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  "Your mum didn't think you'd get out of bed unless one of us forced you to. I bet her that she was wrong."

  Alexis feigned offence, but honestly, she couldn't have been mad about their bet. She was notoriously lazy on the weekend. If it wasn't important to her parents that she actually be present and accounted for today, she would've been back up in bed as soon as she'd had breakfast.

  "So what time are they descending upon us?"

  It was already seven forty-five and her mum had said that most of the family would be arriving around eight. Knowing them like she did Alexis guessed that most wouldn't turn up until closer to nine, but only because they were pre-cooking food to bring over. They'd say it was to save time and clean up and Carmen wasn't going to argue. As it was, having so many cooks in the kitchen was chaos. If bringing over their pre-prepared food made things a little less hectic, she wouldn't be offended that they, not so secretly, hated her kitchen.

  "Your Zia Marie called and said they'd be about half an hour late. So you've got time to enjoy your breakfast, and we can all enjoy the peace and quiet for a little longer."

  ◆◆◆

  Carmen had been to her fair share of funerals. As a matter of fact, she'd been to more than her fair share of funerals. It came with the territory of being the wife of a mafioso. It didn't get easier though. Every time they went to a funeral, she couldn't help but wonder how long it would be until it was her husband in the coffin being carried towards a six-foot hole in the ground. She dreaded the day that she would have to put on a brave face in front of everyone while her whole world fell apart.

  Carmen wrapped an arm around Ricky's mother, Veronica and held Alexis' hand tightly on the other side. She refused to think about her daughter being the one in the coffin. Carmen had lost one child already in her life, she refused to lose another. She never wanted to feel the pain Veronica was feeling again.

  When the group made it to the area marked for Ricky's burial they all took their seats. The group was much smaller than what it had been at the church. The service itself had been open to anyone who knew Ricky, this however, was just for the closest friends and family.

  Carmen herself didn’t pay much attention to the priests’ words. She kept thinking about Ricky and how young he'd been. His younger brother Liam was one of the pallbearers, along with Tony and Ricky's father Richard.

  Liam was only eighteen, and up till today he'd been so eager to follow in his big brother's footsteps. If he still chose to go through with it then he'd be getting his button in a few months. Tony would give him time to grieve, time to rethink his path in life.

  Veronica got up out of her seat and moved to the podium where the priest had stood. Richard moved to her side and wrapped an arm around her waist, supporting her. She looked like she needed all the physical support she could get. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself and moved away from her husband. There was a look of determination in her eyes and hatred. Carmen had seen that look before, and nothing that followed it was ever good.

  "My son was such a sweet boy. He was always looking out for his family. The day my boy was killed, his family failed him, but they won't fail him in death." Veronica's eyes cut through the crowd to where Tony sat and she glared at him. "You can rest easy baby boy, your death will not go unpunished. I'll make sure of it."

  There was a collective silence that followed Veronica's speech. Carmen stared wide-eyed at Tony while her daughter gripped her hand tightly. Grief or not, Veronica was out of line. She had not so subtly called out the Family, and Tony as its head, for not looking after her son. She was the wife of a made man, she knew how dangerous it was to show such disrespect.

  Richard stared at his wife in disbelief, thankfully it only took him all of five seconds to regain his wits and escort her away from the podium. Her only saving grace would be that she hadn't actually used the 'M' word or called Tony out as being the reason her son was dead. Carmen would argue that it wasn't even close to being Tony's fault, but she knew that the mother's grief wouldn't allow for reason or logic.

  ◆◆◆

  Once the funeral was over, Carmen and Alexis rushed back to the car in the most subtle and respectful way possible. Tony was catching the next limo back to house, but right now Carmen needed to head back to make sure everything was ready for when guests arrive for the wake. Once they were on the move Carmen pulled her phone from her purse to text Tony but she got distracted by an envelope.

  "Lex, text your dad that we're on our way home would you?" Alexis did as she was asked but made a mental note to ask about the envelope later.

  The envelope was plain and unsealed. Peeking inside, Carmen could see the back of photo paper. Pulling out the photos, she kept them turned away from her daughter. When she looked down at the subject of the first photograph, she felt sick to her stomach. Turning it over didn't lesson the feeling. On the back of the top photograph someone had written, 'We're coming for you.'

  ◆◆◆

  When Carmen went upstairs to change she hid the envelope and pictures in the hidden panel of the walk-in closet where she kept her surveillance equipment. No one except Tony and his consigliere Emilio, knew that she monitored their meetings.

  Carmen knew more about psychological warfare and body language than anyone else in the Family. While she didn't always participate in the meetings, she watched over them and told Tony which of the capos were hiding something or unhappy with the outcome. She also had the skill set to act as a bodyguard if the time came.

