the steps and barreling into the
kitchen. “We’re here,” said Vin grabbing
a plate followed by the rest of the youngsters.
The next several minutes were chaotic as they grabbed food out of the
warming trays and made their way to the kitchen table.
“Did you ask your mom yet?”
Gianni asked quietly as he glanced at Annie and Rose who were talking quietly
by the stove drinking coffee.
“Not yet, we’ll wait until
she’s in a better mood,” answered Lorenzo quietly as he reached for the butter
for his pancakes.
“What’s going on?” Sophia
asked Maria who shrugged her shoulders.
Gianni glanced around the
table and said quietly, “Not that it’s any of your business but next time we
have a Friday game, we want to go watch the Terps play football on Saturday,
you know make a weekend out of it at College Park.”
“Oh, that would be nice,”
said Maria cheerfully as she smiled at Sophia.
“We could wear some of the new Terps gear we got.”
The boys turned to glare at
their sisters as Marcus said, “The two of you weren’t invited, this is a guy’s
only weekend.”
“No adults either,” said
Damian with a smirk as the boys grinned at each other.
“You are delusional if you
think that’s going to happen,” stated Sophia as she raised her eyebrow. “Maria and I would have better luck asking if
we could go to DC by ourselves then you have in hanging around College Park
“I agree with Sophia. They’ll never let you do it, not gonna
happen, they’ll never allow it,” said Maria glaring at the boys. Looking at the disgruntled looks on the boys
faces she started to laugh hard and snorted as Sophia took a big drink of
milk. Hearing her cousin snort made
Sophia laugh and choke on her milk which she coughed out over the table which
made the girls laugh even harder at the looks of disgust on their brother’s
faces.
“That’s real attractive, one
is snorting and the other is spitting milk everywhere,” said Lorenzo shaking
his head. “And they call us pigs.”
“We didn’t call you a pig,
your girlfriend did,” said Maria with a twinkle in her eye as Sophia nodded her
head in agreement.
Lorenzo’s eyes were wide as
he opened and closed his mouth several times before he sputtered, “She’s not my
girlfriend, I don’t like her and I’m not interested in her.”
“Yeah, you keep telling
yourself that,” said Sophia glancing at Maria before turning her emerald gaze
to Lorenzo. “Well, I guess it won’t
matter then on Saturday when she’s in her cheerleading outfit at the game. I’m sure the boys from the Shenandoah Pack
will be interested in her.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed and
he said angrily, “What she does and who she does it with isn’t my
business. My only job is to protect her
when I have to.”
“Glad to hear it, I’d rather
gouge my eyes out with a plastic spoon then to sit through another dating rules
meeting any time soon,” said Damian with a grin as everyone at the table
started laughing. “Seriously, we need to
talk with Alpha Carlo about this, he should print everything up, have the two
intendeds read it, sign it in blood if needed and that’s it. In and out in two minutes and it’s done.”
“We’re not talking about how long it takes you to have
sex,” said Lorenzo with a laugh as
Damian threw a biscuit at him.
“Whatever, I’m not the one who snotted all over a girl
yesterday and then got jealous cause she was wearing Gianni’s shirt. Plus, you were watching her the whole time
she was here, even when you were pretending not to,” said Damian as he stared at his twin. “Admit
it, you like the girl, open up to your feelings and embrace it.”
“Who the fuck did you turn into all of a sudden? Dr. Phil?” asked Lorenzo with a snarl. “I have no feelings for her…well, I’m
attracted to her, but that doesn’t count and I wasn’t jealous when she had
Gianni’s shirt on, it just bothered me a little.”
Before Damian could respond,
Rose said loudly, “Finish up breakfast, you have about five minutes before
Anthony and the Moretti’s get here.”
“And we have pictures to
take,” Annie said as the youngsters groaned at her announcement. “I don’t want to hear it, it’s a Carlucci
family tradition and if anyone misbehaves, you won’t like what I do.” The youngsters quickly finished their
breakfast, putting their plates in the sink and hurried onto the front porch.
“Positions everyone,” said
Annie waving her hands as they moved to their assigned places on the steps of
the porch. Sal, Sophia, Maria and Victor
in front, Enzo, Gino, Gianni, Marcus, Paulo and Michael in the second row and
Vin, Dom, Lorenzo and Damian in the last row.
Annie took several pictures and as she snapped the last one, Anthony and
the Moretti’s pulled into the driveway.
While they waited for Anthony
and Alberto to finish greeting their intendeds, Rose said to Annie, “Can you take a picture of Sal and Gabby
without them seeing you?” Annie
nodded her head and looked at her youngest nephew and Gabby who were standing
to the side of the porch. They weren’t
talking but were smiling at each other and Annie quickly took several shots of
them. After positioning Anthony and
Sophia she quickly snapped their picture and then did the same for Alberto and
Maria.
Rose looked at her watch and
said, “Time to head to the Miller’s.
Remember to behave yourselves and Sophia and Maria, I’ll be there at
3:30 to pick you up.”
“Remember your fathers are
there if you need them,” said Annie and she hesitated before saying, “Boys,
please watch out for your sisters.”
“Like we would let anything
happen to them,” said Lorenzo pulling Maria’s braid until her back was against
his broad chest; his arms encircled her shoulders as he rested his chin on her
head. “They may be annoying as hell, but
for some strange odd reason we love the little munchkins.”
Maria giggled as she said,
“And for an even odder stranger reason, I love all of you too.”
Gianni pulled Sophia’s
ponytail bringing her close to him as he hugged her tightly. Kissing her forehead and hearing her giggle,
he added, “How else would we entertain ourselves if we didn’t have them to
torture and harass?”
“As long as WE are the only
ones torturing and harassing them,” Vin said quietly as he straightened his
shoulders and looked at each of the males.
“The School House has security in place but I don’t want somebody else
responsible for OUR sisters safety. They
are OUR sisters, OUR responsibility. Our
Dad’s didn’t give us special instructions to make sure they stay safe, but we
know what we have to do. I don’t want
them left alone for any reason, I want one of us with them at all times.” The boys stood up straight, all sense of
teasing gone as they nodded their heads.
“Gabby this includes you
too…you are as much a part of this family as our sisters,” Dom said as he
glanced at Sal. The three girls looked
at Dom and nodded their heads, they had listened to what their Alpha said
yesterday and knew the danger they could be in so they didn’t argue or offer
resistance.
Vin looked at the girls and
smiled as he said, “We also need your help.
The Miller girls are going to be overwhelmed with school, training and
the news Alpha Carlo told us yesterday.
We need you to be there for them, to talk to them, ease their concerns
but most of all be patient and help guide them.”
Gabby looked at Vin and said,
“We’ll make sure they understand and we’ll do whatever we need to keep them
safe.” Sophia and Maria nodded their
heads as their brothers gave them one final kiss and released them.
“I know you will protect each
other and remember you have the strength of numbers and your love for each
other. We’ll follow you over to the
Millers, I want to get more pictures,” said Annie smiling as she heard the
youngsters groaning.
As they went to their
assigned vehicles, Ant saw the look on Sal’s face as he watched Gabby get into
a different vehicle and opened the bond to the boys saying, “Victor and Sal, switch vehicles.”
Sal turned to him with a
smile on his face and said, “Thank you, Ant. ”
“No problem, use this time to talk to her and get to
know her, find out what makes her laugh.
Damian and Lorenzo will be in the SUV with you, so they will help you
and Angelo, I expect you to be nice,”
said Anthony as he helped Sophia into the front seat of his truck and put her
backpack on the carpet near her feet. “Oh, and
I’ll keep the bond open so we can keep in contact with each other at school.”
“Do I have to be nice?” asked Angelo with laughter in his voice before his
tone turned serious. “After yesterday when he comforted her when
she was upset and stepped in front of her to protect her, he has my
support. As long as he treats my sister
with respect he won’t have any problems with me.”
“Thank you, Angelo that means a lot to me,” said Sal. As
he went to climb into the SUV, he saw Gabby sitting in the middle of the third
row seat and asked, “Where do you want me
to sit Angelo?”
“Next to my sister, dumb-ass. What is the purpose of having you ride with
us if you can’t talk to her?” Angelo
asked with a smile on his face. “Lorenzo will be back there with you, I’ll
sit in the middle with Damian and chaperone.”
The first two minutes of the
four minute ride to the Millers was nerve wracking for Sal. He could hear low murmurs from the front as
Alberto and Maria talked quietly but every time he turned his head to say
something to Gabby, it seemed as if she was going to say something and instead
she put her head down and blushed. So he
said nothing, just kept glancing at her and looking away while she glanced at
him and put her head down.
After watching them do this
for two minutes Lorenzo said, “I can’t take this anymore, Sal say something to
Gabs before we get to the Millers or I’ll tell her an embarrassing story of
when you were a little one.”
Sal’s face flushed bright red
as Gabby turned her gaze on him and smiled.
He wracked his brains thinking over the advice the guys had given him
yesterday and said in a rush, “You look beautiful in your uniform.” He was proud of himself that he didn’t
stutter, and the compliment that he paid her made sense.
“Thank you, Salvatore,” said
Gabby shyly as she tilted her head and then a teasing sparkle came into her
eyes. “You’re not going to tell me my
cardigan matches my eyes?” Alberto,
Lorenzo and Damian started laughing as they remembered Sal’s fumbling attempt
to give her a compliment yesterday.
Sal smiled at her and sat up
straighter as he got more confidence in himself, “No, while the blue
compliments your skin tone and brings out the red highlights in your hair, your
eyes are a rich liquid chocolate brown with streaks of green and they are
sparkling right now because you are smiling.”
“Oh,” gasped Gabby as her
face flushed bright red and she ducked her head down. She took a deep breath and glanced at him out
of the corner of her eye as she started to smile. “I didn’t think you had noticed.”
He leaned in and whispered
close to her ear, “I’ve noticed a lot of things.” He sat back and smiled before he looked at
Damian who smiled back at him.
“We’re here, everybody out,”
said Alberto as put the SUV in park. The
entire Miller family were waiting on the front porch, the girls talking
excitedly as Phil took candid photos of them like a proud uncle, while Todd was
demonstrating to the younger girls the proper way to apply a choke hold using
Matt as his victim. Nana Ellen and Holly were making last minute adjustments to
their uniforms and checking their backpacks to make sure they had everything
and Papa Mike was handing each of the older girl’s money. It looked like chaos but every one of them
had smiles on their faces.
Within minutes the youngsters
were lined up according to Annie’s instructions, after taking one picture and
looking at it, she moved them around and was finally satisfied. Five minutes later, Annie and Phil were
satisfied with the pictures they had taken and Vin took his cell phone out of
his pocket to check the time.
“Before we leave, I want to
have a short meeting,” Vin said in a loud commanding voice drawing every ones attention. “We need to go over some rules before we get
to The School House because I don’t want any arguments once we get there.” He stopped talking and looked at each of the Miller
girls who stared back at him. “We don’t
know who or what is behind this threat and even though The School House is
secure, we would feel better if one of us was by your side at all times. Once you get tested for your class
placements, I will ask Alpha Carlo and Aldo to allow us a short break so we can
work a schedule out as to who will be part of your protection detail to get you
to, during and from class.”
Dom said firmly, “I don’t
care if you’re in the restroom, they will wait outside the damn door for
you. If any of us sees one of you by
yourself, there will be hell to pay, for you and the boy who is supposed to be
with you. Do we make ourselves clear?”
“Is this really necessary?”
asked Erin as she closed her eyes and took a
deep breath. “I really don’t want him, I
mean somebody following me.” As she
finished her last statement she glanced at Lorenzo and then looked away
blushing.
Lorenzo rolled his eyes and
before he could say anything, Gabby stepped forward and said, “Yes, it is
necessary. You heard Alpha Carlo
yesterday and what could possibly happen to all of us. These guys…”
Gabby stopped and took a deep breath as she waved her hand to include
the young men and then continued, “These guys are OUR brothers and THEY ARE
PUTTING THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE TO KEEP YOU SAFE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M SAYING? THEY WOULD DIE TO PROTECT YOU AND YOU ARE SO
UNCARING AND SO UNGRATEFUL TO THEM THAT I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY.”
Gabby stared at Erin before looking at the other Miller girls, Brianna
was standing next to Vin and Morgan had her face buried in Dom’s neck. “Do you have anything to say in your
defense? Because I really want to hear
it,” she continued.
“Well, I… it’ll make me
uncomfortable,” stammered Erin as her face
flushed red.
“MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE? DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME? THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT HERE; WE’RE TALKING
ABOUT BEING KIDNAPPED, RAPED OR MURDERED AND THE ONLY THING PREVENTING THAT… IS
THEM,” shouted Gabby as she once again pointed to the boys. “YOU DON’T THINK THEY WANT TO BE WITH THEIR
FRIENDS AND DO THEIR OWN STUFF INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING US AROUND?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think
about any of that,” murmured Erin , her eyes
glassy with unshed tears. “I just want
to be normal and be happy.”
“That’s fine, but while
you’re being normal and happy, don’t put my family and friends in danger because
you are too stubborn and too selfish to follow some simple rules designed to
keep you safe,” said Gabby with her eyes narrowed. She looked at her brothers and said, “Car!
Now!” Without another word she climbed
into the SUV and without saying anything everyone assigned to that vehicle
climbed in.
There was silence for several
moments before Todd said, “Girls, I expect you to follow EVERY instruction
Alpha Carlo, Frank, Joe, Aldo and the boys give you and we will have a talk
this evening when we get home from the men’s meeting. It’s time to get going.” He walked to his car and got in and waited
for his Dad, Vin, Brianna, Caitlin and Erin to get in his vehicle and he
watched as Matt and Phil got in their vehicle followed by Dom, Morgan, Kelly
and Aislin.
Papa Mike stuck his head out
of the SUV and said, “Remember to lock the doors and put the security system
on. I’m not sure when we’ll be
back.” Nana Ellen and Holly nodded their
heads as they waved goodbye to Annie and Rose.
Once everyone was ready, the caravan pulled out of the driveway and
headed to The School House.
“Well, that went well,”
Damian said sarcastically, as they pulled out of the driveway. “Gabs, without your patience and
understanding there could have been shouting and tears…Oh wait…there was
shouting and tears.”
“At least I wasn’t the one
that made her cry this time,” said Lorenzo as he turned to look out the window,
the image of Erin ’s glassy eyes replaying in
his mind.
Gabby started blushing and
said, “I didn’t mean to make her cry, I may have been a bit more forceful then
what I intended.”
“Ya think?” asked Damian,
raising his eyebrow before he started laughing.
“Hell, Freddy Krueger would have started to cry if you hollered at him
like that.” The boys started to laugh
and Maria shivered, she hated horror movies.
“I got to ask, what the hell
got into you?” asked Angelo still laughing as he turned around to look at his
younger sister. “Are you getting ready
to get your period or something? Cause
you acted like a total PMS’ing raging bitch.”
