Authors note: Hello everyone. Thank you everyone for the positive feedback and comments they continue to mean the world to me and have brightened my days. Thank you once again to Paul who continues to be my second set of eyes. ~ellie.
*****
Marcus had Bruno call Roberto and Trevino to him for mediation, before the situation got out of hand on the second day of arbitration and fact-finding, while he met with Matteo and Theo quietly in the atrium he used for special trainees.
"The leaders of the other tables are on their way to form the thirteenth table. Whether there is full disclosure about the issues surrounding Maria or not is being discussed at present between the men with grudges," Marcus began. "They will be asked to step down from their chairs, and you will take your places in this meeting of the thirteenth. You are both men of honour, and the past deeds of your families are not yours to own. Make peace for the good of everyone, it cannot end well otherwise."
"You would un-chair our fathers?" Matteo gasped.
"Temporarily, yes. They have shown a total unwillingness to cooperate in this challenge to the traditions and laws of our families," Marcus was stiffly formal. "Shame and guilt are difficult to admit to for anyone; for proud men of the tables, an impossibility. The confessions needed must come from another source, just as hurtful, but not of their own making. Do you understand?"
"Not exactly, but I am going to assume you will enlighten us further," Matteo said carefully.
"I understand," Theo took a large breath and exhaled noisily. "I will do what needs to be done if Matteo stands with me after reading this." He handed Matteo a tablet.
"Tell me," Matteo said, glancing at the tablet. "If you want me to stand with you, then tell me what I need to know, and I will trust your word." He could see how difficult this was for Theo, and he agreed with his sentiment from earlier that morning. It was time to put all of this hatred and feuding behind the two families.
"Giovanni was a difficult baby, only calming when his twin sister was placed next to him in the crib. He was a toddler and child prone to tantrums, fits of rage and cruelty, and his father sought help for him from various doctors and psychologists. Maria became bound to him, not only because of their bond as twins, but because he became her responsibility. She was the only one who could calm those fits of rage, particularly when he hit puberty. My grandfather encouraged the incestuous relationship that developed rather than see his son locked away by the Papillo because his behaviour led him to harm someone, or worse." Theo spoke softly, not making excuses for his grandfather's actions, but rather stating the facts.
"Maria became vain and pampered because everyone was too afraid of Giovanni to deny her anything she wanted. The relationship eventually became stifling for her, however, and when she came of age she wanted to marry and get away from her family and possessive brother. She almost killed him with an accidental overdose of mood-altering drugs when he tried to deny her marriage and escape from her family. Again, it was my grandfather who stepped in and kept Giovanni in the hospital and medicated while Maria became a debutante and fell in love with Stefano Vitali."
"You mean, Roberto," Matteo said.
"If you insist, but I am led to believe it was Stefano that she believed would protect her from Giovanni," Theo said softly. "My grandfather sanctioned the marriage with Roberto and kept control of Giovanni for a short time, even forcing him into a marriage with the promise of a seat on my father's table. This worked until my grandmother's death, and I expect you know the rest of the story."
"My version is slightly different to yours, no doubt, but then I wear the scars of the havoc Giovanni and Maria wreaked on our families," Matteo said sadly. "She is happy there, surprisingly. She doesn't wish to see Giovanni or be caught up in the feud between families any longer."
"Be that as it may, Giovanni is obsessed with the news that Vanessa claims her mother is alive and well in the Ghost Town. Despite my father's attempts to counsel him that it is not true, he will not let it go," Theo said. "I am afraid that if what is in those packages is true there may not be anything we can do to protect the family from the position he has put us in."
The two men continued to talk, laying out what had occurred between Giovanni and Maria from their different points of view and what they had been told by their fathers. In the end, both agreed that there was a fault on both sides of the equation, but, regardless of what had happened in the past, Giovanni's obsession had brought them to the brink of lapsing back into old feuds that could endanger the stability of the twelve tables and the working relationships of the thirteenth. Each family could survive alone, but they were stronger together in an alliance.
