Aurora began her day cutting a lot of meat.  The old woman hovered over her instructing her in just how to hold it and cut it.  Aurora felt like the woman didn't just want to watch Aurora cut, but to use her hands like they were her own.  Aurora had cut tougher meat than this before, though she would not tell the elderly Catholic that.  She was already on the woman's bad side today and there was no sense bragging that lamb was a lot easier to slice and dice than human flesh.

Next, came the vegetables.  Aurora could see that this was a stew and it would simmer all day before it would be ready to eat tonight.  Of course, Aurora had to wonder what they would do once the stew was on and simmering.  Was she going to sit around the house and twiddle her damn thumbs all day with an old woman who was livid with her for acting a hussy in town?  God, she hoped not.  Maybe the old woman took naps?  That would be nice.  Some quiet time to relax and prepare herself for dinner...

Aurora didn't want Billy's grandma angry with her, so she decided to chance some small talk, "So... how did you meet your husband?"  Maybe it would put her in a better mood to talk about her own life?

Marina shook her head.

"No, today we talk about you. Or we no talk at all. You know what you did last night, and you no apologize to me for bringing shame upon my family yet. You can start there."

She continued to add ingredients to the pot so that the sauce would come through thinner than normal, but no so thin as it could not be used. It was going to be a good lamb stew, thick with vegetables and gray, the hard part was going to be making sure this girl did not make any mistakes when it came to the pasta. The pasta was an all day affair, but it was worth it. There was nothing in the world like Marina's fresh pasta.

"Well that's why I don't need a phone. I just don't have a ring with me! Why would I have brought a ring?!"

Addie shook her head.

"You can fix that you know, you have a lot of money, just go buy one."

Billy shook his head almost as hard as he shook the olive tree he was working on. He needed to calm down.

"Don't you get it? I can't just buy one. Her dad? He stole every piece her mom has, and they are all real impressive. I can't just buy one, it's got to mean something."

Addie nodded then.

"Well. I'm going to go back to the outhouse, I'll be back in a little bit while you figure out how to fix that problem. But at least we are over one hurdle. You can ask her, she wants it, and so do you, so get off your ass and ask already."

She reached up and patted his face before kissing his cheek.

"And calm down would ya? You're going to rip those trees right out of the ground if you don't."

She skipped her way back to the house, now she just needed to talk to Nonna.

Aurora sighed.  "Nonna."  She put down the knife and turned to the old woman.

"My family raised me to respect my elders and there is no one on this planet I want the love and respect of more right now than you.  And because of that, I can not lie to you.  To me, that's the worst thing a person can do, far worse than even carrying a child of the man I love and intend to marry."

She tilted her head to the side and said, "I do not feel sorry for what we did last night."

The woman looked exasperated.  Aurora felt horrible, not about what she'd done but that the old woman thought less of her.  She touched her belly lovingly, looking down at the place she supposed would be swelling soon.

"I want the world to know that I will be Billy's wife soon and that I am the mother of his children." 

Her fingers rubbed her stomach gently as she silently reminded herself to remain calm like Doc Eva instructed. 

"I refuse to feel ashamed that people are aware of how much affection we have for one another because I will be a loving and faithful wife to him and God willing I'll figure out how to be a good mother too."

She let her belly go, seeming to have said the last part to the child as much to Nonna, a promise to try to be as good at this as she could hope to be.

Marina listened to the young girl speak and she watched her, as she watched so many women in her life put her hands on her belly. She listened to the girls words, and she recognized her own voice for a moment.

"Aurora, child, you area already the best wife my Billy could ask for, you are here are you not? You push him to be better, he tells me this in how he looks at you, and protects you, even from me. You are what he needs, and I think he is what you need. As for the child? You will be the best mother than child could have, because you will be the only mother the child ever has. Nobody gets to have two mothers, not unless they give up something else. Remember that. Every day remember that. You are the best mother you can be, and nobody else can be a better mother for your child than you. Nobody."

She sighed and sat down then for a minute.

"But you do not understand what you did last night. You are from America. it is big there, and there are many people. You can do these things and nobody remembers your face, or what you have done. Here? In the old country? Nobody forgets. The soil beneath our feet does not ever forget. It lives and breathes just as we do, and all of those girls last night? They saw a foreign woman come here, and steal one of their own. They saw her take him off to some secret place and bring him back with a smile. They saw the foreign girl from the new world come here and shove it in their faces that they are not good enough. None of them will ever like you Aurora. You will never be able to come and visit without whispers behind your back for the whole time you are here. Yes, everyone talks about Maria, and they are all very bad Catholics for it. But they know Maria, they know her family, and why she is the way she is, and they pity her. They do not hate her. You, they will hate."

She nodded and stood up again.

"Now, finish the vegetables, we need to start on the bread and the pasta soon or it will be too late to feed your Billy. He will be very hungry."

Aurora's mouth hung open, her eyes watered against her will as the woman's words came in waves to hit her first, hard about no one having two mothers when she herself was a child of two mothers, and maybe three fathers if she was honest.  She swallowed back her comments about that though.  She did not want Nonna to pity her or to think she thought less of Bella or even Marie, even if both made choices she questioned and now felt that she herself was facing and not going to do better with.  She, very likely, would follow in their footsteps and put an innocent child at risk ... and she hated herself for it. 

This, of course, was at the heart of why she did not want children and the knowledge that she had not wanted this pregnancy that she knew Billy yearned for so much ... gutted her.  It was probably her number one concern for thinking she was not a fit mother.  What mother was ever so cold as to sit there with a child in her belly thinking that she would rather have not found it there at all?

Guilt threatened to overcome her as Nonna went on to tell her how the women at the bar were thinking of her last night.  Her heartfelt hollowed out as the woman told her that they saw her as not one of them... that she wasn't Sicilian but an outsider.  She could almost hear Salvatore's words in her ears... and though she did not remember her, she supposed Marie's too.  She swallowed the lump forming in her throat as Nonna told her that they hated her and suddenly all the love she felt for this place - that illusion of connection to the stones itself began to quiver.

Was she right?  Had Aurora imagined her connection to this place and these people?  Was she no more a part of this land than any other tourist who came here or was it simply that the old woman did not know her?  That she did not have the respect she should have for her because she had not been told and made to see?  Had Billy given her no idea who he'd intended to marry into this humble house?  Was that the reason she put herself so far above Aurora... this American who had stolen away a blood-borne son of Sicily?

The woman changed the subject so fast, turning back to the work of the day as if she'd said nothing offensive or hurtful.  It was like setting a building on fire and walking away from it to return to your normal day as if you'd done nothing.  Aurora's heart raced, she felt a bit of sweat beading on her forehead.  She knew she needed to calm down, but the thought was buried under an avalanche of things she wanted to say and would not.  

Aurora picked up her knife and chopped at the vegetables as if they were the target of her fury and hurt, but she said nothing.  She pushed through the work.  What could she do?  Tell an old woman off?  Threaten her?  This wasn't just some woman to be put in her place, this was Billy's only family and if she made the woman hate her as much as the villagers did, then the only family Billy had in all the world would be at odds with her and she knew how that would end.  She could not be the reason Billy didn't have a relationship with the only family he loved.

