The Twelve Vitali

Authors note: Hello everyone. Thank you to everyone who has voted and left comments, they mean the world to me and motivate to write more. I appreciate your support more than you all know. Thank you once again to Paul who continues to be my second set of eyes. ~ellie.

*****

Cat was getting ready to go out to the Donati family concert when Pete arrived with a courier package for her.

"What's this?" Cat frowned, checking the label and opening it.

"A courier just dropped it off," Pete said curiously, as Cat pulled a Tamagotchi pet from the small courier bag with a small card.

"I wanted one of these so badly when I was a kid," she laughed and opened the card. "Thought you might like some company while you were painting and this little guy is pretty quiet and shouldn't disturb you too much. Matteo." she read.

"I didn't even know they sold these anymore," Pete commented. "You're not going to open it?" he asked as she went to put it away.

"If I opened it now I'd play with it all night, and I doubt you'd be very happy with a date who was more interested in a digital pet than anything you had to say," she laughed. "I can open it later," she grinned.

"In that case, thank you for your consideration," Pete smiled.

Cat had a wonderful time at the concert, and she found that they were in the company of at least one of the brothers or cousins of the table during the night. They were all performers, some reluctantly took the stage, but they all had talent. The family were jovial, and she laughed so much throughout the night that her sides and cheeks hurt. She was glad that Pete had made an effort to get her to leave her little cabin for the evening. She'd managed to clear her head and think of something besides her painting. She kissed Pete's cheek and thanked him for a wonderful night after the concert, then she went to bed to get some much needed sleep rather than painting anymore.

"Eight days," she said to her digital pet the following morning, "Do you think I can keep you alive and get all my work done in eight days?" The truth was she was surprised at how much she could do with a firm vision in her mind and a dedicated space in which to work. She put the small digital pet down, smiling at the fact that Matteo had chosen something to send her, something from a childhood memory rather than an expensive or flashy gift.

Matteo had taken up so much of her time, and even when he wasn't in the apartment with her she had thought of him constantly. Now she had to consciously remove him from her thoughts again and try to immerse herself in the painting as she had done so easily for the last week when she had believed he had moved on after she asked him to leave. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander into that daydream state she had created where she belonged to a large, loving family, just like this. In her dream, these men were all her brothers.

*****

"Eight days to go," Matteo said, walking into the project manager's office where David sat at his desk trying to catch up on all the work he'd missed yesterday.

"You realise she's mad at me too, now?" David groaned.

"What for?" Matteo chuckled. "Talking to me? You haven't done anything wrong. I've barely seen you at all today! But I am going to have to send another ransom demand, so if you'll just hold this card up so I can take a photo," he grinned. "Then you can say I tortured the information from you. Do you want me to punch you to make it look real?"

"You can't punch an employee," Hilary said, standing at his side. "I could get a make-up artist if you need the effect so badly." She added with a perfectly straight face and droll tone.

"What are you going to do when none of this works? She wasn't sounding very impressed when I talked to her, or should I say listened to her yell at me when she called," David tried to reason with the man who had to face the fact that his sister couldn't be made to do anything she didn't want. Ned had tried that, as she pointed out to him in the angry phone call after he had contacted her for Matteo, and it made him rethink what his boss was doing.

"I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be," he shrugged.

"She can be pretty stubborn when she wants to be," David countered.

"Yeah, that's true, but let's go with the premise that she finds me irresistible," Matteo grinned.

"I hate to point out the obvious, but she seems to be resisting you quite well. Just wait until she gets back, then you can talk to her face to face," David shook his head, trying not to smile as Hilary sniggered at his observation. He was trying to be tactful and not call him a stalker, like Ned, because he liked this man, not to mention the fact that Matteo was his boss.

"I'm not used to having to wait for what I want. Ask Hilary, I'm prone to tantrums, the fact that I agreed to ten days is a big step forward for me. The old me would have been on a plane crashing the Donati gathering and making her talk to me," he chuckled.