Alberto choked and the SUV
swerved before he got it back under control, Maria turned in her seat with her
mouth hanging open, Lorenzo, Damian and Sal stared at Angelo then Gabby then
back to Angelo. Gabby was staring at her
brother with a murderous expression on her face as she hissed, “I can not
believe you said that, especially with Salvatore sitting here next to me. You’ve embarrassed me for the last time in
front of him, you…you…” and she launched herself at him, putting her brother in
a chokehold.
“OH, SHIT,” Sal shouted as he
grabbed her waist to pull her back as Lorenzo tried to get out of the way of
her feet as she tried to get a foothold and Damian was laughing so hard he hit
his head on the window before falling out of his seat.
Anthony reminded everyone to
lower their windows as he pulled up to the gate. A guard came to each window and glanced
inside as Anthony said to Jeff, “Rossi, Anthony. Carlucci’s Sophia, Victor, Enzo and
Gino.” Jeff checked each name off on the
clipboard and radioed for the gate to be opened, as Anthony went through the
next vehicle pulled up, stopped and repeated the procedure.
Alberto watched them for
several minutes in the rearview mirror and heard the sounds of fabric tearing; the
oomph’s and grunts as flesh hit flesh, Lorenzo and Sal swearing and Damian
laughing. He had finally had enough and
shouted, “STOP IT NOW. Angelo, apologize
to our sister, Gabby calm down, Damian stop laughing, Sal pull her back, and
Lorenzo sit your ass down. We’re almost
at the gate and I don’t want to explain to our Dad’s why you’re fighting, so
pull yourselves together and straighten your uniforms out.” They pulled up to the gate and as soon as
Jeff, Duke, Jerome and Austin Sabatini saw them, they started to laugh. After checking their names, they went through
the gate and the men started laughing louder as Gabby launched herself at her
brother again.
“Why did you say our names
that way?” questioned Sophia as she started to get nervous as they waited for
the others in the student parking lot.
“It’s another subtle measure
of security,” answered Gino as he rummaged in his backpack for his comb. “We say the last names first, and if
something were wrong, we would say first names then last names. Like I said it’s subtle, something they
wouldn’t pick up quickly.”
“There’s a lot going on that
I don’t know about security, isn’t there?” asked Sophia as she looked at her
intended and her family.
Enzo rolled his eyes and
said, “You don’t know a third of the stuff we do to protect you. We’ve been doing it so long you think it’s
normal.”
“Oh,” Sophia replied as
Anthony grabbed her hand and squeezed it to reassure her. The last vehicle to pull in was Alberto’s
who parked next to Anthony and everyone moved in front to wait on them to get
out, and when they did the youngsters and the adults present looked at them in
astonishment.
Damian opened the right rear
passenger door and fell laughing hysterically onto his back with a black eye, a
bruised cheek, his cardigan halfway off, blood on his shirt and the left sleeve
of his shirt torn. Angelo opened the
rear driver’s side door and fell out landing on his hands and knees with blood
dripping from his nose onto the asphalt, his cardigan completely off, half the
buttons and the right sleeve were missing from his shirt, scratches were on his
face, his lip was split open and Gabby was on his back holding him in a
chokehold. The right side of Gabby’s
hair was flying around her face since she only had one barrette in her hair,
her left arm was in the sleeve of her cardigan while her right arm was out, her
right shoe was missing and she was muttering, “You son of a bitch…”. Sal was next out of the SUV with footprints
over his shirt and cardigan, scratches on his face, a bloody nose, a black eye
and blood on his uniform shirt. Lorenzo
calmly got out of the vehicle with a bloody split lip, a black eye, a bruise on
his left cheek, footprints on his shirt and he was holding Gabby’s shoe in his
hand.
Alberto looked at them and
shook his head while Maria put her hand over her mouth to hold in the
laugher. Sal pulled Gabby off Angelo’s
back and the five of them slowly walked to the front of the SUV as a voice
loudly boomed, “Does anybody want to tell me what happened?”
Five youngsters stared at
their Alpha and their mouths opened and closed several times before Gabby said
quietly with her head down, “It was a minor disagreement, Alpha Carlo. Angelo said something I didn’t like, and when
I went after him the Carlucci’s tried to hold me back from beating the hell, I
mean heck out of Angelo.” She looked at
Lorenzo, Damian and Sal saying quietly, “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“You did all that?” Carmelo
asked Gabby and she nodded her head before looking back to the ground. He looked at the bloody faces of the boys and
the condition of their uniforms and took in Gabby’s shoeless foot, mussed
cardigan and missing barrette, but otherwise she didn’t have a mark on
her. “Angelo, what did you say?”
“Uhmm, well…I kinda maybe
might have asked her if she was on her period and I may have said she was a
PMS’ing raging bitch…or something along those lines,” muttered Angelo as he
shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. Damian started laughing again but one glare
from his father shut him up.
“Angelo, you deserved the
beating your sister gave you,” said Carmelo with a frown to his son. “Now give your sister a hug, find her
barrette and Lorenzo give her back her shoe.
The rest of you clean up before you go into The School House.”
“Hey, Ant could you take a
pic of us? This way we’ll have a before
and after shot of our first trip to school after Hurricane Gabs hit,” said
Damian with a big smile on his face. The
five of them grouped together, Lorenzo still holding Gabby’s shoe, as Ant took
the pictures everybody started laughing at the ridiculous sight they
presented. After Ant was done, they
started to clean up their uniforms as much as they could.
“Well, that was fun, I can
see riding to school with this group is gonna be a blast. I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow,
but I’m going to make sure I bring a helmet with me,” said Damian cheerfully as
Angelo glared at him.
The youngsters turned around
and stared at him and Lorenzo sighed loudly before he shook his head and said,
“Okay, I’ll ask, why do you need a helmet?”
“To protect this stunning
vision of pure male perfection, of course,” Damian responded with a serious
expression on his face before he started to smile as he heard the groans from
his family. “But a broken nose may
enhance the bad boy image; make my rugged good looks stand out even more.” He looked at Caitlin and when she blushed, he
started to laugh and as he walked past her he nudged her with his shoulder and
laughed even harder. As he walked to the
front door he was pleased with her reaction for some reason.
Gabby glanced at Sal as they
followed Damian, seeing his black eye that was already turning green and yellow
and the cuts slowly disappearing, she murmured, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to hit you or anything.”
“That’s okay, I wasn’t
worried about me getting hurt, I was only worried about you,” Sal whispered
back and then he blushed. “I didn’t mean
to grope you; I was just trying to get a hold of you to pull you back.”
“Well, I was hoping that was
your hand, and not your cousins,” Gabby giggled and quickly looked at her two
brothers hoping they didn’t hear Sal.
Realizing what she said and seeing the surprised look on Sal’s face at
her response, she blushed and said, “I can’t believe I said that, I didn’t mean
it like that, I mean I’m glad it was you and not Lorenzo and Damian, especially
Damian, not that I wanted you to do that, well at least not right now, I mean …
I don’t know what the hell I’m saying.”
Sal started to laugh as
Angelo turned around to look at them and narrowed his eyes. “It’s okay, I won’t tell if you don’t,” he
whispered into her ear while Gabby started to giggle again and this time
Alberto turned around to look at them.
Principal Richards and Aldo
greeted them as they walked through the front door and gave them a binder with
their name and homeroom number on it.
Vin led them up the east stairwell to the second floor and explained the
homerooms were grouped according to family and mates and intended mates were
placed together. Excited voices and
laughter could be heard as they walked down the hall to the last classroom on
the right, the largest one on the floor to accommodate the twenty-four of them.
“Welcome everyone, please
look at the chart on my desk for your assigned seat,” the teacher said with a
smile and looked at the Miller girls before she continued. “In case you didn’t remember, I’m Mrs. Di
Franco, Aldo’s mate and this is our oldest son, Alonso, he’s going to be
joining us for homeroom.” She nodded her
head towards a scared looking boy sitting in front of her desk.
Alonso walked to Victor and
Sal and greeted Victor with a fist pump.
“Hey guys, glad to see you two, I thought for sure I’d be in with a
bunch of older ones and wouldn’t have anybody to talk to,” he whispered. He turned to greet Sal with his fist extended
and noticing the bruises and almost healed cuts, his eyes got wide and he
opened his mouth saying, “What the…”, then his expression changed to one of
admiration as he noticed Gabby standing close to Sal. He stood up as straight as he could before he
cleared his throat and said, “Hey Gabby, how are you doing?”
“She’s doing just fine,” Sal
said with a hint of anger in his voice as he moved even closer to Gabby in a
territorial way as Alonso continued to stare at her. “I’m fine too, thanks for asking.”
Gabby noticed Sal was upset,
so she placed her hand on his arm and said quietly, “Come on Salvatore, let’s
find our seats.” Sal gave Alonso one
last glare before turning and following Gabby to the teacher’s desk to get
their seat placement.
Victor waited until they
walked away before he said quietly, “You’d better stop staring at Gabby or Sal
will throw a fit. They kinda have a
thing going.”
“That is so friggin cool cause
she’s like two years older then us and she’s on the Varsity cheerleading
squad,” whispered Alonso as he stared enviously at Sal. “How about the rest of the girls? You think I got a chance with any of them?”
Victor stared at his friend
and said, “Are you nuts? You’d better
not even look at Sophia, Maria, Brianna or Morgan because their intendeds will
tear you apart in a second.” He
hesitated as he watched Lorenzo and Damian deliberately ignore Caitlin and Erin
and added, “You’d better add Caitlin and Erin to that list too.” Before they could talk further, Mrs. Di
Franco was motioning them to get into their seats.
Carlo, Frank, Joe, Carmelo,
Aldo, Todd, Matt, Phil and Papa Mike walked into the room and looked at the
youngsters. There were five rows with
five seats in each, and the girls were placed in the center nine seats with the
boys on the outer rows.
“Millers,” said Todd and his
daughters turned their heads to look at him.
“I talked it over with Alpha Carlo and we decided you’re going to skip
dance class this week. With the men at
the meeting and the Carlucci’s looking after the little ones, there just aren’t
enough protectors for you.” Though
clearly disappointed, the girls nodded their heads.
“Are you okay Anthony? I’ve got to make sure the other youngsters
are okay, but if you need me, I can stay,” Carlo said looking at his son.
“I’m fine, Dad,” said Anthony
as he blushed slightly and squirmed in his seat. Carlo nodded to his son and went out in the
hallway to talk to Principal Richards.
Damian started to laugh
quietly and turned towards Anthony as he said, “Aww, is Daddy afwraid his wittle boy is gonna be scaered if he weaves
him awone?”
The boys in the room, except
for Alonso, started laughing at the murderous look on Anthony’s face. Seeing their fathers glance at them, they put
their heads down and pretended to read the information in the binders Aldo had
given them while their shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.
“Fuck you Damian, in fact…fuck you all,” thundered Anthony.
The boys glanced at each other as they started laughing even harder.
“Is there a problem, boys?”
asked Frank in a firm tone as he looked around the room.
“No, Sir” was said by every
boy in the room as they straightened up in their seats and wiped the smiles off
their faces.
Joe looked at Damian and
said, “You’ll sit the drills out and come with us down to the safe room and
stand by your bunk, Enzo you’re partnered with Caitlin.” Enzo nodded his head and looked to make sure
where Caitlin was.
Aldo walked to the front of
the classroom and said, “Go to the section in your binders labeled ‘Safety
Drills’ and memorize the diagram of where your bunk is located. Our goal is to have everyone in the safe room
within two minutes, so as soon as the alarm sounds, grab your backpack if you
can and run in an orderly manner. When
you enter the sleeping quarters you will go directly to your bunk and stand
silently. The top bunk stands to the
left, the bottom bunk to the right.
Older ones look out for the younger ones and as always, the priority is
getting the girls to safety.”
The sound of Aldo’s radio
startled some of the youngsters and they jumped and laughed nervously as one by
one his security people checked in and reported the instructions had been given
to each homeroom. Aldo responded, “Okay,
have the Dad’s move to the basement so they can monitor the progress. Frank will be stationed in room 1, Joe in 2,
Carlo in the rec area, the rest of us know what we are to do. Principal Richards, give us five minutes and
pull the alarm.”
Sounds of heavy footsteps
echoed in the hall as the men moved to the west stairwell to go to the basement
and Sophia asked Anthony, “Are all the Dad’s here?”
“Yeah, the first day most
stay till after lunch,” he said with a shrug.
“For some of the younger ones, it’s the first time they’ve been away
from their families and the Dad’s stay to make sure they are okay.” He noticed the rest of the girls staring at
him while he answered and smiled before he continued, “Its part of the male
nurturing thing we talked about at the Full Moon Ceremony. Even though they know The School House is
safe, they want to make sure their youngsters know the safety drills and feel
secure enough to be left alone…”
Before he could continue Aldo
interrupted him, “Before the drill sounds, does anybody have any
questions?” The youngsters shook their
heads as they anxiously awaited the alarm.
When it did come, the younger ones jumped in their seats and before the
girls even knew what was going on, they were literally pulled out of their
seats, slung over the assigned boys shoulders, out the door and going down the
steps. Sal, Victor and Alonso were
roughly placed with Alberto and Gino in front of them and Paulo and Michael
behind them.
“Put your hands on Alberto
and Gino’s back,” instructed Michael to the three young boys as they were
running down the steps.
“Don’t look around, just keep
an eye on the person in front of you,” Paulo added as they increased the pace
down the steps.
“Damnit Erin, stop squirming
around,” Lorenzo barked as he tightened his grip.
“I want to see,” she
responded while she continued to move her head back and forth while pushing on
his back to raise her head.
“It’s a fucking stairwell,
you’ll see it up close and personal if I end up dropping your ass,” he snarled
as he tightened his grip further.
“Erin, stop being so contrary,” said Caitlin as she turned her head looking at her
twin, being careful not to move her body as Enzo carried her. “You
said last night you were going to try and get him to like you before he felt
the mate bond, so why are you continuing to provoke him?”
As soon as the boys feet hit
the basement floor they ran into the safe room and into the sleeping
quarters. They put the girls down at the
separation between the boys bunks and the girls and Vin said, “Go to your bunks
and don’t talk until the all clear is given.”
The girls moved quickly to their assigned bunks and remembering Aldo’s
instructions stood where they were supposed to.
“I can’t help myself.
The only time he seems to notice me is if I get him upset,” Erin said looking at
Caitlin while her eyes filled with tears.
“And I want him to notice that I’m
his mate so bad. What am I going to do
Cait?”
“Maybe if you were nicer, he wouldn’t ignore you
and…what the heck is he doing?” Caitlin
asked as she looked at Damian who was making kissy faces at Sal who was glaring
back at him. “I understand what you mean though; Damian doesn’t take anything serious
and if he pushes me with his shoulder
one more time, I swear I’m gonna kick him.
