Authors note: Hello everyone. Well this is the second last chapter and I hope you enjoy the climax of this story! 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.
*****
Maria stood on the tarmac facing the plane that held so many of her dreams and her nightmares. Giovanni, her twin brother, her illicit lover, her stalker and her tormentor, she felt little love for the man who had destroyed her life so completely. She had been imprisoned and cut off from everything she loved. It had taken her many years to come to terms with what she had done and what she had lost; and she had found a sense of acceptance, if not peace, for what she had been and the evil she had wrought on her husbands and children.
She wasn't that woman any longer, she knew she wasn't, but the thought of seeing Giovanni and withstanding his anger and betrayal terrified her more than the first meeting with her children had done back in January. She didn't know why he terrified her so much now so many years later. He had already taken everything from her, including her identity. She could never be the woman he knew again, and she knew she would die at his hands once he realised that.
"How long is he going to make her stand there?" Ricco hissed at Sava. His mother had been standing in full view of the plane with Leyton Papillo for over ten minutes now with no sign of movement from the people inside. Considering the lengths to which he had gone to get to Maria, it was beyond reasoning that he would make her stand there waiting for him to open the door for so long.
"Until your brother and Catriona arrive, I think," Sava said thoughtfully. "We had hoped the sight of the woman he wanted would stir him to action, but he has other plans, it seems now. Perhaps the Suebi who are guiding him have a greater hold on him than we gave credit for. Or perhaps he was never here for Maria, but only to distract us enough to give him and the Suebi access to what they wanted all along."
"This isn't what we talked about!" Ricco growled.
"The movement of a butterfly wing can change the outcome of one destiny and replace it with another. All we can do is try to grasp each moment before the most likely scenario occurs," Sava said and tilted his head as if seeing something only a few feet before him that Ricco couldn't. "Excuse me for a moment," Sava said, and turned toward the hanger where the rest of his people waited and watched.
"Fuck!" Ricco growled, seeing the spot in the sky that told him that Matteo and Cat were closer than expected. He needed a plan to keep her safe, he needed a way to ensure the people he loved survived this day. His thoughts immediately went to Cat, her image so clear in his brain. She accepted him, all of him, the good and the bad, the darkness and the light. He could be whole with her like never before in his life. With a vision in his mind and a feeling of panic deep within his gut, he turned and followed Sava in to speak with the other members of the Tater, grateful to see Stefano there with them.
"I think Giovanni has given the Suebi the true weakness of every table," Ricco announced as he approached them, looking up. "Coming here for Maria is merely a distraction; he's here for Cat and has no intention of releasing Theresa!" The six men and women stared at him. "Fuck! It's not just our mothers, is it?" He asked, looking at the serious faces who watched him. "We have to warn the other tables; they won't be expecting this with their Chairs away from home!"
Ricco immediately pulled his phone out and texted the close-knit group of friends Matteo had grown up with, thankful that he had placed them as a group in his phone after the buck's night. He hoped they would take him seriously and get their mothers to safety in time.
*Ricco: 17.48: Suebi plans to take the mothers of every table. Protect the heart of your tables, now!*
"Leyton, you have to call an alert and get your wife somewhere safe now!" he yelled from the open hangar.
"I'm here!" Lydia said loudly enough to draw Ricco's attention back to the hangar. "Rick made me come with him and put the whole family on alert hours ago. What's going on?"
Ricco breathed and looked at Rick Papillo with new eyes. He was the Oracle of the Papillo and obviously had formidable powers and the belief in himself to follow through on his feelings. Ricco knew he needed to start doing that, no matter what the odds were that he was wrong. In this case, however, he knew he wasn't, and he was glad that Lydia was here with the men who would protect her with their own lives if necessary. Now if he could just protect Cat in the same way.
*****
"What the fuck have you done, Martino?" Tony Sartori snarled as alerts started to sound from the phones of the Chairs who remained at the Battaglia fortress. "If you think your family is immune from a Suebi attack I'd like to know why?" he made the thinly veiled accusation and silenced the room. "We all know our families will act according to the protocols we have in place, so if this is meant as a distraction for us to leave you to run and hide, think again."
"Where are your wife and daughter-in-law right now?" Alberto asked, having received the message almost immediately from his son, Phil, explaining the alert. "If the Suebi take all of the mothers because of your arrogance and stupidity, your family is done, I promise you I will see to it myself, if no one else will."
Trevino stared at them, the blood draining from his face. Giovanni wouldn't have done this to them, but he couldn't deny the fact that Giovanni had already kidnapped members of the Vitali and was flying north to expose the Papillo family and the secrets of each table. He couldn't make sense of it. After Giovanni's outburst several months ago, when he had accused Trevino of knowing Maria's fate, he had calmed down and seemed to have put the whole story Vanessa had told Mario about seeing her mother behind him. The watchers he had personally sent to monitor the man and his son had reported nothing untoward, and now Trevino wondered now about their loyalty to him over the Watchman himself, Giovanni.
Trevino hoped that whoever was sending out the warnings had alerted Theo. The loss of his wife and the new baby would break Theo, he knew, and no matter what else he had to face, he would never be able to face his son again if that happened because he hadn't controlled his brother.
*****
Twelve minutes after Ricco had sent out his text, small bands of Suebi mounted their attacks in ten different locations around the country. Those that had received the message first had moved with lightning speed to get the mothers of their tables to safety. Those that had been in the second wave of alerts, or who doubted the veracity of the message due to old enmities and feuds, were not so lucky with their delay to act.
Dante Donati was on his way home when he got the text, and not caring if it was true or not hit the alert button on his phone. He needed to ensure Peri and the children were safe, and while he knew the people at his home would ensure they were safe, he needed to be there himself. He pressed the accelerator to the floor as he dialled Josh, thinking that was the best way to let all the tables know about the warning Ricco Vitali had sent through.
Josh was unreachable, probably having called home as soon as the alert went off. So he concentrated on getting home in one piece and then texting all of his friends. He hoped one of the others Ricco had texted had been in a better position than him to warn the other families. It hadn't even occurred to him to question the text message. This wasn't something people would joke about, ever, and his gut told him it was true, and that was all he needed these days to believe it. With the family under alert precautions, all he could do was get home as fast as possible and warn as many people as he could.
"Ben," Dante answered his phone as he negotiated a corner at speed. "The Suebi are after the mothers of every Table. Get Carlo to my place, I'm on my way there but not close enough. Get everyone to Peri and the kids!" he snapped and hung up, leaving Ben to do his job and get his watchmen all streaming toward their country house.