At some point, the egg came back up, but again - Aurora drank water and pushed through the dizziness.  There were pasta and breads to be made.  She didn't care how much her feet were hurting, she'd stay on them all day to show that old woman that she might not be as good for Billy as one of her local girls - but she was not the sort to quit.  She could do anything any other woman could do, damn it!

The morning was so very long and so very quiet.  Aurora played through a dozen ways she could tell the woman she was wrong, she even considered lying to her and telling her she was sorry... the good Lord knew she did feel bad enough to pretend it was for having made love to Billy last night!  But no.  She might not be Sicilian enough for Nonna, but she was the daughter of Gavin Byrne and she'd be damned if the woman could take that pride from her by forcing her to lie.  No.  She would not break.  And if she had to suffer in silence through several days here just to make Billy think that all was well with his family, so be it.  She would endure much worse for him when this baby came, of that she was sure.  She'd heard childbirth was terribly painful.  

Wiping the sweat from her brow she noticed Addie through the window coming up the path.  Finally, she found something safe to say to the old woman, "Addie's back."  

Addie waves as she walked into the kitchen and realized immediately that she had walked into something. Nonna was never this quiet when she was working. She was normally whistling, or singing or something. It was as if someone had just died in here.

"Well, I have good news. Nonna, I just need a ring. Now wait, before you go telling me to get him to go buy one he actually has a good point. Aurora's family is very powerful and very special. Her father gave her mother lots of rings, but he worked for them all. He put his life on the line for some of them, Billy said."

She shrugged and took a piece of pepper then and popped it into her mouth.

"So, we... need one that means something."

She swallowed and looked at Aurora.

"Unless you two have changed you mind about this. Because neither one of you seems keen on the other one right about now."

Marina spun on her heel and smacked her hand onto the table.

"Billy is Aurora's now, and that makes Aurora ours, end of discussion. If he wants a ring that means something, we will find one. Aurora, did you come prepared for this?"

The old woman turned to look at her soon to be granddaughter while she began to pack up some of the veggies and a bottle of wine for Addie to take out to Billy. She took out a bowl that she had covered with a towel as well and put a hunk of cheese in the cloth too.

"Adalgisa, take this out to him before he makes his way back, we cannot have him spoiling anything."

As Addie nodded and left, Marina turned to Aurora.

"I ask you for a favor now. Think on the ring, but I have my ring I will give to you if you do not have one. But I give it to you only if you tell me the truth."

The old woman lowered her gaze on Aurora and reached out slowly to make her put the knife down so they could talk to one another. No distractions, just talk.

"Who is your important family?"

So, he didn't tell her who I am.

Aurora exhaled letting out some of her stress.

"He might mean the family who raised me.  My mother Isabella is a Dona & my Father is a powerful man who is feared and respected all over the United States - he is named Gavin."  She knew that Nona wouldn't see this as impressive though so she kept explaining. 

"Isabella is my half-sister.  She and her husband were thought to be barren and so they adopted me when I was just a baby.  There... was a war.  My mother was killed before I was weaned.  I don't remember her, but both of my birth parents were extremely powerful in America.  Both were first-generation immigrants, born here in Sicily - not far from this place actually.  One was known as Godfather and the other Godmother - chieftans of their own great cities, cities with more people in them than Messina."

Messina was a massive city, a jewel of Sicily, so she understood.  The Don Enzo of Messina was known to even her, such was his immeasurable influence and power.  Feared and respected even across the ocean in the New World.  It was the closest comparison she knew she could make in hopes that the old woman would understand her heritage.

"I dont know if you know about them, but one city is called Chicago.  It's a place well known for shipping out most of the beef consumed by the world.  The other is Detroit, where a man named Henry Ford makes his automobiles.  Both cities are more like the size of Rome and so being chief there afforded my parents much wealth and power from the tribute they extracted.  I've inherited much of that wealth and when Billy marries me... it will belong to him making his considerable power even greater still."

She sat down, finally unable to stand the pain in her feet.  "My mother's name was Marie Conti and my father was Salvatore Luciano.  I don't suppose you know them personally, but I'd find it hard to believe you don't know of their households.  I didn't tell you sooner because I assumed Billy had told you or that maybe he didn't want you to have an opinion of me based on who my families are.  I think he just wanted you and I to get to know each other as... well, women first."

A smile tugged at the corner of her lip as she thought about how thick headed Billy was sometimes, "Or maybe he just didn't think it was important because Billy doesn't think much about politics of families." 

She shrugged. 

"As silly as it is to admit he's probably the only Don on the planet who doesn't and I'm trying to help him with that.  He needs to think about such things if he's going to live to be very old and have grandchildren ... but, he's not in love with my family ... he's in love with me and that's where his head is right now."

As Marina listened she nodded. She understood some of what Aurora was saying, she was starting to piece together how Billy came into all of this money and these businesses.

And then one name stuck out to her.

Luciano.

The blood rushed out of her face almost as quickly as she wished she could rush from the house and cry for help. She watched the woman at her table sit. She realized for the first time in two days that her house, her roof, was not her own. Whatever she had very likely belonged to this woman now, and she had lectured her. Just moments ago, she had lectured to a killer.

Her legs could not hold her any more and she fell backward. She clutched for something in the room, but nothing was in reach, nothing except...

She cried out in pain as the flesh on her right hand burned, but she stood herself back up, almost overturning the stew pot. She made her way quickly outside and began to pump cool water from the ground to run her hand under.

She looked back up at Aurora who had come outside by her then.

"I'm sorry Donna Luciano. Please forgive me. I... I did not know. I did not mean to insult you. I know you are Sicilian, just as your family has been for generations. May...may your child be blessed with Sicilian blood. May your child be a masculine child. If you wish to have my ring, I will give it to you, just let me go and get it. The son of my son, my own blood is blessed to walk in your path."

She kissed Aurora's feet then. The woman did not wear a ring, there was no ring to kiss.

"Please, do not trouble yourself any longer. I will prepare dinner, please. Sit, what can I do for you?"

She winced at her hand as she made to go back to the house to bandage it.

Addie was stealing some of Billy's lunch while he sat under the sun still baking in his own skin.

"You know. I'll bet if you asked her nicely Nonna would let you use her ring. After all, you are her only family left, and the only man. Technically, it all belongs to you anyway right? I mean, I wouldn't remind her of that, but it doesn't hurt to remember yourself. She knows it's true."

She took a piece of cheese to eat with her wine.

"Do you mind? You've barely done anything all day! I'm out here starving and baking, can't a guy just have some lunch without a chipmunk stealing it all."

Addie made a face at him then, as if she were a chipmunk.

"No, I can't ask her for that, that's hers. And none of this is mine, that's not right. It should be Nonna's and then it should be Gio's and yours. I know, I know."

He put his hand up and took a bite of cheese then.

"That's not how... the law works. But..." He swallowed. "I could give it all to Gio, and then you could just be happy here and I could visit you sometime. But I would want to leave some money here so you guys could fix the place up, you know maybe put up a second bedroom and get running water. I mean, it would be well water, but still, better than nothing right?"

"Stop."  She said as she watched the old woman reaching for a bandage to wrap her hand.  The woman, obediently stopped, a fact that caught Aurora off guard.  The woman was terrified of her.  She wished now she'd followed Billy's wisdom and kept her identity from the woman.  No good would come of this and she knew it.