Anyway, ask Maria later what kind of dessert he likes and bring it in to
share at lunch. He would notice you
then, but in a positive way.”
“Oh, Caitlin that’s a wonderful idea,” said Erin
happily. Without giving it another
thought she whispered to Maria whose bunk was across from her, “Maria, what
kind of dessert does Lorenzo like?”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes as he
heard Erin whispering, but even with his
advanced hearing he couldn’t distinguish the words due to the other noise in
the safe room. He turned to look at her
and said loudly, “Shut the hell up Erin , do
you have to be so obstinate that you can’t even follow a simple instruction not
to talk?”
Seeing the crushed look on
her sister’s face, Brianna had enough.
She stepped away from her bunk and put her hands on her hips as she
said, “Stop talking to her like that you arrogant ass. Can’t you see that she’s …”
“BRIANNA, DON’T,” shouted Erin interrupting her.
“Please don’t, he’s right. I
should’ve known better and it won’t happen again.” Caitlin glared at Lorenzo and turned around
to hug her sister who had started to cry.
Lorenzo took a deep breath
and opened his eyes to find the boys staring at him. Vin glared at him as he asked, “Do you feel better now that you made her
cry again? What the hell is the matter
with you? And you made my intended
upset.”
“No, I don’t feel better, I feel like shit,” Lorenzo responded as he ran his hands through his
hair. “I don’t know what it is about her, but my wolf gets agitated every
time we’re around her and it makes me lash out at her without thinking.”
“For fucks sake Lorenzo, either ask the girl out or
ignore her. I can feel your emotions
going all over the place and it’s driving me nuts,” said Damian waving his arms in the air as he stared
at Lorenzo. He noticed his Uncle staring
at him, so he stopped waving his hands and glanced down and admiring the new
boots he had on he said, “Do you guys
like my new Doc Martens, or do you think I should’ve worn the Timberlands? They’re comfortable though, and I like how
they look with the khaki pants.”
When he got no response, he looked at the other boys and seeing the
disgruntled looks on their faces he said, “What?”
Anthony shook his head and
said, “You have the attention span of a
three year old…and you act like one too.”
“We were discussing Lorenzo and his problem, not you
and your fucking shoes,” added
Alberto as he tried not to laugh. “I do like them though, I wonder if they
come in my size? What size do you wear?”
Damian pulled up his pant leg
so Alberto could see the whole boot and said, “I wear 12.5, but they run a little big. So they should fit your ginormous ass feet.”
“Will the two of you shut the fuck up,” Dom said angrily.
“Save the fashion show for later,
we’re trying to discuss important things here.”
“My dear misguided cousin, besides ensuring the safety
of the females, what could be more important then looking good?” Damian asked as he raised his eyebrow. “As far
as the important things, don’t worry about it.
Lorenzo is going to continue to act like an ass, Erin is going to
continue to cry, they both will continue to piss the other off then get upset
about it, Erin will bring in food for Lorenzo, he will eat it and say something
nasty, Erin will cry…and the cycle will continue until HE MANS THE FUCK UP AND
EITHER ASKS HER OUT OR IGNORES HER.”
The boys stopped talking as
Carlo strode into the room along with Aldo and the youngsters stood at
attention. “Everybody in the rec room
now,” said Carlo in a firm voice. The
youngsters slowly filed out, the girls sat on the couches with their brothers
and intendeds around them. “Our time was
a little over six minutes, not bad for a first drill, but unacceptable for your
safety. Aldo will go over what needs
improvement, and then we will run it again.”
Aldo stood with his security
staff in front of the youngsters and proceeded to breakdown what needed to be
done. Fifteen minutes later, the
youngsters and their Dad’s were back on the second floor in their
homerooms. Once they returned to their
seats, the Dad’s gave more pointers and told them to think like a pack, to
follow the leader and let their wolf guide them. Once they made sure their youngsters were
comfortable, they went back to the basement to supervise the next drill. Phil and Matt said goodbye to their nieces
since they had to open the store and reminded them they would be back to pick
them up at 3:30 to take them to see Doc.
The drills continued for the
next several hours until their time was two and a half minutes and Carlo called
a halt so they could have lunch. The
noise in the cafeteria was loud as the youngsters talked excitedly and the
Dad’s stood watch making sure their youngsters were okay. Frank looked at Joe and said, “We’ve put it
off long enough, you ready to eat some crow?”
Joe reluctantly nodded his head and Frank said, “Anthony could you and Alberto come over here.”
“Yes, Mr. C, be right there,” replied Anthony as he and Alberto got up from their
table. “What do you need Mr. C? Is it something about the girl’s protection?”
Joe looked at Alberto then
Anthony and said, “This is extremely hard for us to say, but we’re sorry for
not respecting you enough as our daughters mates to tell you of the Council’s
plans in private. It wasn’t something
that should have been thrown at you the way we did it.”
Alberto and Anthony nodded
their heads accepting the apologies and smiled.
“We know it’s been a difficult adjustment with the girl’s being so
young,” said Anthony. “But we also
understand your family dynamic, you do everything as a family and we didn’t
take any offense to what you did.”
“If anything it made me feel
totally accepted,” said Alberto with a shrug.
“You treated me like you would one of your youngsters, you explained the
situation, we talked about it and you said we would decide as a family. You even gave us votes.”
“We were going to take you to
dinner one night to apologize and talk things out a little bit more, but if
you’re comfortable with the way we treat you there’s no need for that,” said
Frank with a smile.
Alberto laughed as he said,
“I didn’t say we’d turn down dinner, we’d never turn down dinner. I think we need to sit down and talk man to
man, it’ll do us good.” The four men laughed
and shook hands agreeing to go out to dinner once the Italians left.
Frank and Joe watched Anthony
and Alberto go back to their lunch table and then motioned with their heads
that it was time for the men to leave.
One by one they said goodbye to their Alpha who assured them their
youngsters would be safe. It was a
tradition on the first day of school for the fathers to gather at The Diner for
lunch and the back room started to fill up as they filed in.
“I didn’t realize how hard it
would be to leave them,” said Todd as he sat down at a long banquet table. “I’ve left them before to go to Council
meetings and when I’ve had to work, but I’ve never taken them somewhere and
dropped them off.”
“I was a wreck the first time
I left Vincent and Dominic. I stayed the
whole day in the security office in case they needed me,” admitted Frank with a
smile. He looked at his brother and
started to laugh before saying, “Joe was even worse with Lorenzo and Damian. He not only stayed, but he sat with them at
lunch and followed them around all day.
Every time they moved a foot, he was right there with them asking if
they were okay.” Joe put his head down
as Frank continued, “He even followed them into the bathroom.” The men broke out in laughter as Frank
finished the story.
“I couldn’t help it. I had separation anxiety, I wanted to make
sure my little boys were fine,” Joe said as he shook his head. “Now, I have no idea where they are half the
time and I’m scared of the half I do know about and terrified of the half I
don’t.”
“You should be scared if
Damian is involved. He’ll either end up
as President or on our Ten Most Wanted list at the FBI. Every time we talk about adding someone to
the list, I hold my breath to see if it’s him,” said Ed Giovanni with a
straight face as the men laughed even harder.
“One thing is, it’s never
boring when he’s around,” added John Benedetto with a smile and then he got a
serious expression on his face. “Dean
and Reggie said he’s a hell of a fighter though. They hate sparring or training with him. Well, in all honesty they hate training with
any of your boys.”
Frank smiled and shrugged his
shoulders before saying, “They give no quarter, if you beat them then it’s an
accomplishment and not many can beat them.”
Matt walked in and sat next
to Papa Mike and said, “Hey Dad, how did my nieces do after we left?” The table got quiet as the men absorbed what
Matt had said.
“Dad, nieces?” questioned
Vinnie looking at Matt, Todd and Papa Mike while the men listened
intently.
“Yes,” said Matt with a smile
and didn’t say anything else. He knew
how much the men loved to gossip and knew it was killing them not to know what
was going on.
Vinnie narrowed his eyes and
said, “Oh no, you aren’t going to leave it at that. I want details and I want them now.” The other men nodded their heads in agreement
and leaned forward even more to see what was going on.
Frank, Joe and Matt started
to laugh and Todd told them the story, minus Phil’s part, about how they
developed their family bond. Silence
ensued for several minutes and then the men got up and hugged Matt and patted
Todd and Papa Mike on the back offering their congratulations. They knew how much Matt and Phil needed this
and were happy for them.
After they quieted down,
Frank said, “Carlo will tell you this evening, but we don’t want it to become
known outside of the Pack that they can communicate through the bond. It enables another level of protection for
the Miller girls and we don’t want to jeopardize that.” The men nodded their heads in agreement,
anything that dealt with Pack security they followed their Alpha’s, Frank and
Joe’s lead.
As the men were discussing
the upcoming football game against The Shenandoah Pack, two of Frank and Joe’s
work crews came in led by Joel and Jerry.
“Hey bosses,” said Jerry as he sat down next to Frank. “Are you sure it won’t be a problem for the
boys to watch our young ones?”
“Actually, I think they’re
looking forward to it. Vin was giving
them pointers as to the correct way to hold Hope and Dom was hoping to get back
in time to see Jackie before you picked them up,” said Joe with a laugh.
“How are things going at the
site?” asked Frank as he turned to look at Joel.
Joel took a deep sigh and
said, “I can’t wait until Papa Mike is able to supervise the electrical
crew. The group from Eastern
Shore is good, but damn are they slow. They were holding us up, so instead of us
stand around waiting on them, I left three guys to supervise and the rest of us
went to that addition we’re doing in Sharpsburg
“The home owners were
surprised when fifty guys pulled up, but once we started working and they saw
how fast things were going, they were happy,” added Jerry with a smile. “The walls are up on the first and second
floor and we’re getting ready to put the roof on this afternoon. Joel called the building supply company and
they’re delivering the trusses at 2, so by the time we get back they should be
ready for us. The plywood, shingles, tar
paper and roofing nails were delivered so we’re good.”
Joel swallowed his bite of
hamburger before continuing while his brother ate, “Jerry called the inspectors
and they’ll be out tomorrow morning at 8 to inspect the trusses so we can
shingle it. Oh, the roofing supplies
were put them in the home owner’s garage so they wouldn’t be left out overnight
and get stolen.”
Frank looked at Joe and said,
“Rose and Annie were right. Promoting them was the best thing to do, look
at everything they did and we didn’t even get a phone call.”
“You’re not going to let them know they were right,
are you?” asked Joe with a smile as
he finished his French fries.
“Hell no,”
replied Frank giving his brother an ‘Are you crazy?’ look. “Good job guys, you made a good decision to
go to the Sharpsburg
“Thanks boss,” said Jerry
with a smile. He looked around the table
and noticed the other men talking loudly amongst themselves and leaned in
towards Frank and said, “Hey boss, I wanted to let you know how thankful we are
that you trusted us enough to give us this promotion and we want you to know we
won’t let you down.”
Frank smiled at the younger
man and said, “I know you won’t. You and
your brother have been working for us since you turned sixteen by sweeping up
job sites, hauling equipment and have earned the positions you have now, nobody
gave them to you. We have complete
confidence in the two of you and when you leave work today, stop by Vinnie’s he
has a new truck for each of you.”
“Are you serious?” asked Joel
and Jerry their eyes wide with excitement.
“We figured since you were
site supervisors now, you would need a heavier duty truck, instead of the
standard F-150,” said Joe with a grin.
“So we got you the 350-XLT with the extended truck beds. Leave your old trucks at Vinnie’s, he’s going
to give them a once over and they’ll go to the new foreman’s.”
“Who else are you
promoting? Hold on a sec,” asked Jerry
as he glanced quickly at his watch before raising his voice to get the work
crews attention. “Guys, hurry up and
finish, we need to leave in ten minutes to get back to the site on time. Don’t worry about lunch; the bosses are
paying.”
“Thanks boss” were heard from
the work crews and Frank and Joe got up and walked over to where their crews
were sitting and Joel and Jerry followed.
“I know Joe sent the email
about Joel and Jerry’s promotion, but it leaves us with two foreman positions
open,” said Frank looking at the men.
“We’re promoting Larry and Barry.
Larry you’ll be foreman of the hospital project and Barry you’ll be
foreman of the Sharpsburg
Larry and Barry shook hands
with Frank and Joe as the men offered congratulations. Joe smiled and said, “You don’t get new
trucks, but you’re getting Joel and Jerry’s old ones, they should be ready for
you to pick up on Wednesday. Vinnie’s
replacing the tires and doing general maintenance on them for you.”
“Dante called, his plane should land in about 45
minutes,” said Carlo to Frank, Joe
and Carmelo.
“Okay, we’re still at The Diner. Do you want to meet us at our office and
follow us? We need to stop and get
Annie’s SUV,” said Joe.
“I already have Rita’s SUV,” said Carmelo. “I’ll follow Frank and Joe.”
“That’s fine, we’ll meet at your office in 15
minutes,” said Carlo.
Forty minutes later they were
waiting on the tarmac in front of a private hangar at Hagerstown Regional
Airport
“You have a spare $50 mil
layin around?” asked Carlo with a smile.
“That’s the base price and knowing my cousin, I’m sure Dante made
upgrades.” As they watched several men
in official government uniforms followed the plane into the hangar and secured
the doors with a guard standing outside.
Carlo said, “Customs should take about thirty minutes, let’s go inside
and get a cup of coffee.”
“How are the youngsters
doing?” asked Frank once they were seated at the snack bar.
“Good. They’re doing placement tests, and by
tomorrow we should have their schedules.
The last couple of drills went well, but we need to get the response
time down to two minutes,” said Carlo with a frown. “I’ll need the three of you tomorrow, right
now that’s the most important thing to work on.
Frank and Joe, I’ll need your crew out there to install the plywood on
the portico. I’d also like Paulo to look
over the electronics again to see what upgrades we need to support all the new
cameras.”
Joe was quiet for several
moments and said, “Paulo said he’ll look over the system tomorrow after
school. He’d like to have the school
empty of students and he has some things he wants to test out.”
Carlo looked out the window
and was quiet for several minutes before he said, “We need to put someone in
charge of preparing the safe rooms. I
don’t want it to be any of you, there’s enough going on that the three of you
will busy.”
The men got quiet as they
thought of who would be capable of doing it, and Joe said, “Why don’t you put
the women in charge of it? They could
divide the work load between all of them and let’s be honest, they are better
then us at organizing and supervising things.”
Carmelo nodded his head
saying, “Joe’s right, we can go in and check the mechanical aspects, but
everything else they are more then capable of handling.”
