The Twelve Tables

Authors Note: Thank you to everyone left comments or sent me feedback about previous chapters of this story. Thank you again to Margaret who proofread for me. ~ellie

*****

Peri 30

At eleven thirty Carlo and CJ looked up from the monitor of the screen they both searched and went into action. Leaving Carlo at the computer to continue to scan the conversation, he sent out the alert to the watchers and men of the tables, then he went back to where Carlo continued working to ensure all of the proxies were in place.

The two men worked feverishly on the programs at their disposal. They hadn't expected the event for another two days, and they struggled with the elements of the emergency plan that hadn't been fully developed yet. Once they were sure that everyone had checked in, at least once, they began packing up the necessary equipment to move up to the house. Connecting his Bluetooth earpiece, CJ called Jackson, the steward at the house. "Is everyone from the penthouse there," he demanded as soon as the man answered the phone.

"All but a skeleton staff left to clean up and maintain the place," Jackson said cautiously hearing the urgency in the other man's voice.

"Evacuate them immediately. We'll be up at the house in minutes. Don't show any concern have Zara ask the nannies to bring the children inside to clean up for lunch. Once everyone is inside, secure the house," CJ hung up and grabbed the digital notebook his fingers flying over the keys as he accessed the screens and programs Carlo worked on.

"The navy blues are in," Carlo muttered. "Let's go," he stood and started toward the door. CJ closed the slim line notebook and stood to follow him.

They stepped outside the cottage that was now Carlo's home and were not surprised to find two men in navy blue suits waiting for them in an older model skyline, that looked as if it was ready for the junkyard.

"Secure Peri first then Emily," Carlo instructed jumping into the car and travelling the few hundred meters to the house. He had left the car before it had stopped moving and bounded up to the doorway. CJ was constantly speaking through his bluetooth earpiece and didn't miss a beat as they pulled up at the house to be let in by Jackson and a flustered looking Rae.

Carlo turned to see Peri and the two security men assigned to her walking up behind her. He smiled and jokingly made light of the situation before following CJ and Jackson to the other side of the house confident that she was in good hands.

*****

At eleven thirty Romey and Charles Donati were walking out of the courthouse having offered a place in their rehabilitation facility to an addict who was facing serious jail time. Romey's legal expertise was an obvious asset to how Charles ran the recruitment arm of the family business. Their phones went off in unison, and they looked at each other speculatively without saying a word. They walked without any urgency toward the side of the building that led down to where they had parked their car.

An old combi-van raced toward them through the traffic and although both men stiffened they continued their unhurried walk. The van drew alongside them, and a man in a strangely woven navy blue and white striped poncho hung out of the window calling out to them.

"Hey do you know what my problem is?" his voice sounded over the traffic making the two men look up. "I don't have just one. I have twelve!" He chuckled loudly.

*****

At eleven thirty Angelo Donati swore loudly and punched a big finger at his phone. He looked sheepishly at Rosanna who immediately rebuked him and looked around at her children.

"I will be washing Papa's mouth out when we land," she told them and turned a mock grumpy face on him, but there was concern in her eyes.

"I'll be back in a minute, I think the captain has some soap Mama can use," he winked at his giggling children and moved toward the cockpit of the small plane.

"Somethings up, the emergency alarms are going off. How far out are we?" Angelo murmured not wanting to alarm anyone.

"About thirty minutes, if you want to divert we'll have to do it now," the captain replied equally softly.

"How much time have I got until we reach the point where we can't divert?" Angelo asked considering that if there were a real emergency Josh's place was probably one of the safer places to be heading to aside from his own home.

"We have enough fuel to make the city if you let me know before we start the descent," the Captain spoke confidently but raised his eyebrows as the alarm when off again on Angelo's phone.

*****

At eleven thirty Dominic had walked into Josh's office. He'd headed there as soon as the alarm on his phone went off to find Josh gathering his keys and jacket. The phone on his desk came to life sounding the same alarm tone as the one Dominic held in his hand. Josh reached over picking it up and hitting the dismiss button.