"Man, you need to take a chill pill," David tried to keep the frustration out of his voice and feeling like he needed help to make Matteo see the mistake he was making. "Why don't you come to Footy training with Frankie and me tonight? I'm helping him with a junior team, and we go for beers after. It will help take your mind off stalking my sister, which I have to admit makes me more than a little uncomfortable, given her history."

"Stalking?" Matteo was horrified by the word. "I'm not secretly following her around. I called her and told her I want to see her and talk to her."

"And she said no," David said pointedly. "There's a fine line between an ardent admirer and creepy stalker guy." He shook his head. "Her ex-boyfriend liked to get his own way too, and when she finally said no enough times for him to hear it he almost killed her, and I want to believe you're not that guy, but then you admit you're not good at being told no and accepting it. You get what I'm saying, right?"

"I hear you, and I swear I'm not that guy," Matteo said, shocked and appalled that David felt the need to protect his sister from him.

"Then give her the time she asked for. Send her a text, if you have to, and let her know you're thinking of her, but, seriously, dude, you have to calm down. She didn't say no, she just said not yet," David reminded him, trying to take the edge off his words.

"Okay, I hear you," Matteo felt deflated. "No more pumping you for information or ransom threats. Are flowers okay? Just a bunch, not a truckload," he qualified.

"She likes roses," David sighed, seeing that Matteo needed to do more than just send a text, and worrying about the fact that his sister seemed to attract obsessive men who couldn't hear the word no.

*****

"I think I need to see Romy again," Cat mused aloud as she stared at the almost complete portrait of the twelve Donati men.

"Why is that?" Pete asked from his customary late night position on the far side of the room behind her painting where he couldn't see the canvas.

"Something just doesn't feel right about who he is in the scheme of things. I know he's important, he's the HR guy, but I'm not sure I have the whole picture," she tilted her head from side to side as she looked at the figure of Romy sitting on the stone staircase. Her modern vision of the knights of Camelot was a fusion of modern day warriors and steampunk themes. The tailored trousers and contrasting silk vest Romy wore over a white-collar shirt seemed somehow wrong, and she felt she was missing something about him.

"I can help with that," Pete offered. This could be an opening to other conversations he'd like to have with Cat in the longer term, so he closed the book he'd been distracted by as he watched her and turned his full attention to what she was saying. "What is troubling you?"

"He's a lawyer, but for the family he is the human relations manager, the two just don't seem to go together somehow," Cat frowned.

"There are a lot of layers around human assets in our family. Use the tried and true onion theory. At the edges, the skin of the onion are the people we come into contact with in our daily lives; in my case, the other doctors who work in my clinics, the nurses and admin teams I get to hire with only a basic background check being done. The closer you get to the centre the higher the need for thorough background checks, and in some cases non-disclosure statements, like yourself," he explained.

"So, he does the background checks?" she asked. Remembering one had been done on her by not only this family, where she was close to the centre, but also the Vitali family when she had become involved with their inner circle.

"No, that would come under Ben's role as Watchman. Ben's intelligence and spy shit man," he chuckled. "Romy is more, perhaps, involved in recruitment, and has access to all background checks as well as requests them. I guess there is a bit of an overlap there with Ben and Romy. The most important work comes with the recruitment of the people who choose a life of serving our family and the contracts they are offered in return for complete servitude."

"Like the maids and cooks?" she asked, trying to follow what he was saying.

"Yes," he confirmed, "But unlike normal employees, who do a day's work and get paid a day's wage, the people who serve our families as maids, cooks, gardeners, nannies, sell themselves to us for a set number of years for a very lucrative pay off at the end. They choose a life of being owned like the slaves of olden days, except at the end they get a large payout. No one is forced or coerced, and if they choose to leave early there are clauses in the contracts that allow that. Most, though, stay and take another contract, sending the money they get at the payout to relatives or investing it for their retirement," he continued to explain seeing her shocked expression.

"Romy runs a training facility for these people and creates the contracts for individuals depending on their skill base and how long the contract will be for. For housekeepers, or nannies, that could be quite a long time. For the Kept it is more detailed and requires more training than the other household staff," he tested the waters to see if she had heard of a Kept.

