Chapter 75: MEETING THE FAMILY

MIA

It was day fifteen now.

"My father wants to meet you."

I set my coffee down. "Your family."

"It's important. He needs to see you're real because he some how found out about you." He was looking at his plate, not at me. “It's not optional."

"When?"

"Tonight."

I picked my coffee back up.

"Okay," I said.

He looked up then, surprised I hadn't argued.

"Okay," he said.

The compound was outside the city in a place where I thought only trees existed but was shocked when we drove through a gate.

There were more men near the entrance which didn't surprise me for a Mafia.

Dante held my hand going in and I let him because i wasn’t about to be left alone in the lion’s den.

Don Voss was smaller than I'd imagined.

"So this is her," he said to Dante, not to me.

"This is Mia," Dante said.

Don Voss looked at me directly then. "You are a photographer?”

"Yes."

"What kinds of things do you take pictures of?"

"People, mostly. And urban spaces as well"

He considered that. "Sit."

We sat and the dinner was formal which I tried not to really interact with them.

Luca—Dante’s younger brother—was across the table and he was also younger than I'd expected, early twenties maybe with a very energetic personality. He watched me with the same interest as his father but with less patience and less interest in hiding it.

Don Voss asked about my family. I answered simply, parents in another city, small family, close but not close by. He asked what I wanted, which was a more interesting question than the others, and I said I wanted to do work that mattered and take care of the people I cared about, which was true enough.

He asked what my intentions were with his son.

I looked at Dante across the table and then back at the Don and said that I cared about Dante and wanted to understand his world better, which was what I would have said wholeheartedly months ago if he hadn't been a piece of shir.

Don Voss nodded once and moved on.

After dinner the Don touched Dante's arm and they moved off toward the far end of the room together and I was left standing near the window with a glass of wine when Luca materializing beside me like he'd been waiting for exactly this.

"He's obsessed with you," Luca said. "You know that, right?"

"Dante and I have a complicated relationship."

"That's one word for it." He drank from his glass and looked out the window. "I've watched my brother for a long time. I've seen him want things but i've never seen him like this. It's not love." He said the word like it was slightly embarrassing. "It's a sickness which i don't like. He can't see the difference and nobody around him is going to tell him because nobody around him is stupid enough to say it to his face."

"Why are you telling me?"

He looked at me sideways. "Because you're sitting in a home full of people who are deciding whether you're an asset or a liability and they would ruin you once they decide on either. I do not agree with everything this family does, so I will tell you one thing, don't stay. Whatever it takes, don't stay”

He walked away before Dante came back.

In the car going home Dante was tense.

"You did well," he said. "My father likes you."

"Does he?"

"He said you're respectful and that matters to him." He was watching the road. "You answered his questions well."

"What did your brother mean?" I said. "He said something about an obsession you have.”

He clenched his jaw. "Luca doesn't understand what we have. He's young and he downplays everything. Ignore him."

I looked out the window at the dark moving past and didn't say anything else.

I was getting ready for bed when my phone buzzed with a text from an uknown number.

“You met the family congratulations. Now you understand. They don't let outsiders leave alive. Not cleanly. —L”

I stared at it for a moment, cold sweat dripping down my back. This was so… ominous.

L for Luca.

Was this a warning or threat.

The answer was probably both and it didn't matter which because the message underneath either one was the same and I already knew it and I was already planning towards leaving this hellhole.

I deleted the text, plugged in my phone and lay down in the dark, thinking about the eighteen days left and how I was going to make sure my plan is bulletproof.

I was going to need help I didn't have yet.

And I was going to need to move faster.