  Tony had fought her on everything to do with her being involved in the Family. He didn't want her anywhere near the danger. She was constantly reminding him that when they met, she was already in danger. Carmen was used to this life and the risks that went along with it. She was the daughter of a made man, and he had thought that it was safer for her to stay in the dark, unaware and unprepared. He thought that maybe that way she wouldn't become a part of the life. Their naivety had almost cost her, her life and her honour, until she met Tony.

  Tony and his guys had trained her up to be able to protect herself from her ex-boyfriend. She didn't tell Tony that her ex had been a part of a Family of his own, not until she was sure that he was out of her life forever.

  The thing was though, just like her daughter, Carmen was a natural born fighter. Tony had been fond of her and provided her with the best training, even before they were officially together. Within a year she was proficient in three kinds of martial arts and knew how to use a knife in more ways than to just slice vegetables.

  A few years after they got married and had Alexis, Tony suddenly became the head of the family. His father had been killed and no one knew who had done it. In an effort to avenge his father's death, Tony spent weeks poring over camera footage and audio clips of conversations captured during important meetings and negotiations. He came up with nothing.

  One night after he'd fallen asleep on the couch again, Carmen was on her way back to bed from the bathroom and got curious. By morning she had narrowed down the list of suspects to two based purely on the changes of pitch in their voice and their body language. When Tony woke up he couldn't believe how much his wife had accomplished in so little time. She'd gleefully reminded him that one of her degrees was in Psychology.

  After interrogating the two suspects they quickly figured out who it was that had organised the hit, and who it was that was just disgruntled at having been overseen for promotion again. That afternoon there was an execution. By the next day Emilio was sworn in as the new consigliere.

  It was a new world order, a new generation of mafia warfare. All through America, women were taking over their husband's criminal activities when they were sent to prison. In Mexican cartels, women were assassins and executioners. Australia would be no different. They might be behind the times with many political issues, but not when it came to realising that a woman could run things just as well as a man could.

  ◆◆◆

  It was almost ten at night before the last of the mourne
rs took their leave. Carmen poured the three of them a glass of wine, Alexis' containing half the liquid that theirs did. When she passed the glasses around Tony gave her an odd look.

  "What? She earnt it this today."

  "Oh no not that. Was there no whiskey?"

  "No. Your brothers drank it all." Carmen added an eye roll at her brothers in law's antics. Richard she could understand, he'd lost his son, but Lee knew better than to drink so much. He was a loud drunk, and more often than not, would get verbally abusive and a bit racist.

  "Bastards. Honey remind me to call Richard tomorrow."

  Carmen just nodded and took another sip of her wine before grabbing one of the left-over cheese platters from the fridge.

  "Daddy, what's going to happen to Ronnie?" Alexis knew enough about how respect worked in the Family to have realised that Veronica screwed up. She'd obviously had a few drinks before the funeral but that was no excuse for what she said.

  Sighing, Tony tried to figure out the best way to make Alexis' understand the gravity of the situation,

  "Sweetheart, what is one of the most important things in the Cosa Nostra."

  Alexis thought about it for a few moments. Finally she settled on her answer. "Loyalty and respect."

  "Yes, but in this case we're talking about respect. I can understand that Veronica is grieving for her son, and the laws of the Cosa Nostra dictate that wives are to be respected."

  "But you should be respected too, you're the mafioso."

  Tony smiled at his daughter. She knew more about their life than he wanted her to, but between movies and the internet, she had known the ten commandments of the Cosa Nostra before she was nine.

  "Yes, you're right. So you see those two rules are in conflict. Veronica is my sister-in-law; my brother is a made man like me. If it were one of his guys then I would tell him to bring that guy in and I’d have a firm word with him and that would be the end of it. But it's not, so I can't and it isn't."

  "So what happens now?"

  This time it was Carmen who answered, "Now it's time for me to step in. Veronica needs to know that grief or not she can't behave the way that she did. Ricky senior won't lay a hand on her, we promise. That's just not how we do things. He will be made to leave her at home for any future events until your dad deems her punishment to be over."

  "But she's not going to be hurt?"

  Tony snorted, "Oh I'm sure that being left out of every social event from here to the rapture will hurt her, but no, she won't be physically harmed. We have rules for a reason baby girl. It would've been one thing for her to disrespect me behind closed doors but not in a public display like that. If I ignore it then it will cause more problems later on."

  Alexis saw the logic in her father's punishment. Zia Veronica married into the Family, but she came from one of those semi-important political families. Alexis' Nonno had organised the marriage between his son and Veronica to secure a political alliance with her father. Life was so different in the 80's.

