Authors note: Hello everyone. Welcome to the new Twelve Tables series and the new family I have for you all to meet. I hope you come to know and like them as much as the families from the past series. Please understand this is a work of fiction and I am in no way an expert on mental illness or PTSD. This story is not based on real people or situations and any resemblance is mere coincidence. Thank you once again to David and Kate for being my second set of eyes. Enjoy! ~ellie.
The Twelve Zenati: Ch. 1
Vivienne.
"For fuck's sake, did you have to call him?" Genesis groaned at his cousin, Helena. "I came to you because I thought you had some sort of doctor-patient ethic!"
"Gen, you think you had a heart attack," Helena clicked her tongue. "What did you expect me to do?"
"Give us a minute alone please, Helena," Armando chuckled. "My son will be fine. You can trust me on that, but I promise to call if you're needed. I am sure his test results show no lasting effects. It was probably just bad indigestion; you know what wild tales he has always told in that little paper he writes for."
"Alright, Zio, but if he dies, I am telling Zia it was your fault," Helena warned him, trying not to sound amused as she wagged a finger at him. As far as she could see, there was nothing wrong with her cousin's heart in any of the tests results she had.
"So, tell me about the curse breaker?" Armando asked, his eyes twinkling with merriment.
"There is no curse! It's not like that!" Genesis shook his head in denial.
"When I saw your mother for the first time, she fell from a wall and broke her arm. The pain I felt, however, was like a knife twisting in my gut, then it radiated up into my chest and it felt like a gorilla took hold of my heart and was squeezing it in its big fist," he spoke casually as he watched his son try to hide the surprise from his face. "Once I recovered, I launched into action because I knew I had to save her. I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else picking her up and taking her to the hospital." He took a seat in the small consultation room and surveyed his son.
"There is no such thing as a love curse, Papa," Genesis groaned. "I know you all like to tease us about it, but now is not the time for family legends." His father had never told him the details of his curse breaker before, just that his heart stopped when he saw his broken dove. That is all any of the men in his family ever said about finding the woman they fell in love with. The fact that the details were identical to how he felt when he had laid eyes on Serena Seabrook was nothing more than a coincidence, he told himself. It was probably the beer he'd had at that seedy dive bar giving him nasty heartburn.
"Tell me about the girl that made your heart stop, then," Armando chuckled. "Where were you when you had this heart attack?"
"It's not like that, Papa. Trust me," he sighed and related the story of Father Bob Rossi and the woman who could bring down Remington Royce.
"So, a priest asked you to help save this young woman, and when you walked into the hospital room to meet her you had a heart attack?" Armando tried hard to keep a straight face.
"She is beyond broken Papa, brainwashed and tortured. Her whole personality was replaced with the Suebi version of the perfect woman. I don't know that anyone can save her," he said sadly.
"But you want to try, don't you?" Armando asked gently.
"I promised Father Bob that I would. Is that so bad?" Genesis said, defensively.
"Not at all. You're a good man Genesis. You always champion the weak and vulnerable. Here's the thing though. Let's say your Zio and his watchmen also have an interest in what the girl can tell them about Remington Royce and his Suebi network. Would you be just as happy for him or your cousins to help her?"
"No! This is my story, my lead," he blurted without a thought about the consequences of his words and had to endure his father's knowing smile as his eyes danced with merriment.
"Alright, calm down," Armando chuckled. "Your uncles and I will help you to help her. You can call the shots where she is concerned, with our full backing, on two conditions." He paused, waiting for his son to look him in the eye and nod in agreement. before going on. "First, you admit to me that this heart attack you described was exactly like I experienced when I first met your mother. The knife in the gut moving up to the gorilla fist around your heart," he paused again and saw the truth of that shared pain in Genesis' eyes. "Second, go along with the story of the curse breaker even if you don't believe it yourself. Not one man in this family would be game to stand in the way of the curse. Bad things happen when you try to fight it, or so they say."
"Fine. I have the same genetic disorder, heart condition, indigestion, whatever, as you," Genesis admitted grudgingly. "It hurt like hell, so 'curse' is as good as any word for it. That doesn't mean that I believe that the men in our family are cursed to suffer for their one true love. Or that anyone has just one true love. If you want to call my heart attack a curse, so be it."