"I might be all thumbs in a kitchen but I know how to help a wound."  She said, digging into Nonna's cupboards until she found the small container of honey.  "Burns are very serious and there's not always medicine handy... but happily for us, nature provides."  

She smiled as she dipped the wooden honey spoon into the thick liquid and pulled out a small glob.  "My father, Gavin Byrne, grew up in the far northern wilderness of Canada.  His family was very poor.  They lived off what they could grow or the animals they could catch.  When someone was hurt, they had only simple things to treat it... no doctors lived out where his parents had built their homestead on the frontier."

She carefully took the woman's hand in her own.  "Bee's honey can kill the sting of a burn and protect it from becoming infected.  It will make the skin grow back quicker too.  I know it sounds odd but..."  She drizzled some honey on the damaged soft flesh of the old woman.

"It really does work."  She said with a smile as she saw some relief coming over her face.  "Now we wrap it."

Aurora gently dropped the soft white muslin across the glob of honey.  "I'm not a Don.  I am Cosa Nostra, yes, but I am far below what your Grandson is ... I'm the one marrying up both in station and because of his good heart.  Billy is a good man, so good and honest that he doesn't know the ways of what he's stumbled into.  He will make a good husband and father because his roots run deep here.  He will make a good father because he is ignorant of the things powerful men do to keep their power."

She wrapped the cloth back around her hand and up again to the top.  "I may not be a great cook or a properly behaved lady.  I can see that you know death is my real dowry... and for that I am sorry.  It's why ... why I fear the sort of mother I'll be to this baby.  I love Billy.  It is all that I want in life to keep him as sweet, innocent, and kind-hearted as possible.  Perhaps because of him our children stand a chance of long happy and safe lives.  I swear to you, Nonna, I will do the things that he is too good to think of so that he will stay the sort of man we both hold in such high regard."

She got to the end of the muslin cloth and secured the end to the small bit of the first end she left sticking out.  She'd given her future grandmother-in-law a battlefield bandage.  It was as neat of a job bandaging as she'd ever done.  Gavin would have been proud.  The honey was secure inside, her wound was clean and treated and now the cloth would protect it.

"We'll change your cloth each day until its done healing but you'll need to keep that hand from the heat.  No more pot holding for you today... you're just going to have to tell me what to do or we're not going to eat."  She ushered the woman to a seat near the counter.  "You can cook again tomorrow so long as a good scab starts.  I won't take no for an answer.  Now... sit."

Aurora came around and looked at the countertop.  "You'll tell me when I get it wrong, okay?  My mother, Isabella, she makes pasta sometimes.  I've watched her when I was a little girl.  I always wanted the kneed the dough but... she said I wasn't strong enough." 

She chuckled and rolled up her sleeves.  "I guess we'll find out today if I've gotten stronger since I used to play with my dolls." 

She threw down a bit of flour onto the counter the way Isabella would and plopped the pile of dough there atop it.  "I always wanted to be like my father Gavin.  I used to follow him around learning all the things he knew how to do and I didn't pay much attention to my mother's work.  Most of the women I know didn't have much time for some of the things Isabella likes to do.  My Aunt Tara was the Godmother of a big city called Philadelphia.  She never cooked.  But my mother, Isabella, she cooks as often as she can.  She told me once that the right way into a man's heart isn't through your smile but his belly."

She smirked.

"I didn't listen which probably says more about me as a daughter than her as a mother.  I think Isabella sometimes feels bad that my mother died... that maybe she needed to let me do things she wished I wouldn't, because she thinks of herself as less than my 'real' mother."  She shook her head. 

"But Bella's the only mother I've ever known and I woudn't trade her for all the money in the world.  She's as strong as any man I know, running the city as she does, but she's got a heart as big as the sun.  She loves her husband and us kids, and God himself despite all the things she's been through in this life.  She'd rather be cooking for all of us than just about anything else and if I'm being honest with myself I think Billy kept coming around because he likes my mom's cooking as much as he liked my smile."

She laughed and realized the woman was still just watching her, looking at her hand, thinking.

"I went to school because I thought I would leave the Cosa Nostra behind."  She told the old woman honestly.  "The mafia, they... my father he killed my mother because of that life.  And because of his actions I almost had no name and no kin at all.  I think about that a lot now that I'm pregnant."  

She hadn't said that out loud often and so the words felt odd on her tongue.

"I worry about what that life will do to an innocent child.  I worry that I am a bad person not just for the sins I commit but for what my sins will do to something so innocent and good as the poor baby that is inside me.  My only hope for it is that both the people who raised me, they did as well as anyone could.  I never went without the things I needed, nor love.  I can hope it's enough... but, I am afraid."

She kept kneading the dough, it was hard, her biceps hurt and she was sweating again as her heart raced from the exertion and the massive amount of emotions flowing through her.

"He's going to be so happy when he finds out though.  And last night... I suppose I do feel some shame."  She admitted.  "Not because I love Billy or even what we did, but that I was so weak as to feel threatened by Maria.  You're right, I should have pitied her and recognized my own blessings.  I am a fool.  Only a fool needs others to acknowledge their blessings to feel they are valid.  My father would have been ashamed at my behavior... I am sorry that I brought shame to you, and him."

She forced a smile for the old woman as she continued to work.  She ignored the occasional stars before her eyes instead trying to dwell on the hope that some words she'd said actually were making the old woman less afraid and maybe more convinced that she was a good person after all.

Marina sat quietly for a long time. She had listened to the words of the woman in front of her. She had kissed her feet. She should have washed them in the water. She should have, but she didn't. She scolded herself for that.

"Stop."

She said abruptly.

"Take a drink, you cannot keep going like that or you will sweat into the dough and it will not taste right."

She got up and walked over toward the door, closing it and lifting a spare apron off of the back of it. This was was decidedly cleaner than hers, though not perfect by any stretch. She handed it to Donna Luciano.

"Please, use this and wipe the sweat from your brow. You should not work so hard. I will get Adalgisa to help, you should not do this, this is beneath you. Please."

She walked over to the window and rang the bell exactly three times.

"They will come now, just our two, and you will rest Donna. Please, you must rest."

She looked out the window then hoping that she would not be alone much longer with the young Luciano.

Three bells. Billy and Addie both looked toward the house. Something was terribly wrong.

They left the basket of food for the birds or the chipmunks, whatever came first and sprinted toward the house. Billy may have been bigger, but he was also faster than he had ever been in his life. His Aurora was in that house. Still somehow Addie beat him to the damned door!

"What is it Nonna? Is everything alright?"

How in the hell was Addie not even out of breath. Billy was heaving, trying to peek into the house.

Marina let out a sigh. She as not safe to be sure, but at least she was not alone.

"Addie, I have burned my hand, you must continue the cooking. Just bread and pasta left, please. Billy, your Aurora has told me everything. Please, clean up my bedroom so that the Donna has somewhere proper to sleep tonight."

Billy sighed and nodded. Then he looked to Aurora. He could see that she had won whatever happened her, but he knew she wasn't happy about how it happened, she wasn't triumphant. If he had to guess, he would say that she was barely accepting of what was going on. Still, he went to clean up his grandmother's room.

Marina looked around and followed Billy then. As soon as she was in the room with him she lowered her voice.

"Billy, please, ask her before she gets angry with us. For your Nonna's sake, please do not force her to call her family, just do as she pleases Billy."

