Chapter 51

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*REBEL SIMMONS POV*

"This man." I said in an urgent tone, refusing to believe my eyes. "Who is he?" I asked as I tilted to photograph towards Stephan. 

"Hm... I'm not sure." Stephan said as he scratched his head while my entire body tensed. 

"Hey, you good?" Stephan asked as he looked at me with furrowed eyebrows. 

I quickly flipped over the photograph, hoping that there was something, anything to help me figure out the details of this moment. 

"Where was this picture taken?" I said quickly spitting out my thoughts. 

"In New York." Stephan said as he looked at my frazzled state with a confused stare. "Dante was sent to live there for a few years." Stephan explained. 

"During the turf war, right?" I said softly as I continued to examine the photograph. 

"Yeah... how did you?" Stephan asked as he stared at me. 

"I need to go." I said as I quickly stood up and started walking towards the house. 

"Wait... hey! Wait up!" Stephan yelled after me as my mind started racing, trying to analyze every possibility. 

There's two options here:

1) Johnny was just a not-so-innocent bystander, and accidentally ended up in the background of a family picture. 

2) Johnny has ties to the Italian Mafia. 

This doesn't make any sense. The way my mother described it, Johnny and Cobra were thieves, con men, not gangsters. Their main targets were banks, and other high end establishments. What would they gain from being involved in a turf war?

I carefully placed the picture in my jacket pocket before I walked past the dining room, where the Vino family continued to eat in awkward silence. 

"Rebel?" My mother called out to me from her seat. I kept my head down, trying to concentrate on the information I just received. 

"What the fuck did you do to her?" I heard Dante growl, making Stephan hold up his hands as a sign of his innocence. 

I continued walking even after I heard the scrapping of a chair in the dining room, focusing solely on mentally sorting through the information from the archives.

"I swear to fucking god Stephan." I heard Dante roar behind me. 

"I didn't do anything!" Stephan said as he defended himself. 

I quickly turned the corner and walked into my room, not even bothering to close the door at this point. The two boys stormed into my room, yelling at each other and forcing me to tune them out while I walked to my laptop. To my surprise, I opened it to see the archives open on another page, a page that I don't remember. 

"Hm." I said as I furrowed my eyebrows to see that the page was left on 1997. "I could have sworn I left of on 1996...." I mumbled to myself. I quickly shook my head before scrolling down. I sped read through the paragraphs until I found what I was looking for. 

Nov. 1997: Dante sent to New York to begin his training as the new Don. 

"1997... If it was November, then it was three months before I was born..." I thought to myself as the boys continued to scream at each other. 

"They were on the run from Cobra for about two months..." I said quietly as I tried to piece together what I found. Meanwhile, Dante pushed Stephan roughly, making me lose concentration momentarily. Stephan, who needed to take a few steps to regain his footing, ran towards Dante and grabbed him by the shirt. 

I quickly scrolled down until I found an unfinished log entry:

Nov. 1997: Received a lead that could end the turf war. 

Johnny couldn't have possibly done anything here... it wouldn't make sense. But the timeline fits perfectly... I thought to myself as I furrowed my eyebrows. I heard a crash, and looked up to see Stephan thrown into the bookcase on the wall, breaking a shelf and causing books to fly everywhere. 

"WILL YOU TWO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP?!" I screamed as I looked up at them, making them stare at me with wide eyes as they froze. 

"Fuck!" I exclaimed as I looked back at the picture. 

"What the hell is going on in here!" Giana shouted as she walked in, making the boys step away from each other immediately. I looked towards the door to see that my mother as well as the rest of the Vino family came rushing into my bedroom. 

"Florence, can you come here please." I said seriously as I waved her over. She tilted her head in curiosity before walking over, being careful to step over the wreckage the boys caused. 

"Yes?" She asked as she leaned down and looked at my computer screen. 

"Do you know this man?" I asked as I showed her the picture Stephan gave me. I pointed to Johnny in the back, who was leaning against a wall and smoking a cigarette, looking directly at the Vino's. 

"Where did you get this?" Florence asked as a small smile came to her face. 

"It was a present." I said as I looked up at her. 

"A present?" Dante growled as he looked at Stephan, who stared forward wide eyed. 

"Florence, I'll give it to you after, but please. I need to know if this man has any ties to your mafia." I asked calmly as the rest of the family walked over curiously. As soon as my mother saw Johnny in the photograph, her eyes grew wide as she looked at me with astonishment and confusion. 

"He went by JJ. He was an informant during the turf wars." Florence said after a few minutes. "He's the reason why we have control over the United States." She continued to explain. 

"What information did he give you?" I asked as I furrowed my eyebrows. 

"He gave us the location of someone very dear to Pavlovski," Florence said, her eyebrows furrowing. "But in exchange for this information we had to ensure that he and his girlfriend got out of New York safely." She said as she looked at me. 

"He told us that he was a criminal, and was being heavily pursued and hunted at the time, both by law enforcement and bounty hunters." She explained calmly. 

"Oh my god." I heard my mother whisper before she covered her mouth, her eyes starting to water. 

"What name did he give you?" I asked seriously as I looked at her. 

"Luka Pavlovski." Florence said as she looked at me. "Xavier Pavlovski's younger brother." She said as her eyebrows furrowed. 

"He told us that once he leaves town, Luka will try and follow them. So we seized that opportunity to take him out." Florence recalled with a sad expression on her face. "The first death threat arrived at the estate a month later." She said with sadness in her eyes.

"So... you were the reason that we made it out." My mother said as she looked at Florence with her eyebrows furrowed. 

"Thank you. Thank you so much." My mother sobbed as she threw her arms around Florence. 

"Wait, what?" Florence said as she looked at my mother.

"I was JJ's girlfriend at the time." My mother said as she looked down. "We... we were running from Rebel's father." She said, making Florence's eyes widen. 

"Then that means..." Isa said as her eyes widened.

"You're Pavlovski's niece." Dante said in a deadly tone before his jaw tightened and his hands clenched into fists as he stared at me.  

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