“It’s settled, I’ll tell Gina
and they can discuss it at the Tuesday women’s luncheon,” said Carlo before he
got quiet again. Frank, Joe and Carmelo finished their coffee and sat quietly knowing Carlo was deep in thought and
didn’t want to disturb him. A little
over fifteen minutes later, Carlo got up and without a word the three men
followed him out onto the tarmac to wait for the Rossi Pack. Another ten minutes went by before the
government officials pushed the sliding doors open and nodding to the four men
went into the Airport Terminal. “They
should be out soon,” said Carlo as he rolled his neck, anxious to get moving.
Moments later, the Rossi Pack
emerged from the shadows of the private hangar.
Dante was at point and flanked by the Carlucci Cousins with the rest of
the men lined up in a standard V formation as they strutted out of the
hanger. They were dressed in identical
black Armani suits, white shirts, black silk ties, handmade black Italian shoes
and wearing Ray Ban Classic Wayfarers.
“I feel like I’ve stepped
into a fucking Quentin Tarantino movie,” said Frank unable to tear his eyes
away. “But at least none of them looks
like Steve Buscemi.”
“I’m waiting for some of that
retro music to start playing,” added Carmelo as he glanced at Frank, Joe and
Carlo.
“Like the 5-6-7-8’s,” said
Joe with a laugh. “I can hear the wooh
hoo wooh hoo hoo’s in my head.”
“You’ve got to admit, they’ve
got style. Only Dante and his Pack could
pull off that retro Mafioso gangster look and get away with it,” said Carlo as
he laughed. Dante stopped walking five
feet in front of him and Carlo walked forward and the two cousins stared at
each other for several moments before embracing. Their facial structure was similar, making it
obvious they were related, but Dante was leaner and had striking blue eyes that
were part of his mother’s English heritage.
“Thank you for coming,” Carlo said quietly into Dante’s ear. The two Alphas’ stepped away from each other
and stared at each other again.
“We’re family, you would do
the same for us,” said Dante quietly. He
glanced around at their surroundings as if gathering his thoughts before he
continued in a normal tone, “For over two thousand years, the Rossi Pack has
stood together through good times and bad.
When one falls, we are there to help them stand. When one hurts, we are there to wash the pain
away. When one grieves, we are there to
lesson the pain. When there is joy, we
are there to share in their happiness.”
He got quiet again and looked
at the members of South Mountain Pack before turning around and looking at the
members of his Pack that travelled with him.
He stood to his full height of 6’3” and said in a cold deadly voice,
“But when somebody dares to hurt one of us, the full strength and power of the
whole fucking Pack will descend down upon them.
May Luna have mercy on them… because we won’t.”
“Dobbiamo proteggere la
confezione e la famiglia sopra ogni cosa,” both cousins recited before
embracing again.
Frank and Joe stepped forward
to embrace their cousins Ricardo and Rocco.
They were obviously related to each other with their piercing emerald
eyes, black hair and chiseled jaws, but they were much shorter being 6’1” and
weighed 200 pounds to Frank and Joe’s 6’5” and 240 pounds.
Carmelo embraced his cousin
Gustavo; they had seen each other in June when he and Rita accompanied their
parents and Gabriella to Italy Italy
After embracing his cousins,
Ric stepped back and said “You’ve gotten old.”
Frank started laughing as he
said, “We’re only six days older then you and you’re the one that has gray
hairs at your temple.”
Ric said in an arrogant
condescending tone, “They are a badge of honor to show my wisdom and strength
of character.”
Rocco rolled his eyes as he
added, “Liar… we left in such a hurry, he didn’t have time to go to the
salon. He was going to pluck them out
but Dante told him that ten more would come, so now he is embracing them and
his old age.”
“Old age my ass, I am
reaching my prime and only getting better,” Ric said as he hit his younger
brother hard on the shoulder. “I’ll deal
with you later little one, when I whip your ass in the ring.”
“Little one my ass,” retorted
Rocco. “You’re two minutes older then me
and I’d like to see you try and whip my ass, the last couple of times it’s been
a draw.”
“I see the two of you still
argue like a bunch of young ones fighting for the last piece of cake,” said Joe
as he saw Luciano Vitti walking towards them.
Luciano glared at Frank and
Joe, looking at them from head to toe before saying, “I hope you two hotheads
are treating my cousins well. Cause if I
hear anything different, I won’t hesitate to take you both in the ring and
teach you a lesson.”
“Luke, I don’t think you
could beat Salvatore or Victor, let alone Joe or I,” said Frank as he shook his
head his head at the much younger man.
“And you know Rose and Annie
would kick their ass if these two treated them bad,” added Carlo and the men
started to laugh knowing it was true.
Dante looked at his Pack
members and said, “Load the luggage in the vehicles; I am anxious to get to the
best restaurant on earth.” As he was
walking to the car he said, “I hope they let me have a lot of the crispies,
damn I love those.”
The men laughed at Dante’s
obsession with Long John Silvers and particularly their chicken planks. It had started as a teenager when he was on
vacation and they had gone to Valley Mall to see a movie. Since they had limited time before the movie
started, they chose Long John Silvers and three hours later, Dante was still
eating and they had missed the movie.
Twenty-five minutes later,
Dante was rushing everyone inside Valley Mall.
As they walked towards the register, the manager noticed them and said
quietly to the cashier, “Go tell them Mr. Rossi from Italy
“Yes Amanda, and thank you,
it’s a pleasure to be back,” said Dante with a smile. “I’ll start with the twelve piece chicken
plank meal with cole slaw, hushpuppies, fries, large drink, twenty of the
add-a-piece shrimp and an order of popcorn shrimp.”
“Sir, would you like extra
crispies? I can have them give you a
plateful,” Amanda said with a smile as Dante eagerly nodded his head before
sitting down as one by one each man ordered a massive amount of food. Dante’s visits to LJS were so legendary that
accounts of his visits were written about in the company newsletter along with
whispers about the massive tips he left.
The fry cooks hustled back
and forth between the fryers, the freezer and getting the items plated as the
manager and cashier brought the seemingly endless amount of trays out. Two hours later, their bill was over $800 and
Dante and his Pack members were finally full.
He got up and paid whispering to Amanda, she nodded her head and went to
the back as he sat down to finish his soda.
The exhausted crew came to
where the men were sitting and Dante stood thanking them for their excellent
cooking skills and wonderful service. As
he shook each person’s hand he gave them each a $500 tip knowing this was more
then they would make in a week or probably two weeks. He thanked them again and told them he would
see them again before he returned to Italy
As they walked out of the
restaurant, the cashier turned to Amanda and asked, “Okay, who was that?”
“That was Dante Rossi, CEO of
Rossi International and one of the richest men in the world. Forbes has him listed at number 2 because
most of his holdings are private so it’s only an estimate. I’m not sure who the rest of the Men in Black
were, but I’m assuming his bodyguards.
The really tall guy was Carlo Rossi of Rossi Grocery Stores, the two in
silver and navy were Frank and Joe Carlucci of Carlucci Construction, and the
other guy was Carmelo Moretti, he owns the Carmelo’s Pizza Parlor Restaurant
chain,” said Amanda with a shrug. “Come
on, we’ve got a special order to put in, they about cleared out the freezer and
if they’re coming back, we’d better order extra.” The workers were cheerfully cleaning up the
mess, and their talk centered over what they would do with their tip.
“It was worth the trip just
to eat there,” Dante said with a smile.
As they got into the vehicle he said, “If you don’t mind Carlo, I’m
going to go into a food coma, wake me when we get to your house.” The drive to Carlo’s was quiet as all the
Rossi Pack members closed their eyes and rested on the thirty minute trip.
“Dante! I’m so happy to see you,” Gina said as she
ran and embraced him. Carlo gave a low
growl and pulled her away from Dante who started to laugh and Gina shook her
head. She looked at her mate as she
said, “Carlo, he’s my cousin as well as yours.
In fact I’m a closer blood relation to Dante then you are or did you
forget that my grandfather and his grandmother were brother and sister?”
“I don’t care,” growled Carlo
as he scented her neck. “I don’t like
seeing you in another males arms, I don’t care who it is.”
“Whatever. Dante, your room is ready and the dorm room
is ready for everybody else at least for now.
Luke, Ric and Rocco, Rose and Annie said you would be staying with them,
and Gus you are staying with Carmelo.
I’m sure the rest of you gentlemen will be staying with your families
once they realize you are here,” said Gina with a smile. “But for now, go upstairs and rest before the
men’s meeting tonight. Anthony’s at
football practice until 5:30 so it’ll be quiet.” The Rossi Pack nodded their heads and went
upstairs, eager for a nap and a shower later.
“We’ve got to go,” said Frank
to Carlo. “The girls are at my house and
we want to find out how their first day of school went. It’s not often we get to spend time alone
with them without their brothers butting in all the time.”
“We’ll be back to help drive
everyone to the meeting,” said Joe as Carlo nodded.
Frank and Joe were walking in
the door as Sophia and Maria were coming downstairs from changing out of their
uniforms. After hugging and scenting
their daughters to make sure they were okay, they followed them into the
kitchen where Rose was making dinner while Annie was getting a snack for the
girls. They scented their mates and
leaned against the counter smiling at their daughters as they listened to them
excitedly tell their moms about everything that happened at school. Two hours later, the boys walked into the
kitchen as Rose was taking the garlic bread and four trays of lasagna out of
the oven.
After greeting their parents,
they loaded their plates and started to eat.
“Hurry up,” said Vin as he shoveled food into his mouth. “The little ones should be here in twenty minutes. Remember, no rough stuff with them, be
careful how you pick them up and make sure their booster seats are fastened
tight. And most of all make sure they
don’t cry… and if they do, I’ll make you cry even harder.”
“Yes, Dad,” said Gianni
sarcastically. “What do you think we’d
be doing with them that we would be rough?”
“Hoops with Hope,” said
Marcus with a laugh as Vin scowled.
“Archery with Abby,” said a
grinning Paulo as he turned to his twin.
“Jiujitsu with Jackie,” said
Michael with a laugh as he high-fived Paulo.
“Boxing with Brooke,” said
Victor with a smirk, turning to Sal.
“Taekwondo with Toni,” added
Sal with a laugh as he looked at Victor.
“Enough with the smart ass
answers,” snapped Dom. “Just remember
they are little girls and be gentle with them and don’t make them cry.”
“Lorenzo is the only one that
makes girls cry,” said Damian with a smirk as he looked at Lorenzo who was
frowning.
“And why would I make them
cry?” asked Lorenzo who glared at Vin and Dom before turning to glare at Damian. “And what do you mean I make girls cry?”
Maria rolled her eyes and
said, “Well, you’ve known your girlfriend for less then a week and you’ve made
her cry several times, you’ve hollered at her, you’ve sneezed on her, you’ve
ignored her, you threatened to drop her on her ass and to top it all you
snotted all over her face…so if anybody would make them cry, it would be you.”
The Clan, except for Lorenzo
burst out laughing. He slammed his cup
down and hollered, “FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME, SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND.”
Their parents looked up from
where they sitting at the breakfast bar and Frank asked, “Is there a problem we
should know about?” Fourteen youngsters
shook their heads no and thirteen of them continued to laugh.
“Don’t you want to know what Erin was asking Maria when you hollered at her?” asked
Sophia with an innocent smile. “And I
guess you don’t want to know Patrick and Bob Reeder asked Caitlin and Erin out
to dinner and bowling after the game?”
“WHAT?” hollered Lorenzo and
Damian, both snapping their heads to look at Sophia and then to Vin who nodded
his head in confirmation.
“Yup, they’re going on their
first date, actually a quadruple date with Sophia and me,” said Maria with an
evil smile as she looked at her oldest set of brothers. “They’re really excited and Matt and Phil are
taking them clothes shopping on Friday to get them new outfits so they look
nice.”
Lorenzo clamped his mouth
tightly shut and he could feel his wolf pacing back and forth in
agitation. Before he could stop himself he
demanded, “Which one of those bastards is going out with Erin ?” His hand was gripping the fork so tight he
bent the handle and threw it on the table in disgust.
Before anything else could be
said, Frank and Joe started walking to the front door, drawing their
attention. Moments later they heard the
doorbell ring and then Frank and Joe led the Costello’s, the Whitmer’s and
Harold Poffenberger into the kitchen.
Each man was holding their daughters hand and had an anxious look on
their face.
“Wenzo,” shouted Brooke
running to him as he scooped her up and put her in his lap. His agitation instantly gone and a feeling of
protectiveness took over instead as his wolf went on alert to guard the little
one.
“Vinnie,” shouted Hope with a
big smile on her face as he picked her up.
He brought her over to the fridge and got a juice box out for her and he
scented the air to make sure there wasn’t any threat to the little one before
they sat back down.
“Dommie,” shouted Jackie as
Dom picked her up. As they were walking
back to the table, his eyes scanned the backyard for any threat and his wolf
started pacing back and forth, protective over his little charge.
“Damian,” shouted Toni as she
ran towards him, he laughed and picked her up settling her on his lap. He felt the hair on his arms elongate as his
wolf neared the surface, ready to do battle to protect the little one.
Abigail Whitmer grabbed hold
of her daddy’s pants leg and held tight because Anthony wasn’t there. Joel leaned down and whispered to her and she
shook her head, her lips formed a pout and her eyes turned glassy. Seeing this, Enzo moved quickly to kneel in
front of her and said quietly, “Anthony is very sorry he couldn’t be here, but
he’s at his house getting ready for the meeting and he asked me to watch over
you tonight. Is that okay with
you?” Abby looked up at her daddy and
seeing him nod his head, she shyly smiled at Enzo and put her hands up for him
to pick her up. Enzo held her tight to
his chest and patted her back while she put her head on his shoulder. He looked at her father and said quietly,
“With my life.” Joel took a deep breath
and nodded his head knowing Enzo spoke the truth.
“Sorry we’re early,” said
Jerry as he watched Enzo carry his niece to the table and give her some
dessert. “We wanted to make sure the
girls were okay since we knew Vincent, Dominic and Anthony were going to the
meeting. We left their booster seats on
the porch and their dance bags too.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a
problem?” asked Barry as he smiled at his daughter whispering in Damian’s ear
as she pointed to his slice of apple pie.
“It’s no problem,” said Joe
as laughter was heard from the youngsters.
“Anytime you need them to watch your young ones, they’ll be happy to do
it.”
“Can I get you anything to
eat or drink? We have lasagna,
meatballs, sausage and salad, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream for
dessert,” said Rose as she got more plates out.
“You have plenty of time before you need to leave.”
“If it’s no problem,” said
Joel as he moved to get some lasagna.
“You make the best lasagna, if you wouldn’t mind giving Veronica the
recipe, I’d appreciate it.”
Rose smiled as she said, “I
don’t have a recipe, but next time I make it I’ll have her watch and your
family can come for dinner. In fact, it
would be a good idea to have all five of your families over so the youngsters
can continue to bond.”
Five minutes later, the boys
were putting the booster seats in the third seat of the two SUVs’. Brooke, Toni and Abby would be in one SUV
with Lorenzo, Damian, Enzo and Salvatore.