She reached out for her grandson.

"You know her, you know what she can do. I have seen her with a knife, they have raised her, they have trained her, please. My ring, use my ring, it is in the family for three generations."

She pointed with her good hand to her dresser. Billy opened the top drawer and stuffed into a small wooden box, wrapped inside of brown paper was a small ring. it would fit well on Aurora's finger as she was small, like his grandmother, but the gem inside of it was nothing to be astonished at. It was no larger in width than the band itself, and it had little sparkle to it. Billy sighed. he was hoping for something nicer, but the wedding bands themselves, those would be one of a kind. This would do. He put the ring in his pocket and went back into the kitchen after tidying up the dresser once again.

While Billy and Marina went into the bedroom Addie continued to kneed the dough, As soon as the door shut the door behind them, Addie spoke quietly to Aurora.

"So Aurora, what the hell did you do to Nonna? She hasn't burned herself in years, and even when she has, she normally just runs it under water and then keeps going. No way she would stop for something like that. What really happened?"

She was not buying the story, or at least knew there was more to it than had been told.

Aurora's eyes welled with tears, she couldn't take it, not for a moment more.  Addie was the only one who liked her and now she blamed her for her grandmother being hurt.  Aurora was ruining everything just like she always did with her big fat mouth!  A tear raced down her cheek.  "I need some air..." her body shuddered with a sob and she got up and went outside shaking like a leaf.

She had started walking but then, she was running.  Down the dusty path, olive trees lining the road on either side of the road.  She had never wished to run from her own blood more than she did right now.  Her blood had damned her.  Her blood damned her children.  Her blood made Billy's family look at her like a she was a monster and how could she blame them?  She could hardly deny that the daughter of devils and dragons, the daughter of the great white wolf, was anything but a killer.  She prided herself on it and now, seeing how real people viewed the 'greatness' of the true Cosa Nostra, she had to live with it.

She wept as she ran, nearly tripping over her feet as she went, her heart pounding and vision swimming.  She passed out of the olive trees and she knew the house was far, far behind her now.  She slowed as up ahead a truck pulled out from a small two-track trail and onto the road properly, pointed away from the Mastrosimone farm.  Something in her told her to be afraid, but what lay behind her terrified her so that she kept moving towards the truck even as men got out.  Perhaps they worked the farm with Billy's family?  

"Aurora?"  One called out to her as if he knew her.  Aurora's eyes were sharp and young, even as she was winded and feeling unwell under the intense afternoon sun. 

"Aurora Byrne?"  The second man asked her.

These men weren't farmers.  These men had guns.

"No..."  She gasped.  Aurora began backing away as they began coming towards her.  Glancing back to the house she could see it was too far away - too far to run - she'd never make the run back as winded as she was... but wait... Billy!  Billy could see her!

"BILLY!"  She screamed out as loud as her lungs could bear, her voice shrill, cracking and full of terror caused the men with guns to break into a run of their own.

They were on her in an instant, grabbing for her arms.  Aurora's knife, a Christmas gift from her childhood, a symbol of how twisted her life truly was appeared from seemingly nowhere.  She flipped it around and planted it into the man's throat right up to its hilt.  So deep that when he fell back trying to hold in his own blood that he took the knife with him leaving Aurora without a weapon.  Her guns were in their bags!  The other man had both her arms behind her back in only a moment, with nothing to kick off all she could do was thrash, trying to get free, trying to buy time!

As they got to the truck her feet found purchase and she threw them both back to the ground hard.  Aurora's vision turned to a field of white.  She tried to get up, but she couldn't see and promptly went back down to the dusty earth.  She did not see the man get up, but she could hear him.  She thought she could hear Billy screaming a long way off too.  Then she felt it, the impact of a full grown man's foot crashing violently into her guts.  It lifted her off the ground, the wind knocked out of her, and then... a black abyss swallowed her up. 

Aurora fell to the ground, unconscious.  Billy was getting closer.  There was no time to save his cousin.  Lorenzo Conti threw Aurora over his shoulder, took her towards the truck and tossed her inside as if she were nothing but cargo to be transported.  He ran around to the driver's side and in an instant the tires were spinning and he was peeling off away from the Mastrosimone olive farm, leaving the large man who was running behind him in a cloud of dust.

Aurora blinked.  Warm sun on her face, she felt she could lazily stay in the beam of sunlight forever.  Her head was ringing a bit, her stomach ached... but the sun was blessedly warm.  She felt a breeze coming from somewhere and could hear birds chirping.  She blinked, and slowly her vision adjusted.  

Instantly she was aware she had no idea where she was or, how she'd gotten here.  Panick gripped her as she came to terms with the soft nightgown she was wearing and the lack of her belongings... her weapons.  She listened first, struggling to hear anything that would give her a clue of whether or not this was dangerous.  She tried to remember what happened and then, it all came rushing back.

She could hear Billy screaming her name - so far away.  She remembered the earth-shattering kick to her gut and... Aurora sat up.  She put her hands on her belly and winced.  There was obviously a bruise there, it meant she'd been out for some time.  Her head was still ringing.  Reaching up she touched the lump on the top of her head.  It was massive.  She likely had a concussion, that would explain the disorientation.  Aurora looked around the room she was in.  It was pretty.  It was decidedly more feminine than her own room.  And then... she saw the photos on the vanity.  She knew the young woman in the photos who looked so much like herself and now, she knew where she was.

She got out of the bed, and began to search for her clothing and gear but found nothing.  She passed the open window, lace curtains blowing in the wind, and she could hear men talking.  She stepped closer and strained.  She was only able to hear the occasional word dropped.

"... DiCaprio ... the dirt ... right out of the truck!"

Laughter.

"... won't fuck with us again ..."

"... for good this time ..."

The door to the room came open and Aurora startled.  She wheeled around prepared to defend herself when the scent of food caught her utterly off-guard.  Her grandmother's pleasantly plump face broke into a smile.  "You're awake dear!"

Aurora stared hard at the woman being a perfect hostess to her kidnapping victim.  "Grandma, wha-  you ... I have to go."  she said walking towards the woman with conviction.

"Not with that goose-egg.  Sit, sit.  You'll eat now.  We'll talk."

She was hungry.  If she had to fight her way out, and she prayed she wouldn't, she'd need strength.  Common sense won out.  Aurora sat down and let the old woman give her food.

"Now, I know this all must be a terrible shock to you."

She shoved food into her mouth.  "You kidnapped me."

"Kidnapped is such a harsh word dear.  We protected you."

Aurora shook her head.  "I have to go back.  Billy's probably out of his mind by now.  How long did I sleep?"

"All night.  I was really worried about that hit to the head you took."  The old woman reached over and brushed some of Aurora's hair off her face.  Aurora didn't pull away despite her instinct to do so.  She had to keep this woman working with her so she wasn't forced to do anything she didn't need to.

"Grandma, I know you're worried about the Luciano family but they won't hurt me.  They wouldn't dare.  My parents would bring hell down on them.  To say nothing of what Billy would do.  I need to go back and stop him from doing something reckless."

The old woman sighed.  "I'm not worried about him at all dear and as for your parents, I'm sure after everything that's happened they'll finally be willing to see reason.  This is the only place for you now.  Here we can keep you safe from those honorless American mobsters."

She said the last word like a curse.  

