After our exciting adventure at the hospital, we got home at around 9:30. I got a shower and gathered my things to go to school tomorrow.

After I was finished, I walked downstairs to get a drink from the kitchen.

When I went to sit down at the bar, Luciano was already sitting there with a glass of water beside him. I pulled a stool out and sat down next to him. We sat in silence for a bit before he started talking.

"So. Chinese food can kill you." He said jokingly.

I nodded. "Yeah. And if we have to keep resorting to small talk, I'm going to go eat some more of it."

He snorted and it went back to awkward silence.

Life is great. Life is grand. Jazz hands.

"What happened to us?" I asked. I didn't give him time to answer me before I answered myself. "Oh wait. That's right. We were like siblings. We knew everything about each other. And then you left. Without a word. You want to know something? After you left, I checked the newspaper everyday. For years. Hoping that your face wasn't in the obituaries. Hoping that you weren't dead. Hoping that you were still out there somewhere. Hoping that someday you would come back to Houstin and save me from my father. From myself. But you never came back. You just left me wondering what I did wrong."

Luciano was quick to respond. "You did nothing wrong. I left thinking that I was protecting you. Looking back now, I wish I could take back what I did. But until someone figures out a way to make time traveling work, I'm afraid that's not possible. All I can do is just sit here and beg for your forgiveness."

Oh this is going to be great.

Technically, I had already forgiven him.

But he doesn't know that.

I looked away from him and stared at the wall. "Do it then." I let the words fall out of my mouth softly.

Luciano choked on the water he was drinking. "Do what?"

"Beg. On your knees." I gave him a pointed look, giving him the illusion that I wouldn't go down without a fight. Not until he begs for my forgiveness. "I'm waiting." 

"Are you joking?" He asked me, looking at me with wide eyes.

I gave him a wicked smile. "No. And I'm not going to say it again. Get on your knees and beg. Or I'm walking away right now."

Luciano let out a sigh of defeat and stood up from his stool. He slowly dropped to his knees.

I never thought that I would see the day that Luciano fucking Soriano dropped down on his knees and begged.

He looked up at me and clasped his hands together. "Please. Marlowe Alexandria Angeli. Forgive me. I was young and stupid when I left you in Houstin. I believed your uncle when he told me that he would make your suffering worse if I left without thinking what he would do when I was gone. If I were you, I wouldn't forgive me. But you are a better person than I am. You have a better heart. A better mind. And if it were you were given the choice that I was given, you would have chosen to stay. Because you are braver than I am. You are smarter than I am. I know that the choice I made was wrong. I know that what I did was unforgivable, yet here I am right now. On my knees. Begging for your forgiveness. Please. Marls."

I smirked and pretended to wipe a tear from my eyes. "That was glorious. So emotional. You can stand up now, you big doofus."

His face was filled with confusion. "Wait. Am I forgiven?"

I said nothing and just smiled for a minute while he stood up and returned to his place at the bar. "I already forgave you. Like a while ago. So that was all for my entertainment. Nothing else. Damnit. I should have recorded it. What was I thinking?" I burst out laughing while Luciano gave me a concerned look.

Just then, Alessio and Alessandro came walking into the kitchen. My laughing ceased instantly.

"I don't know what's going on in here and I don't think I want to." Alessio stated blanky while slightly shaking his head.

Alessandro was just standing there staring at me.

I gave him a weird look and he snapped out of it.

"So. Peanut allergy, huh? Who knew that just a little peanut could wipe out the great and powerful Marlowe Angeli." He said as he started chuckling. I joined him and was about to stop laughing when I rememeber what I had conned Luciano into doing not even five minutes before. I started cracking up again and was soon on the floor laughing with my eyes squeezed shut.

I laughed so hard that I couldn't breathe. Finally I calmed down once my stomach started hurting.

I opened my eyes and saw Alessio, Alessandro, Luciano, and Seraphine Chevalier standing over me.

When the hell did she get here?

"Well at least you're in a better mood than the last time I saw you." Seraphine told me as she stuck out a hand to assist my standing up.

Once I was on my feet, it was brought to my attention that we weren't the only ones in the kitchen anymore. Xavier was there leaning against the counter, holding back his laughter. There was also a girl that looked maybe a little younger than me. And then there was another boy that looked really familiar, who was also staring at me, but with a more exasperated look. A boy that was extremely good looking.

The name clicked.

Théo Chevalier.

I awkwardly laughed. "Well, this is a party."

Alessio raised his eyebrows. "Yeah. Let's call it that."

Seraphine punched him on the arm. "While us adults are going to sit down and talk about business for a while, we thought it might be a wise idea for you four to get to know each other a little bit better due to the fact that you will be seeing each other around a lot more often. Something urgent popped up, so we, as an alliance, need to deal with it."

I nodded. "Well, we can go to the game room or something. Where's Antonio and Dino? Tell them to get their asses down here. We'll have a pool tournament."

Théo snorted at my use of provacative language in front of my brother.

Alessio however was not so amused. "Watch your language, Marlowe. You can have a pool tournament, but there will be a couple rules. 1. No fighting. 2. No drinking. You have school tomorrow. 3. Don't be loud. I have a headache. Also, Marlowe before you leave, we need to discuss something. Privately."

I nodded my head, knowing what it was that he probably wanted to talk about.

He held his arm out in the direction that he wanted us to talk, which just so happened to be the dining room. I leaned against the table.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked him.