Jackie, Hope and Sophia would be in the second SUV with Gianni, Marcus,
Gino and Victor. Maria and Michael would
be with Paulo in his truck.
As soon as they started down
the driveway, Brooke started to cry and Toni and Abby were tearing up and
Salvatore started to panic, “What’s the matter?
Please stop crying, tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help unless you tell
me what’s wrong. Damian, what’s wrong
with her, I mean with all of them?”
“Lorenzo, we weren’t rough,
why are they crying?” asked Enzo as he looked like he was going to have a
meltdown any second.
“What’s wrong, Brooke?” asked
Damian as he turned from the front seat, his eyes wide with concern. She continued to cry, her little shoulders
heaving up and down and pointed at her head and Toni and Abby’s lips were
starting to quiver as tears slowly fell down their face. He turned towards Lorenzo and said in a
panicked shout, “WHAT DO WE DO? WHAT’S
THE MATTER WITH THEM? ARE THEY
HURT? DO WE NEED TO BRING THEM TO DOC?”
“Does your head hurt? Do you need to go potty? Do you need something to drink?” asked
Lorenzo in a terrified voice as he looked at her in the rearview mirror.
In between sobs she said
brokenly, “You didden put on my teearwah.”
“MARIA, WHAT THE HELL IS A TIARA? WHERE CAN I FIND ONE?” pleaded Lorenzo in a panic as Damian was shifting his
ears and nose into his wolf form, Sal was playing peek-a-boo and Enzo was
shifting his eyes from green to amber as they tried anything to distract them
and stop the tears.
“Oh, they’re crowns, the little ones wear crowns or
tiaras to class and they should be in their dance bags,” said Maria with a giggle.
“CROWNS, CROWNS, GET THEM OUT
OF THEIR DANCE BAGS,” screamed Lorenzo pointing to his head. Enzo and Sal dove over the girls into the
cargo area and almost tore the bags apart to get the tiaras for the girls.
“Here, please stop crying
now,” pleaded Enzo as he held the six tiaras he found.
“Here’s some more, please,
please, please stop crying,” said Sal as he held another five. The girls picked one and put it on but Brooke
was still hiccupping and started to tear up again. Sal was starting to panic again, he looked at
Enzo and trying to get the girls to stop crying he put a tiara on Enzo’s
head. Toni and Abby started to giggle
and Brooke stopped crying but didn’t smile so Sal put one on his head. She pointed to Lorenzo so Sal put one on him
and she finally started to giggle and clap her hands.
“Hey, what about me? Don’t I get one?” asked Damian pretending to
be angry as he started to pout making the girls giggle louder. Sal picked one out and gave it to Damian and
Lorenzo looked at the girls in the rearview mirror and asked, “How do I look?”
Abby giggled and said,
“Pretty but Enzo and Sal are prettier.”
“Noooo, Wenzo wooks pwettier,
he’s bootiful,” said Brooke clapping her hands.
“Nuh uh, Damian is the
prettiest, he looks the bestest,” Toni said with a giggle.
Damian started laughing and
said, “You can’t argue with that. Even
little girls know I’m the prettiest and the bestest. I’ve been telling the bunch of you that for
years, now maybe you’ll start believing me.”
“In your fucking dreams. Lorenzo is your IDENTICAL twin, so how are
you better looking than him? And you
look exactly like the rest of us, even our fucking dimples are the same, the
only difference is you have a fatter ass,” said Sal as Lorenzo and Enzo started laughing harder.
“Leave my ass alone.
Besides, it’s not fat it’s grabbable,” said Damian with a grin.
“Maybe for somebody who has monster sized hands,” replied Lorenzo with a smirk as the boys continued
laughing.
As their laughter died down,
the boys took a deep breath, thankful the girls were giggling as they pulled in
front of the dance studio. Lorenzo,
Damian, Enzo and Sal got out and scented the parking area while they scanned it
before getting the girls out. Still on
alert, Lorenzo, Damian and Enzo held the girls while Sal got their dance bags
out of the back and relaxed as they scented their family approaching. As they turned around, they were blinded by
the flash as Sophia and Maria took a picture.
“Lorenzo, that tiara looks
fabulous with your outfit,” said Maria giggling. “I’m gonna have mom frame this.” At his scowl, the youngsters burst out
laughing and Brooke pushed the corners of his mouth into a smile before she
started clapping her hands again.
“Paulo, could you make this
my screensaver on my computer?” asked Sophia with a big grin. “I think mom and Aunt Annie would like it for
their work computers too.”
“Whatever,” said Damian with
a smile. “We know how jealous you two
are because of how pretty and beautiful we are, right girls?” Abby, Toni and Brooke nodded their heads and
started to giggle louder, agreeing with Damian even if they didn’t quite
understand what he was saying.
“Gabby’s here,” said Sal
quietly as he watched Gabby, her mom and her grandmothers pull into the parking
lot.
As Gabby walked towards them
she saw the tiara on Sal’s head and burst out laughing, “Let me guess, they were
crying and you were cheering them up?” A
slight blush covered his face and he nodded as she said, “You are so sweet, I
could just ki…” When she realized what
she was about to say, her face flushed bright red and she ran into the dance
studio as Sal’s jaw dropped.
As Rita walked past Sal, she
put her finger under his chin to close his mouth and said, “Maria is coming for
dinner Sunday, why don’t you come with her as one of her escorts?” Without waiting for an answer she went into
the studio followed by Gabby’s grandmothers who looked at Sal and smiled.
“Alright, time to get
inside,” said Gianni as they followed the Moretti’s. They went in the building past the reception
area and into the observation room and put the little girls on the bleachers to
change their shoes.
Hope looked at the other
little ones and nodded her head before saying in a pleading voice, “Gini? If we is good gihrls and dance good and don’t
cwy will we get ice cweam? Vinnie would
gets me some and Dom would gets Jackie a double scoops.”
Gianni knew he was being
manipulated, he could see the little wheels turning in her head but he couldn’t
stop himself from smiling. “Yes, if you
behave yourself and if we have time, then we’ll get ice cream. If we don’t have time, we’ll get ice cream
another day, okay?”
Hope sighed loudly and said,
“Okay Gini, but you gots to pinky swears, Jackie says it only countsess if you
pinky swears.” He could hear the little
girls giggling and knew he had been had by five munchkins, but if it kept them happy,
then so be it.
“Damian?” Toni whispered
leaning close to his ear as he changed her shoes. “Can I get my ice cream cone dipped in
chocolate? Daddy won’t let me sometimes
cause he says I’m too messy.”
Seeing the pleading look on
her face, he didn’t care how big of a mess she would make and said, “Of course,
you can have it any way you want. In
fact, I’ll get mine dipped in chocolate and we’ll both make a mess.” Toni started to giggle as Damian continued,
“But it might be better if we put one of my shirts on you so we don’t get your
pretty leotard and tutu thing dirty and we won’t have to worry about it,
okay?” Toni nodded her head and smiled
brightly and Damian wondered how it would be to have his own little ones,
particularly a little girl who would wrap his heart around her little
finger. First though he would have to
find a mate and an image of Caitlin popped into his mind which caused his wolf
to tilt his head to the side, before he started pacing back and forth on guard
again to watch out for his little charge.
“Wenzo, see my new dance
shoes? They’s bwack with a wittle
heels. Daddy boughted them for me and
they’re big gihrls shoes, like Marwia’s and Sophia’s,” Brooke said with a big smile
on her face.
“I see that and it’s because
you are a big girl now. Let me take your
sweater off so you don’t get hot,” he said and he put it in her bag. He glanced at Maria and said, “What else does
she need before she goes in the room?”
“That’s it, come on girls
time to warm up,” said Maria as they walked to the door on the other side of
the observation room. The dance studio
had been designed so you had to go through the observation room to get into any
of the other rooms, so there was no direct access to the girls while they were
there except through the hidden door leading to the basement and the safe
room. The boys took a deep breath and
started to relax as they watched the girls and started to talk amongst
themselves.
On the other side of the
warehouse building, the men were starting to arrive for their meeting. Fifteen years ago, seeing the potential to
consolidate their training facilities into one large building, SMI bought the
warehouse from a company who outgrew the building. Triple C completely gutted the building,
adding a basement and safe room, reinforced the outer walls and added security
upgrades. They had subdivided the
building into a girls dance studio, two large training rooms both with
observation rooms, a weight lifting room, changing rooms for the men and women,
and several other smaller multi-purpose rooms.
From the outside the building looked as it had since the 1970’s when it
was originally constructed with ribbed stainless steel siding.
Carlo, Frank and Joe were
standing in the middle of the room in front of two dry erase boards and two
corkboards that had The School House plans on one and the Safe room on the
other. Concerned voices could be heard
from the men as they sat in the bleachers because it was unusual for their
Alpha to call a special meeting of all the men.
Anthony, Vin, Dom and the Moretti’s joined Matt, Phil, Todd and Papa
Mike who were sitting in the front row directly in front of Carlo, Frank and
Joe.
At exactly 6:15 Carlo called
for quiet and instantly the men fell silent.
As he looked over the crowd, he took a deep breath and said in a firm
voice, “I want everyone to be quiet and listen carefully to what we are going
to discuss.” At their nods he said, “But
before we start, I want to bring out some visitors who are here to help us.”
Frank opened the door of the
men’s changing room where Dante and his Pack had been kept since the strong
odor masked their scents. They had
changed out of their suits, but still looked like they stepped off a runway in
their pleated shorts, polo shirts and Italian loafers. As they followed Frank into the middle of the
training room, they were met with stunned silence as the men glanced to Carlo
then back to Dante several times as if they couldn’t quite believe what they
were seeing. Dante and Carlo embraced
and stood side by side, with Frank and Joe on Carlo’s right and Dante and his
men on Carlo’s left. It was done
deliberately meaning that no matter what, Frank and Joe were Carlo’s right hand
men and nobody misunderstood the meaning.
“I’m going to start by saying
its bad men, really bad, it is our worst nightmare coming to fruition,” said
Carlo with a grimace. The men sat up
straight their attention focused entirely on their Alpha. “We learned we are going to be attacked in
the next twelve to eighteen months…” He
paused as he looked at the assembled group of men and said, “They are coming
after our girls again.”
The men reacted as Carlo had
predicted, low feral growls erupted from their throats as they shifted into
their wolves. Almost all of them moved
to the training room floor as they paced back and forth, snarling and throwing
their heads back while they bared their teeth.
Anthony, Vincent, Dominic, the four Millers and the Moretti’s stayed
seated and didn’t move but kept staring at Carlo, Frank and Joe.
He saw a group of wolves bolt
towards the doors and knew where they were headed, to their daughters dance
class. “STOP,” he commanded and the
wolves stopped in their tracks, unable to disobey their Alpha. “Your daughters are safe, their mothers,
brothers and protectors are with them.
Your job is to stay here and figure out ways to protect your Pack and
thus we will protect each other as we have always done.” One by one they shifted remembering they
weren’t alone in protecting their daughters and families, the whole Pack was
here and would protect them. Unconcerned
with being naked, the men returned to their seats. Once they were settled they became quiet and
focused on the men commanding their attention in the middle of the room.
“Alpha Carlo contacted me
invoking the ancient marker, but we didn’t accept it… because we protect our
own,” said Dante in a clear firm voice.
He looked at his Pack members and then at his cousin and his top Beta’s
before looking over the men in the bleachers.
“That hasn’t changed in over two hundred thirty years of South Mountain
Packs existence and the two thousand years of Rossi Packs existence. Even though only half of you here today are
related to us by blood, we consider all of you family. My men and I are here to help prepare for
your time of trouble and we will be here fighting alongside of you when it
comes.” The men nodded their heads; they
knew exactly what Dante was talking about and knew if Rossi Pack needed help,
they would be there for them.
Their attention shifted to
their Alpha as Carlo cleared his throat before he started the story with the
Millers arrival and the reason behind it, the Alpha Council’s raid on the three
Packs responsible and finishing up with what he learned from Aldo. When he finished the room was again engulfed
in silence as the men took in the information.
Todd looked at his father and
brothers before standing up and walking to the middle of the room, Carlo looked
at him perplexed as Todd whispered, “We talked it over and feel this is something
we must do.” Carlo had a feeling he knew
what Todd was going to say and motioned for him to proceed.
Papa Mike, Matt and Phil
joined Todd as he sighed deeply before saying, “When we found out what was
going on and my daughters were the primary reason we would be attacked, we told
Alpha Carlo we would leave. He along
with Frank, Joe and Carmelo told us we would be fools to face this on our own
and the Pack was now our family and would fight to protect us.” He looked to his father and two brothers as
he stopped and gathered his thoughts.
“But in all good conscience
we feel the best thing would be for us to leave, and hope that by our leaving
it would spare the Pack from the upcoming war,” finished Todd.
One of the Elders, Marvin
Whitmer, Joel and Jerry’s great-grandfather stood up and said in a firm voice,
“Is it true that you have developed a family bond with Matt and Phil?” Frank and Joe looked at each before looking
at Carlo knowing the men’s gossip vine had been busy just as they thought it would
be since Joel and Jerry hadn’t even been there when the other men found out.
“Yes sir, we have developed a
family bond,” said Matt, bowing his head as a show of respect to the Elder.
“If you are Matt and Phil’s
family, then you are our family,” Elder Marvin stated as he stared at Matt and
Phil, then Todd. As he went to sit down
he paused and said, “Plus, I think those two young men sitting in the front
wouldn’t think highly of you taking their mates away. There will be no more
talk of you leaving our family young man.”
The other men on the bleachers nodded their heads in agreement.
“Yes sir,” said Todd as he
bowed his head to the Elder. The four
men reached out to each other and held hands, finally feeling as if they
belonged. For Matt and Phil it was a
confirmation of the acceptance that had been offered to them from their first
phone call to their Alpha; for Todd and Papa Mike it was because even though
these men didn’t know them, they knew the problems they had brought with them
and were still welcoming them and willing to protect their youngsters.
“Before we get started on
finding new ways to increase our security, I want to make it clear the family
bond they have created is to be kept secret.
Our enemies won’t know they can communicate through the bond and it
gives us extra protection for them,” Carlo stated and he looked at the men who
nodded their heads as the Millers took their seats. “Now, is there anything else you feel we need
to discuss before we get started on security?”
“Yes Alpha, do you have any
idea beside that other man, Charles, who could be behind this threat?” asked
Thomas Bellucci.
Frank whispered in Carlo’s
ear and he nodded his head before saying, “Frank will answer this question.”
“Joe and I thought about
this, and we wanted to clarify something with Aldo,” Aldo stood up as he stared
at Frank. “Yesterday, you mentioned the
feeling was one of revenge that had been festering for years. Can you tell us anything more?”
“Give me a minute Frank,”
said Aldo as he put his head down and closed his eyes tightly. “I’m getting anger, deep deep anger, hurt,
resentment and a feeling of satisfaction.”