"What... what are you talking about?"  Aurora furrowed her brow and stared hard at the old woman, trying to understand what was happening here.

The woman put the tray to the side and put a hand on Aurora's thigh.  As she spoke Aurora stared at her, almost uncomprehending of the words that steadily flowed from her lips like poison.  While she moved with compassion, this woman Aurora barely knew, her words were so horrible they made any kindness she showed to Aurora feel fake. 

The lioness wanted to flee, to know the truth for herself, with her own eyes.  No.  Billy wasn't dead.  He couldn't be!  She looked to the door.  She could make it but there were men downstairs.  Likely with guns.  She looked to the window.  She was on the second floor.  The fall would hurt - her and the baby.  It could possibly make running impossible or worse.  She looked back to the door.  She stared at it as she felt her grandmother's arm wrap around her.

"There will be other boys."  She assured Aurora.  "I know many good men, and when you're ready, you can meet them.  Good Sicilian men."

Aurora turned slowly and looked the woman in the eyes, her face slack and still numb.  "He's not dead."

"Oh dear.  Sweetheart.  You're in shock.  In time, you'll accept the truth.  For now, eat... and just rest.  Take your time.  You're safe here.  Your grandfather and his men have been out all morning handling problems.  No one will ever get close to hurting you again.  I swear it."  

The woman rose from the bed and kissed Aurora's brow in the way her own mother did.  

"You said you knew Americans... that they..."

Donna Conti froze and turned back nodding to her Granddaughter.

"How do you know?  They likely didn't stick around to chat."  she swallowed the lump in her throat.  "Is his family... alright?"

The old woman shrugged, "Your grandfather told me, but I don't put my nose in men's business.  He might tell you about it, if you ask at dinner tonight, but it's just as well if he doesn't.  There's no need for you to worry about such things now or ever again."

"I have to see him."  She said softly, barely holding in her frustration and fear.  "Before they..."

Her grandmother shook her head, "I'm sorry dear, that's not possible.  It's far too dangerous out there right now.  Let's just focus on getting you settled in.  I'll bring up some of your mother's old clothes.  They should fit you."

Aurora's fist tightened.  She wanted to scream at the old woman that her mother was in Philadelphia and she was going to kill everyone here if they insisted on keeping her.

"I'm so glad you're finally home."  The old woman said backing out the door closing it behind her leaving Aurora to wonder if it was true.  Was Billy really dead?  Had there been a war?  Was this a hit?  Was it a lie to keep her scared and trapped here?  Images fluttered through her mind, of her time with Billy, of all the dreams of a life she'd begun to have that might never be.

God, Billy... oh God!  I have to get out of here!  

Aurora looked to the food.  She wanted to puke, but she had to keep up her strength and so she ate.  She'd play along, for now.  Make a plan and then get the hell out of here.  One step at a time.  She'd learn what she could tonight at dinner... and then, then she'd know what to do.  

Scallops.

The sound of silverware on plates and the occasional shifting of a body in a chair was all the sound that filled the room.  This place wasn't a home.  Hollowood was a home.  Even though men with guns were always there, you never felt like you were in a military complex.  Here... you couldn't ignore them.  Here everything felt as though it served the purpose of war, even where the table was placed in relationship to the windows.  

Not for the first time today, Aurora thought of her mother and wanted to run to her.  She wondered if her father was on his way here right now.  Would they try to kill him?  Could he just knock, talk a while, and walk out with her?

She looked to her grandfather, Don Conti.  His skin so tan it would never stop being that color.  His hair falling out.  His wrinkles deep into his skin.  He might have been handsome once, but now, he was only his age and the burdens he seemed to wear like an ill-fitting suit.  He'd not yet answered the question and so, they ate in silence.

A man walked into the room and up to the Don, whispered to her grandfather, and then after a nod from the Don who had a mouth full of food, the man with a rifle over his shoulder walked out.  Aurora imagined the fit her mother would have thrown if one of the guards had come into the dining room during dinner with a fully ready to fire rifle.  They could have been in a war, and Bella Byrne wouldn't have tolerated it.  

Her grandfather sighed.  "If I give you one discussion, you will stay out of my business from this point on, if I indulge you just this once?"

Aurora had nothing to barter with and nothing to lose, "Yes."

The old man nodded.  "DiCaprio told us, right before I killed him."

Aurora's breath caught hard in her throat at the thought of poor Santino being dead.  Don Conti's wife clicked her tongue disapprovingly.  It was pure idiocy to see her okay with armed men walking into her family room but the mention of death?  God forbid!

"He said he was supposed to help your young man come for you, but that the Americans got to him first.  He said the boy thought them allies, walked right out to meet them thinking they'd been sent to help him."

Aurora winced.  The men who killed him... they were either from Detroit or Philly then.  Billy would never have thought anyone came to help who wasn't already there following them.  That meant they were people from Detroit who were known to sometimes follow him or they were people he might think her family sent.  In either case, now a picture was beginning to come together and the one sure thing was this: if she'd been there... neither of them would have trusted unexpected companions and she would have been able to protect him.  

But she wasn't there and she hadn't been able to protect him.

"Grandma said the family..."

"The family told DiCaprio the story of it.  An old woman saw the whole thing."

Nonna. 

Aurora tried not to think what the old woman must think of her after all of this.

"What will happen to the DiCaprio family now?"  She asked quietly.

"As per the agreement with Don Enzo, we will hunt them down in the hills where they've run to.  We will finish them off.  Cut them down root and stem, ensure no others of the line come up.  Let the women and young girls live out their lives - marry into other families." 

"The little boys?"  Aurora asked, thinking of the innocent baby in her belly.

"Boys grow to be men.  Men can carry out a vendetta.  If we do not end them here and now, then they will come for us in generations to come.  Your children will never sleep safe in their beds unless we finish it."

Aurora closed her eyes, trying not to stare daggers at the old man who talked so flippantly about eliminating an entire family from the earth as if he were talking about how dinner tasted.  

"Is that all you wish to know?  Does this bring you peace?"  the old man asked shoving seafood into the hole above his considerable double chin.

"You said something about an agreement with a Don Enzo?"

"Husband, it's not the time."  The Don's wife tried to cut in but the slightest motion of his hand sent the old woman silently back to eating.

"I told you I would answer.  I am a man of honor."

Aurora nodded, though she did not agree with him.  What man with honor killed little boys?

"I have arranged to end this blood feud with Luciano once and for all.  Don Enzo and I will join our houses and he will help us rid the land of your father's foul kin.  All I had to do was provide him with DiCaprio's lands and a wife for his grandson."

Aurora blinked slowly.  

"You will like him."  Grandma Conti interjected.  "He's big and strong and..."

Aurora shook her head.  "No."  She insisted.  "I can't."

"You can.  And you will."  Don Conti commanded.

"I can't because I'm already married."  she lied.  Lying was wrong.  Lying hurt people, but this lie, this lie might buy her time for her parents to come.  And this man, she didn't care what he thought of her.  She wished to God it was true.  That she had dared Billy that final time to take her to a priest and make an honest woman of her instead of making love to her.  WHY hadn't she told him about the baby and dared him to do that instead?!?  Nonna's hateful tirade haunted her in the back of her mind still.

"He is dead."  Don Conti seethed.  "You are a widow, a young one, we will have the Priest annul it."