"Good man, but Helena is pretty sure you didn't have a heart attack which is why she called me. Now, here are my immediate thoughts given what you have told me," Armando drew a pen from his pocket and searched the desk in the small consultation room for something to write on.
"You need that bodyguard to answer some questions. Interrogate her about how you get the girl to respond to people trying to help her. We're about to start picking up the Suebi, so you need to work on the priest and get every detail about the man who confessed the story about the girl. You need to contact her family. Not to do so would be wrong and could cause rifts between the families, but there are ways around letting them take her away. There is also a Papillo trauma specialist here to work with the Vitali leaders. I will send her down to consult with you." Armando was all business, and Genesis blinked in awe. Even though the new table had been announced as a safeguard against an attack such as the Donati family suffered, the older members were still not ready to retire, so little had been expected of any of the younger members except Dominic and Xavier, the heirs apparent.
"The watchmen are all pretty busy," Genesis said dubiously. "I would need some help from them, or at least access to their resources."
"Your Uncle will give you what you need, just ask. He can spare a man or two for you given the circumstances," Armando said. "No doubt he will want the information the girl can give as much as you do, considering who she was about to marry."
"Shit, we heard! Are you okay?" Gideon boomed as he burst into the small room, taking up a large amount of space, not only with his physique but also his larger-than-life personality. Genesis grimaced as he looked at his brother. This was getting worse by the moment.
"You should tell your brothers. They will be your biggest supporters if you do. Trust me on that," Armando chuckled again and clapped his son on the shoulder. "I'll go and see about that trauma specialist and get her to call you." He stood up and winked at Gideon before chuckling and leaving the room.
Genesis looked at his older brother and tried to reassure him that he was quite well and that he knew he was needed by his family during the location and arrest of the Suebi underground network that had orchestrated the nationwide attack on the Mothers of the Tables While their own family had taken the warning seriously and nullified the threat before anyone could get close to his Aunt or the wife of his cousin, Xavier, others had been injured. The mother of the Vitali table had also been airlifted from the desert airport of the Papillo to Darwin, and that had put extra pressure on the Zenati family's medical resources. He had just felt a strange twinge and wanted it checked out, that was all.
"A your-heart-stopped type of twinge?" Gideon's eyes widened.
"No, not like that, but I was in the hospital following a lead at the time, so I just asked Helena to check me out to make sure it wouldn't happen again," Genesis sighed. God! Were all of the men of his family crazy when it came to believing in this stupid curse? Against his better judgement, he began to explain how he had become involved with Bob Rossi and Serena Seabrook. The fact was that his father was right; he felt an unbelievably strong pull from deep within him to help the girl. He refused to believe it was a curse but rather, as his father had pointed out, that he had a hero complex and always championed the cause of the weak and vulnerable, and said as much to his big brother.
"So, this mysterious guy goes to confession and tells this Father Bob about a girl who was brainwashed. Then Bob comes to you with this story, and you think 'Great! Here's a way to bring down a man we believe is a main player in the Suebi organisation.' Have I got it right so far?" Gideon asked.
"Yeah, that about covers it, though she wasn't just brainwashed. Royce systematically destroyed her old life. He created a new identity for her and made her believe it and live it through the use of drugs, torture and brainwashing. She believes she is Serena Seabrook and that Olivia Gambaro was murdered by bad men. She believes that she is in love and was about to marry the man of her dreams, who did this to her, when she was injured," Genesis said disgustedly. The information he had came from Bob, but he had no reason to doubt the earnest priest, and what he had seen of the girl seemed to confirm what he had been told.
"But the guy is brain-dead. Machines are keeping him alive. He isn't a threat anymore and can't give us any useful information. So why not just hand this girl over to the experts that know how to deal with this sort of shit?" Gideon asked. "The girl got a bad deal, but we can send her to the Papillo or the Battaglia hospitals where they are set up for this type of thing. I am sure her family would be glad to know she is alive. Why do you want to get involved in helping a woman who is possibly damaged beyond repair?" Gideon needed his brother to admit the real reason out loud. He could already see it in his eyes and his movements, but he needed to hear his brother say it before committing himself to the cause.