He put his head back and said, “I’m sorry but that’s all I can tell
you.”
“So we are back to who hates
our Pack and wants revenge on us, who wants the Miller girls and the rest of
the females,” said Joe rubbing his neck.
“The only Pack we could think of was Rocky Mount Pack, Matt and Phil’s
old Pack, but we don’t feel they hate us enough to do this, and why would they
take the girls?”
The men were once again
silent and then Elder Arturo Pinelli, Vinnie’s grandfather, stood up and said,
“We only killed the men the first time.”
Frank, Joe and Carlo’s heads
snapped to him and Carlo said, “Can you repeat that?”
Everyone turned to stare at
him and he stood up as straight as he could as he repeated, “We only killed the
men the first time. Your grandfather as
first Alpha Council President decreed all of the men be killed that were
responsible in the Were War, and we followed the edict imposed by the
Council. But we let the women and
youngsters assimilate into new Packs, since their old Packs were
disbanded.” He cleared his throat and
looked around the room and said, “Those youngsters and their descendants are
the ones you are looking for, they are the ones seeking revenge on us.”
The rest of the Elders stood
up, twenty-seven in total and stared at each other and nodded their heads
before Elder Marvin said, “There’s something else you need to know Carlo. Your grandfather wanted to tell you when he
felt you were mature enough to handle it, but before he could he finally
succumbed to the silver poisoning he received, and your grandmother followed
him into the Afterlife within a week. He
was one of the strongest men we knew and he only held on as long as he did
through sheer strength and determination to see you take your rightful place as
Alpha.”
Elder Marco Balducci opened
his mouth then closed it and looked to the other Elders for confirmation before
he said, “We’ve debated for years whether or not you should be told and decided
you were better off not knowing the truth.
But in light of what is going on now, we have to disclose it to
you.” He paused and looked first at
Anthony then at Carlo and closed his eyes briefly before saying in a quiet
voice that still reverberated throughout the training room, “Your parent’s
plane crash was no accident, they were murdered.”
Carlo and Anthony threw their
heads back and emitted piercing howls of grief and anger. Carlo for the loving parents that were taken
from him too soon, Anthony for the grandparents he never had. The males automatically submitted their necks
to their Alpha and his son who were on the verge of shifting.
Anthony moved to stand next
to his father on his right as his eyes flickered between amber and black, his
claws were extended and hair was growing on his arms. Carlo’s eyes were pure black, his arms were
trembling and his shirt seams were starting to tear as he fought his body from
shifting. Taking deep ragged breaths, he
stared at the Elders and said in a quiet deadly voice, “Tell me everything.”
Elder Marvin stared at Carlo
as he said, “A woman who identified herself as Jane, President Cahill’s new
secretary called and informed your mother there was an emergency Council
meeting. She said arrangements had been
made for a private plane to pick up several Alpha’s since time was critical and
due to the passenger limit only your mother and father were to be on the plane. We urged your parents not to get on the
plane, since they wouldn’t have any security but your father took his duties
seriously and arranged for ten of us to follow later in a separate plane.”
“We still argued with him and
called your father to try and get him to change his mind. He was his best friend as well as his Second
in Command,” said Elder Robert Benedetto as he stared at Frank and Joe. “He was in New York New York
Joe and Frank nodded their
heads, they were familiar with this part of the story, their father had
contacted Ray, Rose and Annie’s father, who was in Lake
Placid working on arrangements for the upcoming Olympics which would
be held in three years.
“We all felt the Alpha Bond
break and knew they had died,” whispered Elder Marco as the men bowed their
heads in memory of their dead Alpha and Alpha female. Dante moved out of the way as Joe came to
stand on Carlo’s left to offer his support and Frank remained on Anthony’s
right.
“You were only fifteen and
your grandparents and our main concern was your safety and welfare, that’s all
we were focusing on at first,” said Elder Marvin looking at Carlo. “Several hours later Ray was able to make it
to the crash site and that raised the first alarm bells. The plane was found less then a half mile
from the site where our females had been massacred in the Pocono
Mountains . He used his
State Department credentials and examined the plane and the bodies and knew
immediately it wasn’t an accident, that they had been murdered.”
Elder Nicolo Giovanni spoke
next, “He could smell the Wolf’s Bane, which they used to paralyze your
parents. There were only two bodies at
the crash site, the investigators said the pilots bodies were thrown into one
of the canyons and hadn’t been discovered but Ray noticed two parachutes were
missing, the investigators wrote the missing parachutes off as being burned in
the crash but Ray knew better.”
“Your grandfather immediately
had us start our own investigation, we knew we had to deal with this on our own
and a year later we found the party responsible,” said Elder Arturo. He looked at the other Elders and they stood
straight as he continued, “We went in during the darkest part of the night,
made sure everyone was there and questioned them. The Alpha Female was named Jane, she was the
one who called your mother and organized the murder. She was bragging and said, ‘I murdered your
Alpha’s like you murdered my father and the rest of the men in my Pack’, that
was when we discovered she was the daughter of one of the Alpha’s executed
during the Were War. She had grown up
hating our Pack and passed that hate onto her new Pack, even the youngsters
were brought up hating us.”
Elder Howard Martin, Senator
Clay Martin’s grandfather, spoke next, “We ransacked the offices and discovered
their plans to kill you, Frank and Joe, the next generation of leaders. Their plan was to weaken our Pack because of
your deaths and then come in and kill the rest of us, but the increased
security around the three of you prevented that, so they changed their
plans. They petitioned the Alpha Council
to send some of their youngsters to Univ of MD on the pretext of studying
engineering, once they were there they would befriend the three of you and when
they saw the opportunity, they would kill the three of you. When we questioned the youngsters they were
proud of the part they would play in your deaths, and said they had been training
specifically for it.”
Elder Arturo took a deep
breath glancing at the other Elders before returning his gaze to Carlo as he
continued, “We knew after talking to them and watching them that when they grew
up there was nothing that would stop them from coming after us again. Their hate was too strong; it had been fed to
them daily from the day they were born, they left us no choice… we killed all
of them…every man, woman and youngster.
We showed them no mercy and left no one alive.”
The men sat in stunned
silence, incapable of doing anything, but the Elders weren’t done yet. Elder Marvin continued, “After we killed
them, we went through the Pack house room by room, removed anything related to
our way of life as Were’s and placed the dead bodies in their rooms as if they
were sleeping. We lit a fire in the
Alpha’s bedroom which was on the top floor and cut the gas lines letting the
house fill with gas, the resulting explosion was tremendous and left no trace
that we were there and the authorities who came in blamed it on a faulty gas
line.”
“Why did you keep this from
me? How did you keep it secret all this
time?” asked Carlo with a tremor in his voice as he tried to focus, his brain
was on overload as he tried to process all this information.
“Would it have changed
anything if you knew your parents had been murdered? You were fifteen years old when it happened,
sixteen when we extracted our revenge and we felt you didn’t need to know,”
said Elder Nico. “Nobody beside the
thirty of us knew what we had done and the truth behind your parent’s death,
not even our mates. We were your
grandfather’s blood sworn companions, your father’s Second and Third in command
and we would have gone to our graves without you knowing if this new threat
hadn’t happened.”
“Dobbiamo proteggere la
confezione e la famiglia sopra ogni cosa,” the Elders recited as one. Elder Arturo looked at Anthony before turning
his gaze on Carlo as he said, “We did what we had to do to protect the Pack and
we will continue to do everything to protect your son and our females. They are our future, and we will show no
mercy on anybody that tries to harm them.”
“Damn, I thought the
Sicilians were nasty,” whispered Dante to Joe and Carlo.
“So we have an idea who may
be behind the threats now,” said Frank as Carlo and Anthony continued to stare
at the Elders. “We have to do some
research and track down the families of the men responsible for the Were War.”
Elder Marvin cleared his
throat and said, “We managed to track down almost all of the youngsters and
families of the guilty Alpha’s. We
figured if one female could orchestrate the death of your parents then the
other youngsters should be monitored.
Over the years, everything has been put on digital files and we’ll give
you copies as well as the paper files.”
Elder Marvin stopped for a moment and glanced at Joe. “Your son should be able to find any
information we may have missed.”
“Did the two of you know
about this?” Carlo quietly asked Frank and Joe as he stared into their eyes,
looking for any hint they were lying.
The only other sound in the room came from the Elders sitting down.
“Carlo, we had no idea. We’ve been friends since the day we were
born, if we knew we would have told you.
We would never have kept something like that from you,” answered Frank
as he looked into Carlo’s eyes. “I can’t
believe Dad and Pop knew and ….wait a minute, Elder Marvin said your
grandfather died of silver poisoning, when and how did that happen?”
Carlo, Anthony, Dante and Joe
looked at each other wondering the same thing.
Carlo looked at Elder Marvin and said, “You didn’t tell us
everything. You left out how and when my
grandfather was poisoned with silver.”
Elder Marvin sighed deeply
before he stood and he said, “When we were questioning the Alpha Female, the
youngsters created a distraction and she took the opportunity to grab a letter
opener and stab him. If it wasn’t for
your grandfathers’ quick reflexes, she would have stabbed him in the heart, as
it was she stabbed him in the left upper arm and a piece of the tip broke off.”
“Is there anything else you
are keeping from me?” asked Carlo with a frown and then another thought came to
him and his body went rigid as he shouted, “WHAT ABOUT THE DEATH OF MY
DAUGHTER? WAS THAT AN ACCIDENT? I WANT THE TRUTH. NO MORE FUCKING LIES OR SECRETS.”
Elder Arturo stood and shook
his head as he said, “We immediately thought it was another attempt, but when
we investigated we found it was just that, an accident. The driver of the truck had a heart condition
and suffered a heart attack before going through the light hitting Gina’s
car. You know the rest of the details,
he was from Hagerstown
Carlo stared at the Elders
and narrowed his eyes and said in a command tone, “Is there anything else I
need to know, anything that has been kept from me?” The Elders shook their head no, unable to
disobey an Alpha command.
“I think now’s a good time to
take a break,” said Joe as Carlo continued to stay quiet, he knew Carlo needed
a couple of minutes to regroup. “There’s
drinks and snacks in the observation area.”
He knew the men wouldn’t want to eat, but he was sure almost all of them
could use a beer.
As they watched the men file
into the observation room, Carlo turned to Anthony and said, “Are you okay
son?”
Anthony took a deep breath
before answering, “I’m fine Dad; it’s just hard to think my grandparents were
murdered in some bizarre twisted revenge plot and all these years later
somebody is still seeking revenge.
Haven’t they learned the history of what those men did? All the murders, rapes and injuries they
caused by their greed for money and power?”
“A child doesn’t see the
faults of their fathers, they only see the hurt others caused them,” said Dante
quietly as he shrugged his shoulders.
“And before you ask, no I didn’t know about this either, my father may
have, but I didn’t. Now if you’ll excuse us, my men and I are going to get
something to drink and they would like to greet their families.” As Dante and his men walked into the
observation room, Anthony motioned for Vin and Dom join him.
“Dad, you want something to
drink?” asked Anthony as his eyes scanned the room.
“Bring us back three beers,”
said Carlo as he stared at his son and thought of the joy his parents would
have had knowing their grandson and then thought of other things his parents
had missed; teaching him to drive, his declaration for Gina, his graduation
from high school, moving him into his dorm at college and his subsequent
graduation and finally his confirmation as Alpha of South Mountain Pack.
“When you said the Elders would know the stories
behind the official story, you weren’t kidding,” said Frank to Joe, looking at his sons in the
observation room.
“Now maybe you’ll start listening to me,” said Joe, satisfaction evident in his voice.
Frank turned to stare at his
brother and asked, “When don’t I listen
to you? I listen to everything you say,
and you’re literally in my head all the time.”
“Well….I don’t know, but it seemed like a good thing
to say at the time,” said Joe as he
shrugged his shoulders.
Frank glanced quickly at
Carlo who was staring at Anthony as he handed each of them a beer, before
turning to face his brother, “Are you
going through a mid-life crisis or something?
You are acting more and more like Damian everyday.”
“Fuck no, I just want you to admit I’m smarter then
you,” said Joe with a smile.
“I think you’re losing your fucking mind,” Frank said with a snort which drew Carlo’s
attention. “We took the SAT’s and got the same exact damn score. Every class we had we scored the same
grades. Obviously we share the same
brain and I think I got the majority of it.”
“Are you two done now?” asked Carlo, once more grateful for the presence of
Frank and Joe they could ground him and get his thoughts going in the right
direction better then anybody. “The two of you obviously forgot I never
closed the bond and to tell the truth neither of you are particularly
smart.” Frank and Joe glared at
Carlo and then Anthony who covered his laugh with a cough and they looked to
the front row and saw Vincent, Dominic, the Moretti’s and the Miller’s smiling
at them.
“You see what you did now?” asked Frank as he glared at Joe.
“Well, you started it,” said Joe as he rolled his neck and looked at his
brother out of the corner of his eye.
“You both started it…and thank you. My mind was going down a road paved with all
I had lost instead of what I have,”
said Carlo as he stared at his son. “And listening to the two of you argue like
idiots brought me back to where it should be.” Frank and Joe looked at the front row were
Vin and Dom were trying to hide their smiles, while the Moretti’s and the
Millers were smiling openly.
Carlo looked at the bleachers
and saw the men had returned to their seats, he cleared his throat and said,
“Well now that we’ve figured out the Who and Why, and we knew the basics of the
Where and When, that leave us with What are we going to do about it?” He saw the men sit up straighter as they
prepared to think of ways to fight the upcoming battle.
“Aldo and Jeff, come up
front, please,” asked Carlo and they started walking down the bleachers. “They will update you on what we planned for
The School House.” As Aldo and Jeff
explained the security upgrades they planned for The School House, Carlo
scanned the bleachers looking at his Pack members.
“I’m still having a hard time coming to terms with the
fact my parents were murdered and the Elders kept it quiet for over twenty-five
years,” he said, the tremor back in
his voice as he looked at Frank and Joe.
“I can understand their reasons for keeping quiet when
we were so young, but I still don’t understand why they didn’t tell us later,” said Frank with a shrug.
Joe looked around the room and
said, “Maybe it’s not our place to
question their decision, they did what they thought they had to do to protect
the Pack, and protect their Alpha-heir and his top commanders. If you had known Carlo, you wouldn’t be the man
you are today, you may have grown up bitter and enraged at everyone, as it was
you grew up well-adjusted and loved by your grandparents and Pack.”
Carlo glanced at Joe and
smirked as he said, “I think he’s right
Frank, I think he is smarter then you.”
“Fuck you,”
retorted Frank with an answering smirk. “Now quit the yapping I wanna hear what’s
going on.”