"THEY CAN'T DO THAT!"  Aurora found herself shouting at the old man, trying to protect a marriage that wasn't even real and she couldn't say why.

"For the right price a priest can do or undo what he wishes!  He is the mouthpiece of God, what can God NOT do?"

Aurora's heart thundered in her ears and she struggled to pull herself back under control, but her hurt was too deep now.  Fear was setting in.  What if they forced her to marry before her father and mother could get here?  If these people would kill children, if they would unwrite oaths sworn to God, what was sacred to them?  What might they do if they learned she was pregnant and their deal with this Don Enzo might die on the vine?  

And so it was that Aurora abruptly stood from her spot at the table and the guards hands moved towards their guns.  They were right to fear and distrust her.  She didn't spare them a look, instead of holding the Don's gaze she answered what it was God could not do, "He can't give Marie back to you." 

Aurora threw down her napkin and ran up the stairs to her gilded cage, Marie's bedroom.  There she fell upon the bed staring up at the ceiling... thinking about the light of her eyes, finally starting to believe it was true.  Billy really was dead.  Aurora began to shudder, her whole body quaked and she folded in on herself and silently sobbed until emotional exhaustion took hold of her and dragged her into the black abyss of guilt-wracked nightmares from which there was no escape or mercy. 

Sophia began to wake from sleep, she felt her husband moving beside her.  She figured that he must be having breathing troubles again, the way he was snoring... that was snoring, yes?  Well, she'd just nudge him, that usually helped. 

She rolled over to look at her beloved and instead found herself moving into something warm and wet.  Something coming from the softly thrashing form of her husband, pinned beneath a diminutive form squat atop him in the shadows. 

The sound she was hearing, it wasn't something she'd ever heard before and as she'd woken completely in a rush of adrenalin, she knew it wasn't snoring... it was the sound of blood spraying out of an open wound and a man sucking for his last breaths in utter desperation for a live fleeing too fast.  It was a noise she'd never forget so long as she lived... which considering what she was seeing right now, she knew would not be much longer. 

In the dark, she could have been Marie.  Poor, sweet Marie, dead and gone too soon.  So young.  So beautiful.  Her only precious joy, her baby girl.  But those eyes, so unearthly in the pale moonlight coming through the windows, no... she didn't seem human at all.  More animal that woman.  The monster looked away from her victim towards the old woman whose form was frozen and silent from terror.

Her husband's blood showered the girl repeatedly and yet she did not flinch.  Instead, she just moved her hand slowly to her mouth, extending her index finger to her lips with a soft, "Shhhh!"

Sophia wept.

"You don't want to get into men's business... do you?"  she asked the old woman in a tone that was NOTHING like the one she'd spoken to her in before. 

Sophia shook her head numbly.

"Good.  You see... I'm a bad person, who kills bad people and you?   You haven't done anything bad ... yet."  

The sound slowed and so did the blood.  Sophia shook but her tears poured down her cheeks without a sound save for her heavy breathing.  Her heart was racing, so hard.  

Aurora got out of the bed, glistening crimson all down the front of her.  She looked at Sophia as if considering what she should do.  The knife, from dinner Sophia realized, was held tight in her grip.  Aurora went then and began searching the room.  Sophia, in the meanwhile, touched the still warm face of her husband.  His mouth agape, eyes wide in shock.  She made her first sound as Aurora found what she was looking for and began collecting her things.  

"He was ... your family..."  Sophia whispered through soft sobs.

"No."  She said definitively, turning back to the old woman.  "He wasn't.  A family doesn't do this shit to each other.  The moment he took me from that farm, he proved who he really was and you're only breathing right now because I saw at that table; no matter how much you supported him, you never had any real choice.  This... no matter how much you approved of it, wasn't your doing."

She put the clothing into a bag she found on the floor near the dresser, the sound of Sophia sobbing was all that could be heard now.  As she made her way to the door she whispered back, just loud enough for Sophia to barely hear, "My name is Aurora Byrne, and I hope the lot of you rot in the Hell you all fear so damn much for what you've done."

She stepped into the hallway and was only two steps out before she heard the woman's intake of breath, that telltale sound which was someone drawing enough air to speak loudly or, more likely, scream.  Aurora flipped the steak knife in her hand, spun on the front of her foot and threw the knife confidently.

Some people just didn't know when to shut their mouths. 

As Sophia fell over onto her husband trying fruitlessly, Aurora walked down the hall, past one and another of the lazy half-sleeping guards she'd opened up on her way into the room.  No one had thought much of the tiny girl tucked away in her bed, crying in her sleep, not after the Don had shut her down so completely.  That, of course, was the last time any of them would ever make the mistake of thinking a woman could not carry out a vendetta.

Thunder rolled across the night sky as Aurora hurried down the long hard-packed earthen road.  There were no cars here, not this far out in the country and not this time of night.  If there hadn't been storm clouds overhead she knew she would have been able to see stars she could not pinpoint in the lights of the Philadelphia night sky.

Aurora had stipped down on the side of the road, using the old clothing to wipe down her body, ridding herself of much of the blood she was covered in.  She put on her old clothing and continued onward, heading back towards Nonna's house in the hope of finding Billy there.  Maybe alive... but most likely, dead.  

In the silence she daydreamed, she imagined hearing him talk to her as she made her way down the long empty road.  

'Hey, Kiddo.'  His shadow would loom over her.  

She smiled.  "You know I hate that."

'I know.'  He'd kick a rock down the road.  'You did good back there... getting out like you did.'

"It's not done."  she whispered to no one.

'Your parents are worried.  You should call them.'

"Not yet.  It's not done."  she wiped a tear from her eye without realizing she was crying.

'It could be.'

She shook her head.  It wouldn't be done until they were all dead both sides of this stupid war.  If they wanted blood, she'd give it to them, theirs or hers or both!  She'd run the streets red with it.  Their hatred of each other had cost her too much and now she'd revisit that debt upon them all... one man at a time.

'Look...'  

The wind rushed past her causing her to look in the direction she was sure Billy must mean.  Up ahead she could see lights coming through stained glass windows.  She couldn't believe she was annoyed with an imaginary Billy - but he knew how she felt about the Church.

'What can't God do, Roar?'

Aurora stopped and stared at the Virgin Mary glowing blue in the darkness.  

'Make one oath of love into another?  Give a baby a name?  Make a shamed woman, an honored widow?  You don't have to do this alone, Roar.  I'm still with you... if you want me.'

Her lip quivered.  

'This isn't how I would have asked you, Aurora Byrne... but...'

"Yes."  she whispered, not needing to hear the words he wasn't really saying anyway.  She pushed through her weariness and cut across the lawn just as the storm began sending heavy fat raindrops falling fast towards the earth.

Nicola Agnozzi had woke an hour ago certain he had heard one message, 'Turn on the lights, Nicola.' 

He wasn't one prone to flights of fancy but he also wasn't one to ignore the words of the Lord.  Being as lights did no harm, he thought it best to error on the side of it being the will of God than to disregard the message that might only be the leftover rumblings of last night's fish dinner.

Nicola had only been in Presa for three months.  He was new to the collar and was learning from the aging priest who had been put here almost a lifetime ago, Father Francesco Albertini.  Francesco slept often these days, he was approaching the end of life but the good Lord had granted him a solid mind if bad eye-sight. 