"We'll have to keep dismissing it until we find our watchers, let's go." He walked out of his office and started down the stairs. "Do we know what it is?" Josh asked Dom wondering if he had called his father, Vincenzo.

"No, I doubt Papa would answer any calls now, he'll just be watching for the answering blips when we answer the alarms," Dominic explained as they walked together through the front foyer. They exited the building to find two men in navy blue suits waiting for them.

"You know what your problem is?" One of the men said to his partner.

"Yeah I don't have just one. I have twelve," the other man answered with a chuckle identifying themselves as Watchmen. "Gentlemen," he nodded toward the two men and walked away expecting them to follow.

Josh stopped walking as the familiar Skype melody sounded on his phone and seeing that it was Peri he answered immediately. He heard Dante in the call and breathed a sigh of relief that at least he knew they were both safe. He remained calm and listened as an obviously distressed Peri told them about an argument she had started with Emily and the ultimatum she had given her. Both men had said that they had been conscious of Emily's strange behaviour since returning from the hospital and supported Peri's decision.

Josh promised her that he would be home soon assuming that the house was their eventual destination. He needed to know she was safe. Ending the call with Peri he called Dante back directly and looked up to where Dom and the men in navy blue waited for him impatiently. He'd begun to walk towards the men when he was knocked off his feet and landed heavily on the pavement banging his head into the concrete sidewalk. Winded and in pain, he blinked his eyes in a daze as a navy blue suit hovered over him.

"Stay down and play dead. We'll get you out of here," murmured the deep voice as large hands checked him roughly making Josh wince. There seemed to be smoke and debris around him and people either ran from the area screaming or milled about dazed and confused. He closed his eyes and pictured Peri at home waiting for him unaware that she was in danger. His hand curled around his phone. Then his world went black.

*****

At eleven thirty Dante's phone alarm went off, and he pulled the phone out of his pocket and frowned at it. Dismissing the alarm, he went out to the manager's office and signalled them to come over.

"Look there's been a bomb threat let's evacuate everyone calmly and send the staff home. Get the rarest pieces into the safe the rest should be fine," he explained quietly.

"That's why we pay the insurance brokers, I guess," one of the men said.

"Let's not use the alarm let's just spread the word and do it as calmly and quietly as possible.

"We can turn the lights off and claim an electrical fault, that should do it," the other man said thinking quickly.

"Alright, emergency lighting only let's get everyone out, warehouses and stock rooms as well. Do a full sweep of the whole block then let the staff go home," Dante instructed. He knew within minutes the men in navy blue would arrive to help with the sweep, and those of his brothers who were in the city would come here too. His phone lit up with the melody of Skype and looking at it, he saw that it was Peri. His heart constricted in fear for her, and he answered it immediately walking back to his office.

Relieved to see Josh as part of the conference call he listened calmly as Peri told them about her argument with Emily and the ultimatum she had given her. "Fuck," he thought. They'd expected something to happen on Friday if it was going to happen. He'd been in favour of taking matters into his own hands yesterday but had let Josh talk him out of it. Now he was stuck here in the city promising to return home as soon as he could when he knew it might be hours before he could get there.

Dante looked up and smiled as Dino walked into his office closely followed by Lorenzo and Manuel. He ended the call from Peri making promises to head home, he knew he couldn't keep right there and then and greeted the men who were gathering with him noting the dark suits sweeping the business floor and helping with the evacuation. His phone buzzed to life again, and he saw it was Josh.

"What the fuck!" he clutched the phone as the screech of tyres, and a loud crashing boom sounded down the phone. "Josh! Fucking answer me you little shit! Josh!"

At that moment not only the lights went out, but all of the electrical access in the building died. Including the emergency lighting.

"Anyone got a backup plan?" Dino growled, his voice sounding angry and nervous as the men in blue suits walked toward them with torches.

*****

At eleven thirty the alarm on Vincenzo Donati's phone rang clear, and he hurried from his office to the bowels of the ship where his men worked. Ben followed close behind him turning off the alarm on his phone. At a look from one of his senior men and a murmured short conversation, Vincenzo turned abruptly to face Ben.