"The Kept are like Mistresses, right? So, they get training in what? Kinky fuckery?" she asked unselfconsciously as she took in what he was saying. The whole idea of slavery was strange, but if these people chose to sell a few years of their lives to families who clearly looked after and cared for their staff then who was she to judge them.

"Sure, kinky fuckery works," he chuckled. "Though I have to believe you have read fifty shades of grey more than once using that term."

"Well, I had to know what everyone at work was talking about," she laughed lightly, not denying the accusation. "So, you're telling me that Romy has his own red room of pain where he trains these girls in kinky fuckery and then sends them to work for family members?"

"I don't believe Romy trains them, no. There is a facility where he employs trainers, as well as a medical staff that I assist with. Romy does Pro bono work for the public prosecutor, which puts him in a unique position to recruit sex workers and or drug addicts who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. He offers them a safer, more secure workplace with a great benefits package and a large windfall at the end of their contract. Again, they are free to choose what they will or won't do. Not every Kept enjoys the red room of pain, and those that do rarely enjoy all of the kinks and fetishes of that type of kinky fuckery," he said quite openly. "Most Kept retire after a few years as very rich women."

"It sort of sounds like he preys on the vulnerable in society," Cat pursed her lips considering his words.

"It's a very long recruitment process, they are given six months to clean up and get healthy while testing the waters before contracts are signed and the real training begins. Trust me when I say no one is ever forced or coerced into such a lifestyle. More often than not he and his trainers have to turn away girls who seek out the opportunity to serve the family in this way. There are thorough psychological analysis, health checks and counselling available to every candidate," Pete defended the recruitment program for the Kept. "It's a very small operation, most of the recruitment and training is done by another family who have a specialist training facility and hospital set up for rehabilitation and training. It's where we send family members who may have developed drug habits or require a more intense trial before joining our family. Peri went there before marrying Josh."

"I guess it's safer than street corners or violent pimps," she remembered a few of those working in her old neighbourhood. "Members of your family have to do training as Kept?" She asked, and then wondered if she was wrong to accept what he was saying about those that chose a life of being an indentured servant. He was talking about desperate people selling themselves into slavery.

"For the women who join our family, it is more about deportment and public speaking, creating that public persona of a lady in all facets of their life. I expect that if she was engaged to a man who enjoyed a true Dominant and submissive relationship some training in that area might be involved. Would it help you to understand if you talked to one or two of the Kept yourself?" he offered.

"The Kept get special training, but everyone who works for the family has some training?" she asked after a minute, unsure if she did want to meet a Kept face to face and going onto less taboo topics.

"Yes, there are certain protocols expected from those who serve the family. Did you watch Downtown Abbey at all? That Victorian era type of hierarchy of upstairs for the family and downstairs for the servants?" he asked.

"Ah, I get it," she nodded. Thinking of them as servants and Mistresses rather than slaves was slightly more palatable to her.

"Would you like to talk to one or two?" he asked again, wanting to clear up any misconceptions.

"No, but I think I would like to peek into a real-life red room of pain," she giggled and picked up her palette again, swirling her brush into the black and yellow before adding a touch of white.

"That could be arranged. There is a private club attached to the training facility, I could escort you there once we are back in the city," he offered perhaps a little too eagerly. "You would have to pose as my submissive for the night though. I promise no kinky fuckery unless that was what you wanted, but then I may not be the man you would want to be there or enjoy a night of kinky fuckery with," he said in an enquiring tone. It was as if he was daring her to admit she might be attracted to him or that she intended to see Matteo again.

"Let's leave that thought on the back burner," she laughed and blushed slightly. "I'm curious, but I'm not sure I'm that curious," she continued to laugh. She added a gold fob watch poking from the pocket of the rich vest and a long gold chain looping from it dangling to Romy's thigh in the painting. In his hand he held a black cane surmounted by a jewelled handle, and she resisted the urge to give him a hat tilted jauntily on his head. Her mind stayed on the training of the Kept, and she couldn't help thinking of him as a pimp now, even though she knew that wasn't a fair comparison from what Pete had said.