Nicola was learning much from the elderly man about his job as a priest, not just prayers and hymns, but truths about the people in this area and what made even the sanest of people do sometimes deeply troubling things.  It was this very sort of lesson that served him best when he heard the knocking and opened the door to find a young woman drenched from the sudden downpour, looking as weary as he'd ever seen a soul look before. 

"Come in,"  He urged and the dark-haired girl listened.

He supposed she was no more than twenty.  Strong looking, despite being small in stature and with eyes that seemed to draw in the light and burn with a supernatural sort of glow.  None of this was so bothersome as what he could see on her skin as she came into the light.  Her face was stained crimson, brown, and black in spots, her hands too.  Blood stains, he realized and instantly he whispered a prayer for the dead who were likely claimed in tonight's violence. 

Nicola ushered her to a seat and went for a small blanket and then a cup of water which the girl accepted with a whispered, "Thank you."  

"Are you hurt?"  He asked.

"Not physically."  She answered, "But, I do need your help." 

The girl looked into his eyes.  He could see her suffering which she tried unsuccessfully to bury.  Not knowing what she'd been through he dared not touch her though every instinct in him told him she needed human contact - comfort.

"I need to get married."  She said coldly.  The was no joy in the statement, no young passion that he associated with a girl asking this favor of a man of the cloth. 

"Need?"  he tilted his head to the side and when her fingers laced together over her belly he began to wonder if he understood something of this girl's story.

"I need to be married two nights ago."  

"The father ... he's dead then?"  

The girl nodded numbly and instantly Nicola felt a swell of pity for the girl. 

"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way..." 

"I have money."  she cut him off.  "Lots of it, if that's what you want.  Enough to build a dozen churches that would make this one seem shabby by comparison and fill each of them with people.  I'll pay you... name your price.  I'll give you anything... I'll give you everything."

"What's your name?"

"Aurora."  

"And the baby's father?"  He asked.

"Bil-  Benedict.  Benedict Mastrosimone."

He nodded.  He knew the man in question.  Dead yesterday.  Gunned down not feet from his family's front door.  A family who came here to this church for years.

"Surely his family would know he wasn't wed?"  Nicola knew he could not do this but he had to make her see that too.

"We snuck off together, two nights ago.  No one knows what we did at that time... maybe we came to you in secret?"

"I can not..."

"What can your God NOT do?" He'd heard those words before, but never in this context.  It made his skin crawl that someone had said them to her and here she was, suffering so, taking them to heart as her only understanding of God's infinite love.   

"Are you not his voice on earth?"  she asked, a hint of anger in her tone - a wicked barb of accusation, the tone of a woman bitter with her creator.  "His will manifest to lead the people and protect the innocent?  Who is more innocent than the baby in my belly who has not yet sinned?  I don't care about myself.  I don't believe in some man with a white beard floating in the clouds granting wishes... I believe in good people doing good for other people - that's God if there is one in this world at all.  And you live in his home and speak with his voice.  The only question is, are you a good man?"  

Nicola could hear her saying that she didn't care about herself, but he knew what that was.  The guilt, the pain, it was palpable coming in waves off the amber-eyed youth.  Nicola drew breath, "I try my best.  I try to be charitable, forgiving, empathic, and honest; do you find these to be important qualities, Miss...?"

"Byrne." she said softly as if not wanting to admit it wasn't Mastrosimone, but she already had, hadn't she?  "And, I do."

"Then you understand what you're asking of me.  You would have me risk my own soul to spare your child social derision and while I understand it's in the nature of a mother to want -"

She shook her head, "You don't understand... I'm the last person this kid wants as it's mother." 

He could hear the sorrow in her voice, the hurt that ran deeper than the ocean itself. 

"I didn't ... I ... this was his dream.  Mine?  I'll never see the look in his eyes when he learns he's gonna be a dad or when he holds his child for the first time.  THAT was my dream.  I wanted to spend my life sharing a family with him, letting him have some bit of what I've always had.  I didn't need another life to do that, but he did.  And now what do I do?  I wanted to make him happy and now this poor thing is left with me who didn't even want it!  What kind of mother could I EVER be?"

"I don't suppose the Mother Mary prayed for a son when the Holy Spirit came upon her.  A village of people who would whisper about her and her child... to say nothing of the normal fears every mother ever has:  Can I?  Will I know what to do?  Will I be good enough?  That you worry shows you love this child.  That you'd come here seeking to wed yourself to a memory... well," 

Nicola softened, tilting his head to the side to look past the blood crusted hair on her head and see her eyes.  "It tells me how much you loved him and how much you're already focused on your child's future."  With caution, he put a hand on her hand.  She did not pull away.

"And what more could any mother really give her child beyond love and a commitment to their happiness even above their own needs?  Aurora, if you don't mind me saying so, I think you're far more Motherly material than you're able to admit right now because of what you've gone through.  I think you're the sort of woman who would fight and maybe kill to protect your child.  But it's your fear that lets me know that your child will never lack for the one thing that all children need most of all... and that's your love."

"Names have a power of their own... it's something I know a bit about.  Where we come from, who raises us up.  I'm so many parts of so many people but the names in my life, I just, I want this baby to know who he is.  I don't ever want him to feel like I felt sometimes... like I was working hard to make myself into something so I would fit with the people who were good enough to claim me."

She pulled her hand back and shook her head, seeming to regret having spoken her thoughts aloud, "No.  Nevermind.  If you won't help me then, I'll find another way.  Maybe a priest with fewer scruples is in the next town over... "

"Aurora."  He stood. 

She paused.

"You can wash here.  Change.  Eat.  If you like... maybe even pray?"

Aurora scoffed.  

"Fine," He continued, "The Lord knows what you can't make yourself say or admit right now.  But... where-ever you're going, you can't go like that.  Let me give you this aid.  Wash here.  I'll have a sandwich waiting when you get out."

Aurora sighed and nodded allowing Nicola to show her to a room with a tub in which she could wash herself and make herself ready to see Billy and his family one final time.

When Gavin landed in Sicily he'd been on a plane for most of the previous two days. Leaving Europe, he'd wondered if he would ever return. Now, he was back after spending only a few hours in Philadelphia. His back was screaming almost as loud as his soul, or what was left of it, after spending hours trapped in a seat wondering if his daughter was alive. And if she was alive, how much pain was she in?

When the plane touched down, Gavin took two more pills to dull the pain in his back and picked up the first phone he could get ahold of by throwing money around. He dialed Isabella-Luciano and closed his eyes, ignoring the fact that his heart was racing.

"It's me. What do you know?"

Is she alive?

Alucard hung up the phone after his conversation with Don Byrne.   He took a look at his notes and shoved the piece of paper in his pocket.   As he walked outside to grab a cab, he looked up to the sky and noticed the dark looming storm clouds.  As he walked up to the black car, and knocked on the window.  The driver rolled his window down and eyed Alucard suspiciously.

"You speak English?" Alucard asked.

Continuing to eye the brit, the driver replied, "Sì, I speaka English signore."

"This? This is a taxi?" Alucard knew he should probably feel like a fool for not knowing any of the languages for the country he was in, but he didn't.  Shame and foolishness were very rarely things he felt.  The cabbie just nodded.

