Aurelia

42

"They attacked one of our warehouses."

That was dad's exact words when we entered the conference room.

It's been three days since the dinner. Everything went well; everyone bonded, everyone talked, everyone laughed. It was fun. Even Elliot was there, which was something my aunties seem to enjoy since the kept throwing questions his way.

"Did you guys kiss yet?"

"When did you meet?"

"Did you take her on a date?"

"Does he know you kill for a living?"

"Is he scared of you?"

Etcetera.

Instead of being annoyed and ready to blow his head off like I thought he'd be, he just answered their questions. Every single one. He replied with gentleness and he was polite.

Which made then fawn over him more.

And during the whole thing he'd barely touched his food because he was answering questions.

He joked and laughed with them and overall, it looked like he was having a good time.

We even kissed...a lot before we went to bed. This time he sleep in his room instead of mine. Dad made sure of it.

It was cute to see him all overprotective, I even made of him for it.

"When?" Gio asked what we were all wanting to know.

Dad sighs and starts to speak, but before he can even get a word out, Sara speaks up. "Right at thirty minutes after one."

Everyone looks to her. I narrow my eyes at her, wondering how she knows this, she meets my gaze.

"I was there..."

She was there?

"I assigned her and some others to guard there. Lorenzo insisted we needed more people to guard the warehouse," Diego says.

"How did this happen?" I ask, genuinely confused. "Where was everybody?"

"We were outnumbered. Sara and some others got out, some injured some fine. The others were killed brutally." Dad answers me this time.

"They didn't see them coming?" Elijah asks.

"Cameras were disabled."

What the fuck?

There's no doubt in my mind that this wasn't Maxim's doing. We haven't been making a move on him ever since the bombing.

This is either a threat or he wants us to retaliate. He wants war, he wants us to fight him.

"He obviously wants us to fire back. But will we? Will we give him that satisfaction?" I ask, leaning forward on both elbows.

Dad doesn't answer right away and I can see the gears working in his head. Diego looks to him, waiting for him to say something.

It's quiet for a while and it seems like everyone is thinking the question over: will we give him the satisfaction of firing back like he wants, or will we just sit around and wait?

Finally dad looks up towards me and speaks, "What do you think we should do, principessa?"

My eyes widen in puzzlement at his question. What do I think?

I don't know what to think, I want to say. But I don't open my mouth, instead I look around for Elijah and find him looking right at me.

He gives nothing away in his gaze but for some reason I think he wants to know what I think we should do.