Page 47 of Sinfully Owned

I rose from the sofa and went to the door, knowing that the conversation was indeed over. Conversely, however, this also meant that I would take care of Moretti alone, should he try to infiltrate my ranks again, and because of the French I would also make my own investigations.

Leaving something to chance didn't suit me.

In a worse mood than when I had arrived, I left Emilio's office and headed straight for the living room.

It did not surprise me to find Natale and Fiero there, my two cousins. Carlotta was also present, but she wasn't concentrating on the huge flat-screen TV; instead, she had her nose buried in a magazine. The other two men were busy playing some multiplayer cooperative first-person shooter, and they weren't messing around.

Of course not. Anyone who had experience shooting people in real life had no problem doing it in the online world. Aiming was in the blood, and Natale had gotten a good dose of that.

I took a few minutes to watch their play from the doorway instead of making my presence known. Emilio might have a certain opinion, but that didn't mean that these two men would also keep their distance from me.

I especially had a very close bond with Natale. He was like another brother to me, even though he was only the son of my mother's brother and therefore didn't even have the same last name.

With Fiero it was different– he was the son of my father's sister and her husband had taken his wife's name, if only so that the name de Archard would not die out in this line.

Fiero also looked more like us than Natale. We all took after our father, while Natale more closely resembled our mother's side of the family, possessing traits one could only see a little of in us.

It jolted me out of my thoughts when loud roars of victory rang through the room. The men had decided the game in their favor.

"How long have you been standing there, D?" My sister asked, without lifting her eyes even a little.

So she had known I was there, but had decided not to say anything else and instead to remain silent because it was more comfortable.

Sighing, I raised my shoulders because now the attention of the other two men was on me as well. "A while. I didn't want to interrupt anyone, and I wasn't planning on staying long."

"Emilio has been quite obnoxious lately, so you don't have to worry about that," Carlotta informed me, as if she had an accurate idea of the conversation I'd had with our brother.

"Good to know," I murmured, a little perplexed. Maybe she could have just warned me beforehand instead of letting me walk into an open knife?

"Right. He'll get over it. Especially when it gets too much for us and we bring Enzo here to wash his head," Fiero intervened, from whom one normally heard very little for Emilio and his leadership qualities.

"We all have bad days," Natale said.

"Or a bad month," Carlotta replied, lifting her head to look in my direction. "As soon as he realizes he doesn't have enough people around, he'll call you and ask why you're sitting around at home not working."

I gave a snort. That also sounded like him. In the end, it was naturally my fault; I accepted it and everything would fall back into place sooner or later.

"I was here to warn him about Aurelio Moretti. So if you notice anything in the next few days, don't take it lightly."

Natale nodded, as did Fiero. "We'll keep it in mind."

And that was precisely what I had wanted to hear all along.

14

Dario

There were advantages to being able to observe the locations of certain people via my computer or smartphone. For example, I knew Gia followed a routine. Every other day she left her apartment for an extensive walk through the city. Mostly in the evening hours.

This knowledge made it easy for me to wait for her at her front door at the convenient time without telling her in advance.

After I had followed a first hint two days ago, concerning the French, I had needed yesterday to recover a little. My jaw still hurt and the bruise on the right side of it radiated into my entire head.

My knuckles were also still strained and burned whenever the wounds broke open again because of a quick movement. The scratches on them didn't look as good either, because I hadn't bothered to clean them up and take care of them accordingly.

I could visit to the family doctor for something like that, but I wasn't too keen on Emilio finding out about my little escapade. So I accepted the injuries as they were. They would not cost me my life.

However, I was not any more informed after the quick visit outside the city. I had hoped for something different, and I couldn't shake the feeling that Emilio was three steps ahead of me and knew much more than he had already revealed.