Hooded Wolves

+++ 09 - DOWNFALL OF SKOTÁDI +++

VITTORIA

Morrigan came back from her business trip so I decided to pick her up. My brother is in a meeting so he asked me to get his wife instead. Giovanni took the Escalade and drove us to the airport. Morrigan immediately got in the vehicle as soon as we parked at the tarmac. I hugged her in greeting and was about to rant about Lucas when I caught on her mood. When I looked at her, I didn’t find my sweet and bubbly sister but the cold-blooded businesswoman with a ruthless attitude. For a moment I felt scared at her dangerous aura but I know she won’t hurt me. I was just curious what made her go into this dark mood. She only goes berserk when something bad happens and this is only the second time I saw this side of her.

“Is there something wrong with your business, Sorella?” I asked after a while.

Morrigan turned to face me and spoke. “What is happening at the house, Angelo?”

“What do you mean?” I frowned in question.

“Someone hacked into our system, crashed our servers and bugged us. Who did they let enter on our property?”

“No one. But Fratello said that it was fixed.”

“Not yet. The problem is that we are now in danger of getting attacked. There was a mole within our household and we have to catch them before it’s too late.”

“What do you mean? Why are we going to get attacked?” I knew what she was saying but I had to act like I don’t.

My sister stared me in the eye before giving out a sigh. She thought for a moment before speaking. “Vittoria, we are not who you think we are. I know you have suspicions regarding that. I want to ask, what do you think we actually do for a living?”

My cheerful face changed to a serious one. I knew we will have to talk about it and now is the right moment. “I may be naïve but I am not stupid. I know what you are. I just didn’t acknowledge it because you didn’t let me in on the secret. And I understand that. You only told me a glimpse of your family history, nonetheless I saw books in the library, and I recognized the insignia on our guards’ lapels. I know what the real family business is.”

“How are you familiar with the insignia? Only few people knew about that.”

“I told you that before we met, I had to work to feed myself. Ever since I was young, I am very good with computers so I decided to use it to get paid. That was how I met your kind of people. I became familiar with the different symbols of every well-known mafia around Italy that those people had to watch me every now and then to make sure I don’t report them to the police. Then after you and Nicolo took me in, they contacted me to ask if the rumors are true. I had to reassure them that I won’t squeal what I know to your mob or anyone since you never informed me about it anyway. That was also the reason why I had to stay in Naples and change my name, to avoid conflict with those people in Sicily. I had to keep everything to myself so that all of us will be safe.”

Morrigan stared at me speechless at what I just told her. “I knew you were intelligent enough to catch up on our line of work but I didn’t realize that you knew more than we thought.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

“We don’t want you to be pulled in to our messy world. If we allowed you to be a part of our mob, your life will change. You will be mixed up with our business. Your freewill and independence will be gone. We don’t want that to happen so we never let you in. We were thinking that this is not a place for you. We should have known better.”

“I was actually curious to ask you why you never bothered checking out my background before taking me in. For a mafia like yours famous for being well-guarded, that was one of the protocols.”