  Chapter 16

  By the time Alexis made it to school the Monday following the funeral, she was mentally and emotionally drained. Her parents had deemed the day before a family day, just the three of them. They'd spent the day watching movies and reminiscing about Ricky. Alexis had told them story about the cake, and they'd told her about the first time he saw her after she was born. Apparently he was none too pleased with having a little brother and had tried to swap Liam out for Alexis. Her parents had been quite surprised when they went to check on her and found a then four year old Liam curled up in her crib with duct tape over his mouth.

  The swap had only occurred half an hour before they discovered the switch but it had been long enough for Liam to get tired and fall asleep. Ricky was found in Tony's office under the desk entertaining his baby cousin. Alexis had no idea what was going on and was more than happy to watch Ricky make shadow puppets on the wall.

  They'd all sat in silence for a while after that, lost in their own thoughts. Every time Alexis looked at her dad she would catch him staring back at her. It was a look that said, 'this is why I don't want you to be a part of this'. That made her think for the first time in a long time, is it worth it?

  Ever since Alexis found out what her family was really involved in, she'd wanted to be a part of it too. She knew of the dangers of being involved, she knew of the risks and the losses she could face. It wasn't until these past few days that she'd truly understood though. There had been times when her dad had hung up the phone and told them of someone who had died, a soldier that she might've seen in passing but never properly interacted with. This was the first time that she had lost someone close to her, someone she really cared about.

  What made it all worse, was that no one could tell them why. Alexis thought back to Zia Ronnie's outburst at the funeral. She wanted revenge for what had happened to Ricky. They all did. The difference between her and the rest of them, was she blamed Tony. Alexis had no delusions about what happened. Ricky had been in the firing line because he was a made man in her father's crime family. Plain and simple.

  What wasn't so plain and simple was why? Why were their men being targeted. Yes, Alexis knew about the deaths leading all the way back across to the East Coast. Her parents hadn't told her probably so she wouldn't worry, but she needed to know. Ricky wasn't just an isolated event, he was just one in a series of murders leading to them.

  Where would it end?

  ◆◆◆

  Lucas practically jumped out of his skin when a pair of slender arms wrapped around his waist from behind. Covering the small hands with his own he breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Aaron, I told you, we can't do this at school. The teachers would never approve." Knowing what was coming if he let those hands go Lucas held onto them tighter. No rib jabs for him. However he didn't count on Alexis finding another way of getting back at him. He felt her teeth munch down gently on the soft flesh of his arm and let her go.

  "Argh you cannibal! Speaking of things frowned upon here."

  Turning around Lucas was met with possibly the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. Without a second thought he leant down and captured her mouth with his. The kiss only lasted for a few seconds before they pulled away, but he could've lasted on that high for the rest of the day.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked, remembering what she'd had to deal with this past weekend.

  "Yeah, I've been better, but I stayed home with my parents yesterday and we spent the day watching movies and sharing stories about Ricky. Apparently he tried to kidnap me when I was a baby," she smiled fondly.

  "And here I thought I was the only one who'd thought to kidnap you."

  "Well apparently not, so I guess it's time to step up your game," Alexis gave him a playful wink as they started walking past classrooms headed nowhere in particular.

  "Be my girlfriend." He hadn't planned to ask her then and there. He was going to wait until the end of the coming weekend and stick to his original plan. He supposed he could still do that plan and it would just be a regular date.

  "You - what?" Alexis had stopped walking and when he turned around to face her, regret brewing in his stomach, she was staring at him shocked.

  "Are you serious?"

  "Well I did have a whole plan, and there was chocolate involved, but yes, I'm serious. Will you be my official girlfriend?"

  She started coming towards him, and for a moment he wondered if maybe she was going to let him down easy. Which didn't make sense since Emilia had put it in his head that this is what Alexis wanted... unless it wasn't and Emilia had been messing with hi-

  His thought process was cut off by Alexis taking his face in her hands.

  "Yes, Lucas. I will officially be your girlfriend. But you're still doing that thing with the chocolates."

  Of course, the chocolates couldn't be forgotten.

  Chapter 17

  In the weeks following the Hale sibling ambush, all except for April were unaccounted for. Their parents were s
till claiming that the trio had run away after realising what they'd done but no one believed them. Instead there were some rather interesting rumours going around that they had been sent to a strict religious rehabilitation camp for wayward youths.

  Whether or not this was fact, was still up for debate, but Alexis had someone looking into it. What her mum had said that day in the cafe, about knowing the people you're dealing with, it had stuck with her. Alexis was determined to know everything she could about the Hale family. There were quite a few things she knew from her years of friendship with April, but the older half siblings were a bit more of a mystery. They'd graduated from Themis College before the girls had started high school and were now off living their supposedly successful adult lives.

  At least that's what April would have had everyone believe.