*****

"Honestly, Matt, I'm starting to think you're stalking me now," David chuckled, looking up as Matteo walked into the project managers office. "The guys are starting to tease me about being the bosses pet."

"You are," Matteo shrugged. "You're the first guy around here in years who isn't afraid to be honest with me and tell me when I'm an idiot. Most people just do what I tell them without any arguments. Not that I want anyone else to start telling me that my brother is a prick and I'm an asshole, but it's been a refreshing change. I'm not here about your sister, by the way. I took your advice and I'm not being the stalker guy. I came to see how your orientation night went at University."

The truth was that Matteo was having difficulty not being the stalker guy and flying out to the Donati property to make Cat talk to him. Each day she remained there in isolation he felt her slipping further and further away from him. So he tuned into what her brother was saying in the hopes of hearing something she might have said about his scholarship.

"It was weird, because it's just me at the moment, but most of my classes will be with the second-year quantity surveyor cohort. They aren't due back until the second week of February, so I have a little bit of time to wrap my head around the course materials," David said. He had never been much of a scholar, but life was tough back then, and he had more reason to want to study these days.

"That's great. You're the first one going through this scholarship program, so I'd like lots of feedback so we can make changes if necessary," Matteo said.

"Sure. Now would you like to tell me why you're really here?" he asked.

"I really was here to ask you about the scholarship, I have a lot of resources tied up in that, and I need to know it's working right from the get-go," Matteo said. "It doesn't hurt that I like your company as well and thought you might like to go to a pre-season game."

"Hell yeah, I do," David grinned.

"Don't you want to know who's playing?" Matteo chuckled again.

"Sure, but pre-season games are hard to come by, so I'd watch Swans get their asses handed to them by the Lions and be happy," he said easily, showing his dislike of the non-Melbourne teams.

"Cats and Bombers," Matteo chuckled. "I'll text you the details."

"You are stalking me!" David burst out laughing. "But right now, I don't really care."

"I'm not a stalker, you mentioned the Cats when we went out to see Frankie, and I always go to the Bombers pre-season," Matteo said defensively. "I'm not that guy!"

"I wasn't complaining that time," David continued to laugh. "You can stalk me all you want if it gets me to Cats games."

"I have work to do," Matteo grumbled and walked out of the office. He honestly did like David and the fact that, like his sister, he spoke his mind unreservedly. Being friends with him was no hardship, and if it got him closer to Cat again, then it was a win-win for everyone.

His mind ran over the email response he had got from her after he had sent the flowers and asked her to still use her work email that she had when she had worked for Vanessa. He hadn't been surprised to find her response came from a Gmail account instead. He had, however, been surprised at its content.

"Dear Matteo,

Thank you for the roses, they are lovely and brighten up my little corner of this busy gathering. I have been working non-stop with little time to truly enjoy the festivities. Pete makes sure I go outside at least once a day and has been a good friend to me here.

I have also become friends with Bianca, who visits me almost daily. She would love to see you before she returns to Prague if you come up to Brisbane once the gathering is over. She claims you are her favourite nephew, although I find it hard to believe she could possibly be your Aunt.

David tells me he is no longer concerned about losing his job because of me, thank you for that. Though I am sure you were never seriously considering it, were you?"

I will call you when I have returned to the city and we can make a time to talk. You were right, we do need to talk, but I need to finish what I came here to do first, and I hope you understand how important this is to me.

Be well, Matteo.

Cat."

Matteo had read the short email so many times he knew it by heart. It was warm, he thought, despite the content being not what he wanted to hear. He considered her friendship with Pete, but knew the man was married to his job and had a Kept that he'd had a relationship with for over a decade, which seemed to fill that void in his life without any complications. Perhaps as he grew older Pete was finally preparing to settle down with a family of his own and Cat was someone that appealed to him. Perhaps he was just being nice to a girl who needed a friend. He wasn't sure what to make of it.