"Benedicto give me your phone," Vincenzo snapped authoritatively. He watched as without hesitation Ben handed it over. "I need you to understand we do this for your own good."

"What?" Ben's brow creased not understanding what was happening.

"I need you to trust me on this. You can sit there and watch but do not move from that place, or you will be locked in the bilge room," Vincenzo said shortly and turned back to his crew issuing hurried commands as Ben watched on his confusion lifting to be replaced by abject horror.

"It couldn't be true," he shook his head. Horror gave way to panic as watchers reported in about assaults and small explosions. The Suebi had broken into the penthouse apartment to find the family gone. "Thank God they had already left," Ben breathed deeply as the thought of the safety of his wife and children settled on him and he stood intent on helping field the calls and disseminate the information as it came in.

"Bene! Sit!" Vincenzo barked seeing his nephew get to his feet.

"I can help I don't understand why I'm being excluded," he yelled back at the old man.

"Lock him in the bilge room. I'll deal with him once I've made sure everyone is accounted for," Vincenzo barked without even looking up from the computer screen. He stared as each name lit up on map positions and the phones around him continued to call out their alarms.

"Do as I say!" Vincenzo roared startling everyone in the room.

"Why should I?" Ben raged back at him. "It's my family that's in trouble!"

"Because Emily is trying to have your brothers killed, and I don't have the time to fight with you about it," Vincenzo hated the look of disbelief that came over Ben's face and the air go out of his lungs as he slumped, as if punched in the guts. "Sit down and shut up or get the fuck out," he said in a slightly lower tone before turning back to the screen where all of the information came to him from the other terminals where his men worked on the individual Donati men's whereabouts.

Ben staggered backwards. Emily wouldn't. Emily couldn't. She may not be the smartest woman in the world, but she loved him and his family. She had always pushed him to do more and be more involved in their lives in preparation for taking over the chair. She had almost killed herself producing the second son for him despite his forbidding it. She lived for this family and their places within it. Why would she want to harm his brothers? His thoughts rolled around in his head as he tried to make sense of what was happening. He sat down and watched hoping beyond hope that this was all a huge mistake. It couldn't be true.

"CJ and Carlo are at the house and have contained the situation there," one of the watchers reported.

"Get me CJ, Now!" Vincenzo snapped and held his hand out for the phone.

Everything froze at that moment, computer screens, phones and anything linked to the Donati network ceased to work. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on the main server at the Donati Farm.

*****

Andreas groaned as he felt the weight that held him down lifted and he looked up into the face of one of the groundsmen that worked on the large property. He allowed himself to be dragged from the rubble backwards until someone could catch up his legs and lift them from the ground. Once on a make-shift stretcher he was taken a safe distance away and left to rest while the men returned to their digging. Pain clouded his mind, and he groaned again before slipping back into unconsciousness.

When next he opened his eyes he was being taken aboard the rescue helicopter. He could see the shrouded bodies that remained on the ground. "Joseph? Marisol and Antonia?" he asked in a coarse, dusty voice. No one answered as he was placed into the helicopter and two men climbed in beside him.

"Can you tell me your name?" he paramedic asked.

"Andreas Donati. My wife, Marisol, where is she?" he answered and looked around for Joseph or Antonia. He could see one of the women who had been serving them refreshments and was confused.

The paramedic ignored Andreas's questions and kept asking his own. "Do you know where you are?"

"My brother's farm, Donati farm. Young man let me save you the trouble. The year is two thousand and sixteen, the Prime Minster is Malcolm Turnbull, you have five fingers on each hand, and if you wouldn't mind, I would like to know where my wife, brother and sister-in-law are," his voice held all of his pain and frustration.

"I'm sorry Sir," the paramedic said. "You are the only person who was in that part of the house who survived. We're airlifting you to the hospital. The others will follow." Andreas closed his eyes his pain intensifying as he gave in to the knowledge that he had probably lost the people most important to him in the world.