Marcus had sat back listening to it all and saying nothing. He wasn't even sure the two men realised he was still in the room. From his family's records, he knew they were being brutally honest with each other, and he saw no reason to intrude on their revelations with his own version of events. The men who would populate the Thirteenth table, once the older generation retired, were men to be reckoned with, including Joshua Donati and Leyton Papillo, who had already taken their chairs on the table.
*****
"We've been in this hotel for three days. How long do they expect us to wait?" Ricco grumbled. He chose a loose-fitting pair of basketball shorts and a light shirt and sighed. "I'm going outside for a while, call me if anyone comes for us."
Stefano raised his hand in acknowledgement that he had heard his son and turned back to his book. He was enjoying not having to think about anything for a few days, and he was more than enjoying his son's company and getting to know the real him rather than the face he exposed to the world. He was more than happy to realise that he hid a dark and demanding side that came out only when alone with Cat to indulge his desires, and that she had embraced that side of him. The Oracle needed to embrace both the light and the dark to truly read the heart of others.
That had been his error with Maria. He had only seen the light in her, the good and sweet side that needed protecting from her family. She hadn't been honest with him though. How could he have known of the nature of her twisted relationship with her brother? He should have known, he was the Oracle, but he had let love blind him from the reality of her true nature. It was a mistake he had not allowed himself to make since, even to the detriment of his relationships with his children.
Ricco hated doing nothing. He wanted to be home with Cat and Matteo, dealing with business and the drama surrounding the family at present instead of expecting Matteo to handle it on his own. Not that he was on his own, he reminded himself. He walked out into a field of tall grass and smiled, reminded of his last day at the house on the hill with Cat. He chose a place near an old tree that afforded a modicum of shade and sat, drawing a deep breath.
Emptying his mind, Ricco closed his eyes and let his mind drift, filtering through all of the external noise of his world to focus on the things that really mattered. An image of Cat as she had been, in a field just like this, embracing him and his darkness, bloomed in vivid detail. Clouds scuttled across the sky becoming darker as his desire and need to possess her and have her serve his every need filled him. He breathed deeply again, tilting his head back, feeling the sun on his face and looking for it in his vision.
Ricco slowed his breathing and allowed the image to shift and move to include Matteo. The darker clouds shifted, and lighter fragments shone through as wind ebbed and flowed within the clouds like the tide of a lapping ocean. The stronger the vision of Matteo the fewer the clouds and the warmer the sun became in his mind. He felt the love and warmth of his brother soften the hardness that threatened to overwhelm his desire for the woman who submitted her mind and body to him when they were alone. The loss of that control scared him, the possibility of hurting her or breaking her trust in him all hung on his ability to remain in control of his darkness, and he knew Matteo was the touchstone that grounded him. He couldn't find that balance internally when it came to Cat, she was too giving of herself, and it took all his strength to take what she gave so willingly and not ask for more, demand more, take more from her.
An image of Cat bound in rope and hanging from the ceiling of his dark retreat at his Uncle's house filled his mind. She was beautiful with her skin pink and lined with angry red welts. The image shifted, and she appeared as she had been that day in the field, kneeling quietly before him, enduring the cold and shivering in her nakedness for him. The image aroused him even more than the vision of her bound and suspended. In his mind's eye she blossomed and swelled with the baby she now carried, her belly and breasts distending, swelling outward, and he felt himself harden with the loose shorts. Once again Matteo swam into his vision, softening the dark desire to possess and use every inch of Cat and take more from her than he should ask of her.
Concentrating on the two people he loved most in the world, he tried to reach out toward them, to feel them and know that they were in no danger. His mind stretched as he concentrated, feeling nothing but his own need for them both, and the pain of his separation from them. He was better with them than without, he needed them, he admitted sadly. Being the Oracle was not something he could do alone. Still, he wanted to know more, be able to do more. He picked up the file he had brought with him and began to concentrate on its contents, hoping to glean even the smallest amount of information from it to tell him what was true and what was fabricated.