“Yes, my faithful Second in Command,” said Carlo as he started listening to Aldo. As soon as Aldo was finished, Carlo explained
the plans to put the women in charge of preparing the safe rooms and Frank and
Joe said they wanted to test the boys and the men to give promotions and to
test their strengths and weaknesses.
They also explained their plans to increase training for all Pack
members, especially the girls and said the fathers would be included in more of
their training sessions so the girls got used to fighting men. The men nodded their agreement to all the
plans.
“Now, we need your input as
to what else you think could be done to increase security,” said Carlo as Frank
walked to the dry erase board to write down the ideas.
In the dance studio, the
girls were practicing gymnastics after finishing up their tap lesson. Sophia and Maria had changed the little ones
shoes into pink slippers and the boys were laughing as the little girls were
doing somersaults with little to no success, Hope and Brooke would tuck their
heads and instead of rolling over would roll sideways, and lay on the mat
giggling. Jackie, Toni and Abby were
with the younger ones practicing handstands against the wall and as soon as
they were upright, they would look at each other and giggle causing them to
fall. Sophia and Gabby and the older
girls were practicing back hand springs, front hand springs, cartwheels and a
variety of tumbling movements in the center of the mat. Maria was standing along the side watching
because she still had her cast on her arm, it was scheduled to come off Tuesday
morning and she couldn’t wait.
“I wish we knew what was going on in the meeting,” Gianni said to his brothers and cousins.
“I still think Lorenzo and I should have been allowed
to go as the oldest members of our family,” grumbled Damian as Lorenzo nodded his head in agreement.
Marcus turned to stare at
Damian and asked, “And what would you
have been able to contribute to the meeting?
How to get liquor without using a fake ID while underage? How to evade direct questions so our parents
have no idea what is going on? How to
get other people to do exactly what you want without them realizing it?”
“Exactly, they need my people skills. Do you know anybody else who can do what I
do?” said Damian with a smirk as his family shook their heads no. “Nobody
can do what I do; it’s a skill that’s taken me years to perfect.”
“Well, if we’re talking about being sneaky and underhanded,
then you’re right,” said Paulo with a
smile as he looked at his older brother.
“I have no idea how you get away
with the things you do. If I did half of
what you do and mom and dad found out about it, I’d be grounded for life.”
Damian started to smile and
said, “That’s my whole point, they don’t
know because I don’t let them know and when they do find out, then they don’t
believe it, because nobody believes I would do what I did and if they do
believe I do it, then they don’t believe it because it’s not something they
think I would do, even if they think I did it, which they don’t’ believe.”
“What? That
doesn’t even make sense,” said
Michael with a laugh. “You’re talking in circles, and I don’t even
think you know what you’re saying.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but it distracted you from what we
were talking about, didn’t it?”
answered Damian with a shrug. “Oh look, the girls are almost done.”
“That’s something else you do, in the middle of a
conversation, you throw out the most random shit,” said Victor as he stared at Damian.
“Do I? I never
noticed that before,” replied Damian
as he gave Victor a side glance. “I think I’m more observant then the rest of
you and verbalize it before anybody else.
I’m going to get cookie dough dipped in chocolate when we go to Fred’s.”
The boy’s conversation
centered on what kind of ice cream they were getting at Fred’s while they
waited for the girls to join them in the observation room and then Sal said, “You did it again, completely turned the
conversation around to what you wanted to talk about.”
Damian shrugged his shoulders
and said, “Did not, I merely mentioned
what I was going to get at Fred’s and then the rest of you offered your
opinion. You can’t blame me for the rest
of you getting distracted. Here come the
munchkins.”
“Wenzo, did ya see me doin
the saults? And I didnt’s cwry once, not
even when Hopes knockeded me ova,” proclaimed Brooke proudly as he lifted her
onto the bleachers to change her shoes.
“Gini, did you see me? I didn’t cwry even whens I rolled off the
mats,” Hope said pointing into the dance studio. “I’s did wreally good.” Gianni nodded his head as he put her shoes on
and grabbed her sweater out of her bag.
“Damian, are we gonna get ice
cream?” whispered Toni as he changed her shoes and when he nodded his head she
clapped in delight.
“Marcus, are you gonna tell
Dommie how good I was?” whispered Jackie as he put her sweater on after
changing her shoes and when he nodded his head she smiled.
Abby stared at Enzo and she
leaned in whispering in his ear, “I cried when I fell and hurt my
shoulder. Does that mean I don’t get ice
cream?”
He whispered back, “You can
have a double dip because you were brave and kept practicing.” She smiled and scrunched her little face up
making Enzo laugh as he picked her up to carry her outside.
“Okay, everyone ready?” asked
Lorenzo, tightening his hold on Brooke as he glanced around making sure they
had everything, he noticed the other girls and their families in the room were
talking and taking their time. “Paulo,
Gino, Michael take point since we’ll be the first ones outside, Victor, Sal you
watch our six while we move across the parking lot. Mrs. M, you following us outside?”
“Yes, dear,” replied Mrs.
Moretti as they followed the Carlucci’s into the reception area. Lorenzo stopped behind the door until he got
the all clear from Paulo before bringing the girls out. Sophia, Maria and Gabby were in the back, right
in front of Victor and Sal talking quietly and Sal perked up when he heard
Sophia ask Gabby if she was going to Fred’s.
“I wish I could,” said Gabby
regretfully. “We promised Anna we’d stop
at The Cottage to help her hang curtains and decorate after dance class. She went shopping with her mom, Emory and
Cynthia today and since Em and Cyn can’t move around too much, it’s just Anna
and her mom, so we said we’d help.”
Sophia started giggling and
said, “Emory was ginormous at the Full Moon Ceremony, I bet she has the little
one before the next Full Moon.”
“I can’t wait until we have
little ones,” sighed Maria as her brothers and cousins went still and looked at
each other as they shut the car doors after putting the little ones in their
booster seats.
“Uhmm, Sophia and Maria…we
would rather not hear about you having little ones,” muttered Lorenzo as he
flushed. “The thought of you being…and
having…and doing…and Ant and Alberto and…they’re our friends…and I just can’t…”
“What our dear Lorenzo is
trying to say is we don’t want to hear about you and your mates doing that or anything
for that matter. It’s just disturbing
beyond all belief and comprehension,” said Damian as he shuddered. “Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to stand in
the road and hope somebody hits me to put me out of my misery.”
Sophia, Maria and Gabby started
to giggle and Maria said with a wicked smile, “So, I shouldn’t tell you what we
talk about when nobody can hear us?”
“I’m going to go and join you
in the road,” muttered Lorenzo.
“Hopefully we’ll get run over soon, I don’t know how much more I can take.”
Sophia had a mischievous
twinkle in her eyes as she added, “I know Anthony and I have the most
interesting conversations. I don’t
always understand everything he says, but he says he’ll explain it to me
later.”
“THAT’S IT, I DON’T WANT TO
HEAR ANYMORE,” shouted Gianni as he put his hands over his ears. “If you two don’t behave you’re not getting
any ice cream.”
The boys were still groaning
and Gabby pulled Sophia and Maria to the side and excitedly asked them,
“Spill. What do your intendeds talk to
you about?”
Sophia grinned and said,
“Anthony is trying to explain hockey to me, and I don’t quite get it, but he
says after I see my first game in person, I’ll understand.”
“Alberto and I talk about his
and Angelo’s plans for Moretti’s Fire Protection, how they are saving money for
the start-up, logos, business colors and all sorts of stuff,” said Maria with a
smile.
“Oh,” said Gabby her voice
laced with disappointment as she was interrupted by Jackie knocking on the
window and they heard the little girls start chanting, “Ice cream, ice cream.”
“Come on, we gotta go,” said
Lorenzo with a smile and everyone followed his lead and piled into their
vehicles. Ten minutes later they pulled
into Fred’s parking lot and once again the boys got out before the girls making
sure the area was safe. As they walked
inside carrying the little girls, they were chattering nonstop and the boys
couldn’t keep up with their conversation.
Seeing Damian cover Toni in a
t-shirt, the other boys ran out and got t-shirts out of their ‘go bags’ putting
them on their little charges and thirty minutes later they were glad they
did. Everything within a five foot
radius was covered in whipped cream, chocolate, sprinkles and ice cream. Amy Dawson, Fred’s mate started to laugh and
brought over a roll of paper towels and a handful of wet wipes, “I see
everybody had a good time.”
“I needs to do the potty,”
whispered Brooke to Lorenzo who looked to Sophia and Maria with terror in his
eyes.
Sophia started to giggle and
said, “Come on girls, we’ll go potty and clean up.”
The boys got some rags and
cleaned up the table, the chairs and wiped everything down for Mrs. Dawson who
continued to laugh at the mess the little ones made. “You all will make great fathers one day,”
she said with a smile. “You remind me of
your fathers when they would bring the bunch of you in when you were
little. They let you order what you
wanted, let you assert your independence by feeding yourself, sat back while
the bunch of you argued and fought and then quietly cleaned up the mess
afterwards, and believe me with the fourteen of you, there was a huge mess.”
“Oh, we’re much more
civilized now,” said Damian with a laugh.
“Now we say ‘excuse me’ as we knock you out of the way to get to the
food. I can’t begin to tell you how many
times we’ve stabbed each other with forks, our moms wouldn’t even let us use
metal forks until we were teenagers cause we kept stabbing each other. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make the
other drop the food.”
Amy shook her head as she
tried not to laugh at Damian’s response.
Talking to Damian was always an adventure; you never quite knew where
you were going or where you’d end up.
“You’re just like my boys, I put the food on the table and get out of
the way, but they’ve never stabbed each other.”
“Wenzo, we is all cleaned up
now and I made the potty,” Brooke exclaimed as she came back to the table.
“Good, now we’re going to go
back to Mr. C’s house and watch a movie, okay?” asked Lorenzo as Sophia was
putting all the dirty t-shirts in a bag Amy gave her.
“Gini, I mades the potty too
and I didn’t falls in either,” said Hope with a smile as the boys started to
laugh.
Gianni picked up Hope and
said, “Okay girls, say thank you to Mrs. Dawson.” A chorus of ‘Thank you’s’ came from the girls
as they waved good-bye as they went out the door. Twenty minutes later they were back at
Frank’s house, while the boys talked to their mom, Sophia and Maria went
upstairs to change and the girls spent ten minutes picking out a movie and finally
decided on ‘Predator’.
“Uhmm, I don’t think that’s a
good movie for you to watch, it’s kinda violent,” said Lorenzo as he picked up
a copy of ‘The Princess Diaries’.
“We watch it all the time,
Daddy says it’s one of the bester movies ever made,” said Jackie with a shrug
before she started to giggle. “Son of a
gun is dug in like an Alabama
“I don’t care who you are
back in the world, you give away our position one more time, I’ll bleed ya,
real quiet. Leave ya here. Got that?” said Toni with a giggle.
“You’re bleeding, man. You’re hit,” said Abby and looked at Hope.
“I ain’ts gots tihme to
bleeds,” replied Hope and looked back to Abby.
“You got time to duck?” asked
Abby as they started to giggle.
Brooke started giggling as
she said, “You wose it here, you’re in a whorld of hurts.”
The Carlucci’s were laughing
so hard; the boys were on the floor while Rose, Annie, Sophia and Maria had to
sit down on the sofa. The girls
continued to recite lines from the movie and then in a grand finale they said,
“If it bleeds, we can kill it.”
“I haven’t laughed that hard
in hours,” said Damian as he sat up and looked around the room. “What other movies do you watch a lot?”
“Mommy buys us princess
movies, but Daddy lets us watch big boy movies,” said Jackie with a smile. “We watch ‘Commando’,
‘Terminator’, and ‘Eraser’.”
“We watch ‘Hard to Kill’, ‘Above the Law’, movies
with Steve Seagull,” said Toni as the Carlucci’s started to laugh again.
“Don’t forget the karate
movies, we really like those,” said Abby as she hid her face.
“Then comes the bestest pawrts,
we gets to pwactice our kung fu moves on da boys,” said Hope as she started
making chopping motions with her arms and kicking into the air with a fierce
look on her little face.
“Hopes you forgots the numba
one rules, no kicking speciawlly in the boys no-no spot,” said Brooke with a
frown on her face.
“I can’t take anymore,” said
Damian falling back on the floor as everyone started to laugh again. “How about we watch ‘Kindergarten Cop’?”
“But nobody fights til the
end,” said Abby as the other little girls started to frown.
“Ooh, remember the lady
policeman gets runned over by a car,” said Jackie as they started to smile and
nodded their heads yes.
As the movie started to play,
the little ones got quiet and within twenty minutes had crawled on their
protectors chest and fallen asleep. Two
hours later, the men arrived and were met at the door by Paulo, Michael and
Victor who heard the vehicles as they pulled into the driveway. Victor whispered, “The little ones are asleep
in the family room.”
The men walked into the room
and seeing their daughters asleep on the boys chest and Sophia and Maria curled
up together on the recliner while Gino and Sal sat on the floor in front of
them, Frank said quietly, “This is what we are protecting men. No matter what it costs us, it’ll be worth it
to keep them safe.”
“Their boosters and dance
bags are in the mudroom,” whispered Lorenzo as he stood up still holding Brooke
securely, the other boys following him as they walked down the hallway. The men quickly put the booster seats in
their cars and turned around to get their daughters scenting them for a moment
before placing them in their seats. They
shut the doors quietly and moved to the back of the vehicles to talk quietly so
they wouldn’t disturb the girls.
“Was everything okay?” asked
Barry as he looked at Damian.
“We had a blast… they cried,
we panicked and put on tiaras, they laughed, they danced and fell over getting
knocked in the head, we got covered in chocolate and ice cream, they pottied
terrifying Lorenzo and Hope didn’t fall in, they recited movie lines and Brooke
made sure no one got kicked in their no-no spot… can’t wait to do it again,”
answered Damian with a smile.
The men looked at each other
in confusion and then Harold turned to Lorenzo and asked, “Did everything go
okay?”
“Everything went fine, they
did well at dance class so we went to Fred’s, then we came back here and
watched a movie,” said Lorenzo as the men started to relax.
“Okay, we’d better get going,
we have a lot to talk about with our mates,” said Joel with a serious
expression on his face. “Boss, we’ll
give you a call if we run into any problems and I’ll send a couple guys to The
School House to get that job done.”
The men turned around as they
saw a vehicle pulling into the driveway and Frank said, “Relax, its Vincent and
Dominic, they went to Carlo’s house so Ric, Rocco and Luciano could get their
bags.”
“Thanks again boys,” Jerry
said as the men got into their cars and waited for Vin to pull in front of the
garage before they pulled out.
As Ric, Rocco and Luciano got
out of Vin’s truck they stopped and looked at the Carlucci boys and Luc said,
“Damn, your boys look more and more like your ugly asses every time I see
them.”
“And like we told you at the
airport, if you keep talking shit we’ll let Salvatore and Victor teach your
ugly ass a lesson,” said Frank as he rolled his neck.