Alessio sighed. "We need to talk about the deal that we made. Now that you are here with us permanently, I don't think it will be necessary for you to have to continue to hold the information as a type of leverage. It's up to you, of course. If it makes you feel more comfortable having the information, then by all means, keep it. But if you don't want the burden of having information that could get you killed, the offer is on the table."

I nodded, taking in what he was telling me. I thought about it for a minute. He was right. I didn't need to hold the information for leverage anymore and I was putting myself in more danger for having it.

Well, the definition of my life is literally danger, so....

"I'll give it to you. But on one condition." I told him.

"What's that?" Alessio asked, desperate to get the information that could take down one of his worst enemies.

"You tell me if Sebastián makes any advances on you. Anything that has to do with the Spanish mafia, I want to know."

Alessio gave me a confused look. "Why?"

"Just because." I said. "Information for information."

What I didn't tell him was that if I get any word from him that Sebastián is getting closer and knows where I am, I'm getting the hell out of dodge.

I trust my brothers. And I know that they would die for me.

That's the problem. I don't want to lose any of my brothers. I've only known them for a little longer than a week, but they've given me hope. They gave me a reason to live.

And if I lost any of them, I don't know what I would do. Especially if the only reason that they died was because of me. I already had my aunt fill my head with the thought that it was my fault that my mother was dead. I wouldn't be able to take the fact that I was responsible for one of my brothers dying.

My eldest brother gave me a look as if he knew that I was hiding the truth from him. Not lying, but not giving him the true reason as to why I wanted constant upates on my uncle.

I could see him thinking and weighing the options. Finally he gave me an answer.

"Fine. If you give me all the information that you have on the Russians, I'll give you any and all updates that we have on Sebastián Alvarez." He told me in a cold voice.

His business voice.

Ahhh. So scary. I'm gonna piss my pants.

(AN- funny story. once at a new year's eve party with my friends, we were playing truth or dare because we are all 15 years old but are truly 10 at heart. one of my friend's little sister was there with us. we were all laughing at my friend who was dared to scream/sing jingle bells outside. we were in my friend's garage and were watching her through the window. my friend has a bar in her garage so we were sitting on bar stools. all of a sudden, my friend's sister just yells "i just pissed my pants!" she ran out of the garage and into the house but not before stopping to sing jingle bells with my friend.)

"Sounds like a plan, Stan." I gave him a smile. "I'll get the information to you tomorrow."

He nodded. "Alright, go find Théo, Valerie, Luciano, and Xavier. I have no idea where the fuck they went, so have fun finding them."

He ruffled my hair and quickly left the room before I could yell at him.

I shook my head at my brother's childish antics.

I walked up to my room to find my phone so I could call Xavier to try and find where they went. When I got to my room, there was an envelope taped to the door with a sticky note next to it.

"'Miss Angeli, this was found for you in the mailbox. - Sarah.'" I read aloud. "Who the hell is Sarah?"

"She's the maid. You've lived here for a week and you still don't know who puts the towels in your bathroom? Shame on you."

I whipped around and saw Lorenzo leaning against the wall with a smirk on his face. "I'm just messin with ya, passerotta. I only learned her name a couple months ago and she's been working here for two years."

I laughed and turned back to my door, gently pulling the envelope off the door and stuffed it in my back pocket. I looked back at my brother. "Hey, do you know where Xavier is? I was trying to find him."

"I think he's in the game room with the Chevalier kids and Soriano."

"Thanks. We were going to have a pool tournament. Do you wanna join?" I asked him. I feel like I haven't spend any time with him recently.

Lorenzo shook his head. "I would, but I would just make you guys feel bad. I'm pretty good at pool. Besides, I wanted to talk to you real quick. It will just be a minute or two."

What is it with all of my brothers wanting to have a private conversation with me?

"Sure. What's up?" I prompted him to start talking.

"I just wanted to ask you how you've been recently. You've been kind of distant lately and I've been worried. In fact, we all have. If something's going on or something happened, you know that you can tell one of us, right? We are all here for you, Marlowe. No matter what."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know."

He shot me smile. "'Kay. Just making sure."

Lorenzo walked down the hallway to his room and went inside.

Once he was gone, I headed into my room and pulled out the letter from my pocket.

I looked at it and sighed.

After battling for a while on whether I should open it now or wait until later, I sat it on my bed. It can wait until later.

I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and put it in the pocket where the letter was.

Time to go kick some ass in pool.

-

heyyyy. that's a wrap for chapter 21.

question of the chapter: do you guys like pickles and if so, would you drink a literal glass of straight pickle juice?

at a restaurant near where i live, they had a special pickle menu for national pickle day. my friends and i all went. i absolutely love their sweet tea, so i ordered a glass of it, but they didn't have any. my one friend wanted tea, too. so when the waitress told us that they were out of tea, my friend looked at her and said "can we just get pickle juice?" and the waitress said "I don't know how I could give it to you so that it would actually taste good and not have alcohol in it." my friend just smiled and said "you can just give us pickle juice with nothing in it." She looked at her weird and one of my other friends perked up and was like "can i have some too?" I raised my hand and said "i'll take some too." the waitress just looked at us and said "all three of you are just going to drink straight pickle juice." my friend was just like "Yeah, we do it all the time." the waitress just looked at us weirdly and went to get us our picke juice. she came back and gave us all glasses with straight pickle juice and let me tell you it was so good. call me crazy but pickle juice is literally amazing.

alright that's all i have.

byeeeeeee