Old Friends.

“We should get you inside before you get a cold. Are you okay with that?”

“Yes, please…Sir.”

“Matteo.”

“What?”

“Call me Matteo.”

“Oh…okay, thank you, Si…Matteo.”

I take her hand and lead her through the gate I used before. Her hand feels really soft. I like that. I wasn’t planning on waking up the Don but at this point, it’s kind of essential, considering there’s no way in hell I’ll be putting her in the cells. I led her through the home to the door where I knew they were now sleeping. A few curious glares from the nightshift guards, but I ignore them and keep Susie close to my side. I knock once…twice… I’m about to knock again when a sleepy looking Tony answers the door in just his trackpants.

“What’s going on, man?” He rubs his eyes, and I watch them narrow as he looks at Susie who’s trying to hide behind me now.

“This is Susie. She was Alexander’s maid, who has escaped to give us information and ask for protection.”

The conversation seems to have woken up Luciano, who is now trying to move a sleeping Ariana off his chest.

“She’s Alexander’s and you let her in here?! This close our girl?” Tony says, raising his voice slightly. I can feel Susie start to tremble behind me now, holding on to my hand a little tighter.

“What the fuck, Matteo!?” Luciano says now coming to Tony’s side.

“What’s going on?” I hear Ariana say, but I can’t see her now with the guys blocking the doorway.

“Go back to sleep, honey. We’re handling it.”

“Handling what?” She asks.

“Nothing”, both Luciano and Tony say together.

“You told me you would not keep things from me!” She says.

“And you told me, that you would let us protect our baby!” Luciano counters.

“I said no such thing, now move.” Her voice is stern, and they part like the red sea for her.

“Hey, Donna, I’m sorry it’s late but…”

She cuts me off. “Susie!?”

My eyebrows shoot up and almost off my face.

“Ari?” Susie says behind me.

“Oh…my…god!” Ariana practically pushes me out of the way and grabs onto Susie’s small frame.

“You…you remember me?” Susie stutters out.

“How could I forget the cute little girl who used to pick me wildflowers and play with my hair? Are you okay?” She steps backwards and scans her head to toe with a frown.

Susie begins to sob again and simply says, “No.”

“Oh, my dear girl, come in, let's talk.” She grabs her hand, but Susie grabs mine with her other and looks between us.

“Come on, Matteo.” Ariana says softly as she sees her hand clutching mine.

Luca is snoring softly on one side of the bed; he’s always been a heavy sleeper. Luciano grabs two chairs from the side of the room and brings them close to the side of the bed where Ariana and Tony sit. He sits with them, and I offer one chair to Susie as I take the other.

“What happened to you, Susie?” Ariana starts.

“Wait, can we just rewind a second and explain to the rest of us in the room how the hell you know Alexander’s maid?” Luciano asks her.

“Right…Well she’s the daughter of Alexander’s chef, Margret. Some days when Marget couldn’t find anyone to look after her, she would take her to the house to watch her. She would pick me flowers from the garden every time she came and while I was bored a lot of the time, I would play with her.”

“Was…the daughter”, Susie says.

“Was?”

“He killed her one day in a fit of rage because his meal wasn’t to his liking…” Susie sniffles and her lips wobbles. I grab her hand once more to try and comfort her.

“You saw it?” Tony asks.

“Yeah…I was with her. From that day on he said I was now his property, and he could do with me as he pleased. I’ve been making his meals, cleaning his homes and…” she looks down and doesn’t continue.

“He’s been sexually assaulting her.” I say and give her hand a squeeze.

Ariana gasps and I see Tony and Luciano with their fists balled and knuckles going white. If I wasn’t so hell bent on trying to not scare the poor girl, I’d probably be doing the same, but I can see that’s not what she needs right now.

“How did you get out?” Luciano asks now.

“I put sleeping pills in his dinner. I’ve done it a few times and he usually just assumes he was really tired and needed the sleep. When I saw you at his house and you got away, it made me wonder if I could do the same. If maybe you would help me. So, I drugged his food, went through his phone to find you.”

“How would you know to come here though? We went through his messages from Hudson’s phone, and they only ever mention our home address, not this one.” Ariana asks, and that is an excellent point. How did she know about this place?

“He put a tracking device in the first two he brought in. I heard him telling one of his guards about it. So, when I went through his phone, there was a GPS app and two little blinking dots pointed here.”

Shit… he knows where they are. We didn’t think of that.

“Do you know where the trackers are?” Luciano asks, looking a little pale now.

She gets up and walks over to him, “can you turns your head that way please.” She points to the wall so that he faces away from us and reaches her shaking hand up to the back of his neck, using a finger she glides it along his hairline and then stops. “There.” I get up and put my finger where hers was and rub it a little, then I feel a very small bump. Something any of us would have missed. Then I walk over to a still sleeping Luca and feel the back of his hairline and fair enough, there’s one there too.

“Fucking hell, wake him up.” Tony grumbles.

After bringing Luca up to speed, him and Luciano go off to find Camilla to have them removed. We're hoping the tech team can somehow re code them to look like they're still moving around and being used, just not at this location. Hopefully that would throw him off.

"Susie?" Ariana asks as she comes to sit back on the bed with Tony, in front of us. "You're going to stay with us and we're going to protect you, okay? You won't ever have to go back to him."

She nods. "Thank you, Ari."

"You must be exhausted. I would give you your own room to stay in, but all of the room are taken due to there being so many men still with us..." Ariana thinks out loud.

"She can stay with me." I say. I was luckily given my own room, unlike many of the men who were forced to share." Susie looks up at me a little shocked, and that expression looks adorable on her face.

"That's actually a good idea. Until everyone knows the situation, I want you to stay with her. We wouldn't want anyone seeing her as a threat and trying to hurt her." Tony says and I have to agree with him after how I saw the guards react to her before.

"Is that okay with you, Susie?" Ariana asks her.

"Um, yeah, I feel safe with him." I puff my chest with pride.

"Okay, good. Here, you can borrow some clothes to sleep in."