“Don’t let the fact they’re
only fifteen fool you,” said Joe. “They
train with the older boys, they may not have your height and weight but they’re
good fighters.”
“Where are my cousins?” asked
Luc as he ignored Joe’s warning. “I
bought gifts for them and their youngsters.”
Ric and Rocco rolled their
eyes and Ric said, “You didn’t buy them shit.
Nonna bought them and packed them in your diaper bag.”
Luc glared at Ric and said,
“You’d better watch your mouth or I’ll tell Nonna.” With that announcement he picked up his bag
and went into the house leaving Frank, Joe and their families laughing at the
terrified look on Ric and Rocco’s faces.
“You’re scared of your
grandmother finding out you were picking on your cousin?” asked Vin with a
smile. “You’re in your forties and Luc
is twenty-one.”
“And he’s the biggest baby in
the family,” retorted Rocco. “I’m
surprised he was allowed to come here by himself. Do you know Nonna cried at the airport and
made Dante swear he would protect him? I
was embarrassed for the boy, but he ate up all the attention.”
“Come on, let’s go inside, I
bet he’s complaining to Rose and Annie that we were picking on him,” complained
Ric as he hesitated before saying. “The
little twit.”
The boys started laughing as
they led the way into the house and walked into the kitchen to see their moms
making a fuss over Luc as he looked at them with a sad expression on his
face. “I swear Annie and Rose; they hate
me because I am the youngest grandson and Nonna and Nonno’s responsibility.”
The three of them turned
glaring at Ric and Rocco as Rose said angrily, “You’ve got to stop picking on
little Luc, he’s your cousin and you should be protecting him, not picking on
him.”
“Little Luc? He’s 6’ and 220 pounds, I think he can take
care of himself,” said Ric. “And it’s
good to see you too Rose.” Ric started
to smile as Rose realized she hadn’t even greeted their company before
hollering at him.
“I’m sorry, it’s just you
know how protective everybody is over him,” whispered Rose as her and Annie
came over to hug Ric and Rocco as Frank and Joe watched them carefully before
pulling them away with a low growl. They
leaned in and scented their mates, careful to make sure they erased every scent
of their cousins and Luc off of them.
“Vincent and Dominic, wake up
the girls. We’ll have a family meeting
and tell everybody what happened tonight,” said Frank with a sigh. “Don’t worry about school tomorrow, Carlo has
called it off.”
There was a knock at the door
and Joe said, “That’s the Rossi’s and the Moretti’s, Gina, Rita and Gabby are
here too.”
Gabby greeted everyone while
Sal stared at her to the boy’s amusement.
When she walked over to him, he asked if she wanted something to drink
and quietly told her what happened at Fred’s and when they came back to the
house. Her laughter drew every ones
attention but Sal didn’t notice, his attention was focused entirely on her and
he leaned in whispering, “I love to hear you laugh, and your eyes are sparkling
again.” He glanced around the room and
noticing everyone was looking at him and smiling, his face turned bright red.
Rose and Annie led everyone
to the basement while Frank and Joe secured the house and Sophia and Maria
changed out of their pajamas into t-shirts and leggings. When they entered Frank’s cave, they greeted
their Italian cousins and Anthony and Alberto growled loudly when they gave Luc
a hug and pulled them away from him while glaring at him.
After making sure everyone
had refreshments, Frank and Joe sat down and started telling their families
what happened at the meeting. They
didn’t leave out anything, and after the shocking news of what happened to
Carlo’s parents, the plot to kill Carlo, Frank and Joe and the retribution
meted out by the Elders they stopped talking.
“Daddy, could you do that,
kill a whole Pack?” whispered Sophia with tears in her eyes as she held tight
to Anthony’s hand.
Frank looked at his
youngsters, his brother’s youngsters before looking at his mate, his sister in
law, and then his brother. His face had
an expression none of the youngsters had ever seen before, it was raw determination
mixed in with love, anger and something they couldn’t define. He looked into her eyes and nodded his head
and said with a firm voice, “Little one, if my family was in danger there is
nothing I wouldn’t do to protect them, the same goes for my Pack. You must remember girls, we didn’t start
this, we have lived peacefully for fifty years, but if they bring the fight to
us, we damn well will bring it right back to them.”
Dante cleared his throat
before he said, “Girls, you must remember if they choose to fight and come here
to do you harm, they are guilty of treason against your Pack and the Alpha
Council. I will tell you as a father, if
somebody came after my children, I would kill them without mercy because they
made the choice to come after them.” He
looked at Luc, who put his head down knowing what was coming, and said quietly,
“When the Sicilians approached with an offer to buy my company; I turned them
down and thought nothing of it. A day
later, Luc’s parents were killed in a car bombing, they thought they were
sending me a message that they would have my company and taking out my CFO was
their first step. It was their last step
because within hours they were all dead, we slaughtered every one of them
because they dared to harm one of us.”
Carlo nodded his head in
agreement as he stared at his son. “Now
let us finish and tell you what we have planned.” The next two hours were spent going over the
plans the men had formulated, Gina, Rita, Rose and Annie taking notes to make
sure they followed them. The youngsters
listened attentively knowing they needed to be aware of everything going around
them. When the men were finished Carlo
said, “Do you have any questions or anything you’d like to contribute?”
“I think we should LoJack the
girls,” said Paulo quietly. “Well, all
the young ones.”
“LoJack, like they use on
stolen cars?” questioned Frank as the men looked at each other in confusion.
“Something similar, a small
homing device that could be planted in their backpacks, on their clothes, or in
the girls headbands. It would be small
so it could fit almost anywhere,” said Paulo.
“We would have to make sure they have an on/off switch so if they were
swept for electronic devices it wouldn’t detect them, then afterwards they
would be switched on. Give me a couple
of days, and I’ll have a prototype.”
“The idea that Joel and Jerry
had with the backpacks could be incorporated, but in a sneakier way,” said
Damian in a serious tone. “We put a
false bottom in all the backpacks and pack small items in there that could help
if any of the girls or youngsters were abducted. We could go over the list later, but things
like a lighter, handcuff key, cayenne pepper, a knife, even a disposable cell. The bottom would have to be sewn so it isn’t
noticeable in case the packs were searched.”
“Especially in the little
ones packs; we could make sure the top of the Pack contains coloring books,
crayons, dolls, the type of things if they were kidnapped would keep them
occupied and quiet. Nobody would suspect
Hope, Brooke or the other little ones of having things like that in their
Packs,” said Anthony with a shrug.
Paulo looked at his laptop
and said, “I checked the program I have running and there hasn’t been any
unusual activity. I’d love to get a copy
of the hard drive from Charles’s computer and I’m still running a program to
access the email accounts from the two Alpha’s from New Mexico
Lorenzo looked at his father
before looking at Carlo and addressing him, “I was thinking the next time you
go to an Alpha Council meeting you should take Aldo. See if he gets an uneasy feeling or any other
premonitions being around any of them.
Even walking down the hall into the Alpha chambers may trigger
something, since that is the last physical evidence of the men who started the
Were War.”
“What physical evidence? I thought they were scattered in the forest,”
questioned Gabby as she looked around the room.
The men physically tensed as
Carlo said quietly, “When they were hung with silver chains, my grandfather
castrated them and put their uhmm…”
“Bits and pieces,” supplied
Carmelo with a shudder.
“Their bits and pieces into
jars and they are kept in a display case in the hallway to remind everyone the
punishment for rape and murder,” finished Carlo.
“Those bastards deserved it,”
said Maria with a frown. “Look at what
they did to all those girls, and the number of Were’s that died because of
them.”
Gabby nodded her head in
agreement, “I think they got off easy.”
“Your grandfather was a
bad-ass wasn’t he?” questioned Sophia as she looked closely at her Alpha.
Carlo smiled and said, “He
was the most loving grandparent a boy could ever want, he taught me how to
fish, how to drive, how to play poker, shoot pool basically he taught me
everything. He made sure I studied hard
so I would be prepared to take over the stores, but more importantly he taught
me how to be a man, a good man. He
taught me how to love and care for my mate and my little ones and my duty to my
Pack.” He smiled at Gina and Anthony
before turning back to Sophia, “But he also taught me how to protect those I
love and the belief that living in fear is no way to live. We have not chosen to start this fight, but
we will not back down from it, or let any of our females be taken from us.”
Carlo glanced at the clock
and saw it was after 1 AM, “I think it’s time for all of us to go, we have a
long day tomorrow and a lot to do.”
Within fifteen minutes everyone was gone, Ric, Rocco and Luc were
staying in the converted carriage house at Joe and Annie’s house where his
parents stayed when they weren’t travelling.
The Carlucci household wasn’t
the only one filled with anxious family members that night, throughout the Pack
families gathered as the men revealed what happened at the meeting and tears
were shed upon learning of their Alpha’s murder. After discussing ways to increase their
security, safety drills were practiced, safe rooms were inventoried, ‘Go bags’ were
brought out and their contents evaluated and changed, but most of all they were
together as a family.
Tuesday morning, the air was
crisp under a cloudless bright blue sky as the men gathered in the woods
surrounding The School House. They were
looking at the maps of where the cameras were placed and discussing where the
new ones should be installed when they stopped talking as they scented the air
and waited silently as the females and youngsters approached them. Gina took a deep breath and said, “We talked
it over and we knew most of the men are at work so instead of having our usual
Tuesdays Women’s Group, we thought you might need our help.”
“I’s boughted my shovel,”
said Brooke who gripped a Little Tykes gardening shovel in her hand waving it
in front of Lorenzo’s face as he held her.
“And I’s boughted my
buckets,” added Hope who waved her bucket at the men while being held by Vin.
“Why don’t you move the
little ones to the clearing over there,” said Gina with a smile. The older ones laid out blankets and the
young ones and little ones opened their backpacks and got out coloring books,
dolls, and toys and started to play.
Their brothers stood around the perimeter with their backs to them and
scanned the surrounding area just like they had seen their dads and the older
boys do. As Gina watched them she smiled
and said, “It’s wonderful to see all of the young ones and little ones
together, though I wonder how long they’ll be content to stay still.”
“Madame Gina is going to give
me the tour of the store tomorrow, this is more important,” said Maeve with a
shy smile. “Momma and Nana Ellen made
muffins and scones.”
“Carlo, are these the
Millers?” questioned Dante as he stared at the family.
“Yes, I’m sorry I forgot to
introduce you to Todd and his father last night,” said Carlo as he quickly made
the introductions. Dante continued to
stare at Todd and his daughters; something about their eyes intrigued him and
nagged in his subconscious.
Allison Martin, Senator
Martin’s wife, said, “Clay explained what you planned with the new cameras and
I have an idea. We know they’ll be
looking for the cameras, so we should plant some in an obvious manner, on the
main trails. This way we channel them
where we want them to go, like you had planned, but we give them a
surprise. We should dig some pits, like
the one the youngsters fell into during the training exercise, but make them
bigger and put stakes at the bottom.
Even if only a few of them fall into them it’ll serve a purpose to make
them more cautious and take more time, which will give us more time to
evacuate.”
“The stakes should be made
out of wood; their wolves may sense the metal, like in ‘Predator’,” said Beth Costello with a smile.
“I think the first thing is
we have some of you shift into your wolves and avoiding the main trails make
your way down to the perimeter wall,” said Rose as she gestured to the
woods. “We start section by section and
work our way around the entire perimeter.
Annie brought her camera and will take pictures and Rita bought her
video camera so we can study where the best places to place the cameras,
obstacles and the pits.”
“Paulo adjusted the view
finder on my camera so it has the same angle as a security camera, so that’ll
help,” said Annie as she looked at her mate.
After staring at her for
several minutes and letting the silence around them build to a nerve wracking
tension, Joe smiled and said, “You never cease to amaze me.”
“For that, I may let you
catch me later,” she replied with a smile as her youngsters started groaning
and Damian pretended to gag.
For the next five hours they
mapped the perimeter until they were satisfied every inch was covered. The little ones were starting to get antsy
and hungry so Carlo called a break for lunch.
As they walked quietly back to their vehicles, Carlo said, “I’d like to
thank everyone for coming to help, we got everything done in record time and
your suggestions really helped.” The
women nodded their heads in acknowledgement and smiled as they thought of the
other surprise they had in store, which they knew would be met with greater
resistance from the men.
The women made plans to meet
at The Manor House at 1:45 to go to the safe room, and the Moretti’s, Miller’s,
Rossi’s, Whitmer’s, Poffenberger and Costello families went to Frank’s house
where Rose and Annie had prepared two large crock pots of venison steamers and
had also made macaroni and potato salad for lunch.
After lunch, the young ones
were loud and boisterous after being quiet for so long and Frank suggested the
older ones take them out in the yard and play tag to release some of their
energy. Excited shouts could be heard
from the yard as they chased each other while Damian walked around like a
zombie since he couldn’t run until a piercing scream captured everyone’s
attention. Frank and Joe, realizing it
was Maria raced out the door followed by the other men and were met near the
pool by Alberto who had Maria in his arms as he ran towards the house.
“She was running, tripped and
fell,” he said hoarsely as Maria continued to cry. “I heard it snap as she landed on it.”
“It hurts Daddy, worse than
last time,” cried Maria, cradling her arm against her chest as she scented
Alberto’s neck to try and calm down. Her
forearm was bent at an awkward angle and was already swollen and turning
purple.
Seeing how upset the little
ones were getting, Vin said, “Let’s get them inside and put on a movie.” The older ones hurriedly grabbed the younger
ones and brought them inside while Victor and Sophia stayed close to Maria.
Annie came running towards
them and said, “I already called Doc, he’s expecting us. Alberto, carry her to the car.” Victor ran alongside Alberto, rubbing Maria’s
back trying to soothe his twin as Joe and Annie ran ahead to open the doors.
“She broke her arm Friday
night and today is Tuesday,” Carlo said to Frank quietly. “That is more than enough time for it to have
healed properly, especially since she shifted into her wolf Saturday night,
which should have sped up the healing process.”
Frank nodded his head and
said, “I know.” He pulled Sophia into a
tight embrace and held her as she cried and he murmured, “She’ll be fine little
one, she’ll be fine.” His eyes met
Carlo’s and they were full of worry.
Dante watched as the rest of
the older youngsters stood around the yard, their worry for Maria evident on
their faces. As he glanced at the Miller
girls, his attention was once more drawn to their eyes and he searched his mind
as he tried to recall a vague memory, something his grandfather had told him
years ago. As he continued to stare, he
saw the youngest girl approach her uncle, her arms open to receive his hug and
her eyes were filled with unshed tears which turned them into liquid silver.
“Come on, let’s go inside,”
said Frank as he turned to the house, his arm still encircling Sophia’s
shoulder.
It was something about the
eyes, liquid sterling silver eyes … and then it hit Dante like a ton of
bricks. As he realized the significance
of those eyes, he whispered, “Son of a bitch.”