They'd heard a helicopter coming in low over the property. He'd got up to go to the window and seen the first explosive crate dropped in the distance and heard the rumbling explosion. He'd turned to the table and yelled for them to all get out but it had been too late. He'd started down the stairs with Marisol but had gone back for his phone which he'd left on the table.

He held onto the slim hope that the women had made it downstairs and out of the building before the explosives had dropped on the Athenaeum and they just hadn't been found yet.

*****

CJ had worked miracles and managed to get everything transferred from the back-up server temporarily onto the server that was still being built out at Joshua's house. His first call had been to Vincenzo while Carlo checked in with Dante and the brother's they knew were in town.

"We evacuated the buildings and left," Dante's disembodied voice answered the hands-free in his car. We're all heading out to safe houses. Glad to see the phones are up again anyone heard from Josh?" His anxiety regarding the crash he had heard carried in his voice. "I heard an explosion and the phones went down."

"Louisa's there," Carlo groaned. "Find her and get her out! I'll call her and let her know you're on your way. She'll know why Josh isn't answering. Try Dom as well; he would have been with Josh."

Carlo couldn't get hold of Louisa, and he knew he had to trust the watchers and his brothers who were out there to look after those near them. It was his job now to look after the future of the family who were all here in this house. The idea that the woman who had caused this was here with them was oddly comforting. She would never have endangered herself or her children. It was why they had assumed the imminent attack would happen Friday when she and Ben had taken Angelina to school. He wondered what had pushed her to issue the signal prematurely.

His thoughts turned dark as he walked toward the small cluster of men and women who stood in the central hub of the house. The steward, housekeeper, and cook had proven to be cool heads in a crisis and had managed to get everyone down into the cellar where Josh had built a cinema and epic games room. He just needed to face Peri now and get her down to where it was safest as well.

*****

Peri felt the house shake with a muffled boom and tried to still the panic that welled up inside her as the two other women looked at her before following her gaze to the door. She looked up and saw Phillipe move into the room and close the door standing with his back to it like an immovable pillar.

"Mrs. Donati, I don't know what that was. It is my job to keep you and the angels safe. Gerrard will find out what he can and report back. He's maintaining the outer rooms. This room is the safest for you all," Phillipe forestalled her questions by holding up his hand and speaking calming.

"Urgh!" Peri let out a frustrated cry and turned around slowly noting that the only windows in the room were up high for natural light not letting anyone view the occupants inside unlike the bedroom with its wide expansive windows and sliding doors that led out to the courtyard. "Have you got any idea why my phone's not working?"

"The server that links this house with the Donati network might be down. I expect they are working on it," Phillipe said in a tightly clipped voice hating to be out of contact with the world outside this room.

"Open up it's Carlo," the familiar deep voice said as he knocked on the door. Phillipe stepped aside and opened the door.

"Carlo," Peri breathed and stepped forward to hug him. "What's going on?"

"There's a family emergency, and the security guys are picking up everyone and delivering them to safe locations. Everyone has checked in, and it will all be fine in just a little while," he soothed walking forward to wrap his arms around her.

"Where is everyone else? What about Emily and the children? I promised Carmen I would look after them like my own," she began to panic about all of the people in the house.

"They're all safe they're in the cellar watching a movie on that gigantic screen Josh installed down there," he chuckled trying to keep his voice light. "This room as safe but we can move you down there to check on them all yourself if you want," he said easily. "Ang. and Rosie landed a few minutes ago and are being brought down from the top of the hill."

"Oh God I forgot they were coming this afternoon," Peri placed a hand over her mouth horrified as she remembered the loud boom. "They crashed?"

"There was trouble with the landing, but everyone is safe and well, they're on their way down. You can see them for yourself. Come on, I'll take you down to the cellar you will be happier where you can fuss over everyone. I can see that now," he shook his head. "What do we need?" he walked further into the room stacking three rockers and handing them to Phillipe. "Pack what you need for a few hours at least," he instructed Heather and Melanie.

He waited with Phillipe trying to hide his anxiousness as the women hurriedly packed as much as they could into three carry-all bags. Then Gerrard and CJ joined them to help carry the bags and rockers downstairs to the cinema room.