"Good."  Alucard spoke flatly as he climbed into the back of the man's car. "I need you to take me to Presa, and the Mastrosimone farm, if possible.  Please."

Alucard could see the driver in the rearview mirror give a look of horror when he said the name, "Si, si, I take you."

Right as the car was taking off, Alucard noticed what he could have sworn was Gavin Byrne at the airport.  Through the window he could see the white wolf using the same pay phone he'd only recently used himself.  He had no idea how the man could have gotten to Sicily so fast, but he knew he needed to speak to the man. 

"WAIT!" Alucard shouted at the cabbie. He threw a handful of bills at the driver, and as he opened the door he said, "Wait here. You will be driving to Presa I just need a moment."

"OF course signore,"  the driver said as he flipped through the small stack of bills Alucard tossed in his lap. 

He rushed out of the car and up to the stranger at the payphone right as he hung up. "Gavin, Gavin Byrne?  My name's Alucard"

Alucard's amber-red eyes almost sparkled in the bright lights of the airport, as he offered his hand to the White Wolf. "Bella sent me here to find Aurora and keep her safe until you arrived.  I don't think she expected you to get here so quickly.  But here's the information she gave me..."

He fished through his pockets then handed Gavin the piece of paper with all the details on it. "There's a cab out there, fully paid and prepped to drive to the Matrosimone farm, number 157. I was on my way when I saw you through the window, so please take it.  With her father here, I doubt Roar has any need of a demon."

Alucard paused for a moment remembering Don Bella's words of a blood feud going on, "Unless of course sir, you would care for some help.  In case any trouble arises."

"Conti."  she said flatly knowing Gavin didn't want to wait any longer for an answer. 

"Hear me out though.  You'll need the moving parts - remember that place is a god-damned compound and they've got more men now."

Bella could be heard rifling through papers, "Rita DiCaprio is the one who called me with the news.  Do you remember her?  The older woman we met on our vacation.  She did most of the talking.  The Matriarch.  She's Santino's Aunt and for all intents and purposes, she was his Consigliere."

She knew Gavin would hear the word 'dead' when she said the word 'was' ... and she could almost feel him there, tense and impatiently waiting for the details.  So, she spoke quickly.

"Two days after Santino's men left Rora & Billy at his Grandmother's farm, Billy's cousin came to Don DiCaprio begging for protection and for vengeance.  The young man, Gio is the name I was given, is about Aurora's age.  He told Santino that Conti's men had taken Aurora by force in eyeshot of the family's farmhouse.  When they last saw her she'd take a beating, was out cold, but appeared alive."

"Before Billy could come to Santino to use his phone & call us or his crew for assistance, our Soldato arrived. Billy mistook them for a secret protection detail.  Apparently, he thought I'd sent them to watch over Aurora since they were Philly guys... he walked right out to the car to greet them thinking help had arrived.  His grandmother watched it happen." 

She sighed.

"DiCaprio led an attack on Conti's men in retaliation and to attempt to rescue Aurora for us.  It didn't go well.  Santino didn't know it but Don Enzo from Messina had thrown in with Conti.  Rita is hoping they will give the bodies back for burial soon.  They've sent all the DiCaprio & Fazzone girls of child-bearing age and the male children into the hills to hide.  Conti is trying to salt the earth and end the line.  It's not going well for them."

"The alliance means they have the firepower to wipe out Luciano too, which makes them a potential ally to us.  I can try to reach out to my distant cousins but considering they're on the brink of being wiped out... I don't know.  Alucard should be looking for you now.  He may have caught wind of the war with Detroit, so you might be on your own."

"Stella also got back with me too.  Her people are reporting rumors in the streets of Messina which suggest there's soon to be a wedding ... Enzo's last grandson and heir to the Conti's granddaughter who has recently returned from the US to live in Sicily.  Stella says with DiCaprio on the run and Luciano soon to follow, a Messina-Conti alliance could stand for generations uncontested."

"My advice, and it's just that... after all you're boots on the ground the calls are yours from here on, but my advice is to take the road out of Catania to Presa, it's on the way to the Conti Compound.  It's the road we drove together that goes through the countryside where we had that picnic.  I doubt much has changed.  Billy's grandmother's house just outside Presa.  An olive farm about two miles out of town.  Rita says you won't be able to miss it, by now they've brought priest out and every distant family member under the sun to watch over Billy's body before they bury him.  Aurora's guns and other items are there.  You might need them, so stop at the Mastrosimone farm."

"From there... go on to the Conti family home.  Scout and make your plan.  I don't think they'll sit under a white flag with us this time, but if you want to go the diplomacy route due to the odds well, fucking offer them everything.  Whatever they want.  The check is blank.  No business is sacred.  If you need to threaten, let them know what we can bring to bear on them.  They DO NOT want the Byrne family entering this little 'war' of theirs.  It will NOT go well for them, especially now.  They should give us our daughter, take their lands, and generations of hard-won peace and call it a win..."

She paused.  He knew everything she wanted and needed to say beyond that, so many long years together - so many goodbyes.  So instead of telling him again how much she loved him or to be safe, she simply said, "Grab a nice bottle of wine on your way home, okay?"

Gavin processed the information without reacting as he felt his body and his heartbeat. He had a target. The Conti family.

Gavin let Santino's death pass by him without noting it; he was focused on the living. 

And Aurora was alive.

Conti. Enzo.

Pick up Aurora's things at Matrosimone farm, then scout out the Conti family home.

As he listened to Bella talk about negotiation, Gavin frowned, then sighed. She was right to at least mention it as an option. And he would be prepared to negotiate... if they managed to stop him.

But stopping Gavin Byrne was easier than it used to be. He knew he was slower. And even at his best, charging up the stairs against a barricade of FBN agents, he'd been a hair's breadth away from dying.

"Grab a nice bottle of wine on your way home, okay?"

"I will."

How to say goodbye? Gavin paused, as a nagging voice he recognized as his sister's whispered into his ear.

"And Bella, work the logisitics on this thing. Let's keep things quiet for now and have me scope things out. But put a couple teams together. One mercenary, one medical. If you don't hear from me in 48 hours, send them in... and have them both standing by just in case. If I need them, I'll call you."

He listened to Bella agree, then paused as he again struggled to end the conversation.

"Goodbye Bella... I love you. I'll get her home."

He hung up the phone and forced himself to focus. Especially now, since a stranger was rushing at him. Gavin gripped the familiar handle of his M1911 and was a only a few moments away from pulling the trigger when the stranger halted and spoke to him, handing Gavin a piece of paper. Gavin listened curiously, relaxing his hand on his gun.

"Demon, huh? Well, Alucard, if I know my daughter well, a demon might come in handy. If my wife sent you... actually, hold on a minute."

Gavin dialed Bella's number again.

"It's me. So do you know this guy Alucard?"

Gavin removed his hand from his pocket.

"Gotcha. Okay. Good. Gotta go, I'll remember the wine."

Hanging up the phone, Gavin turned to LordAlucard.

"No idea what we're going to find out there. If I didn't think I could handle this myself I never would have come. I'm used to working alone. But Bella trusts you, so I trust you. If you've got stuff to handle stateside, I have no problem going solo on this. But..."

Gavin appraised Alucard carefully, meeting his eyes.

"... if you want to help, I'm not going to turn you down. Things could be... complicated. And I'll take all the help I can get."