Chapter 26: XXII

— RORI —

"And you, Little Red, are my half-sister."

It takes me around ten seconds to process Damiano's words. All the while, i diligently analyse his appearance.

His hair is not as fair as the likes of Yakov's dirty blond, yet not as dark as Zephaniah's brunet. His eyes are extremely pretty: a light green shade, akin to that of Wyatt's. His nose is large — definitely Italian — and, again, i recognise this feature from some of my brothers. As well as his olive complexion and sharp jawline which all eleven of us have in common.

The majority of his features are clearly Italian, as is his forename, which leads me to believe that his mother must also be of Italian descent.

Well, my father certainly had a type!

And, of course, to top it off, he shares with us the infamous Russian accent. Though, although his understanding of the English language is clearly broad, his pronunciation could use some work.

"I have ID, if you don't believe me," he adds.

I nod my head, though i am not sceptical in the slightest.

"ID would be good."

His expression unmoving, he gestures to the trench coat.

"Inner left pocket."

My eyes never once leave his as i retrieve his leather wallet, sliding it across the desk.

Wordlessly, he hands me a card. I take note of only the key information, such as the fact he was born on the fifth of July, 1988, meaning he is currently thirty years old: twice my age and just over two years older than Zephaniah.

But when i look at his name, which reads 'Damiano Henrykovich Łabanowski, i am filled with confusion.

For Henrykovich means that he is the son of Henryk. Only, Henryk is most definitely my uncle...

"I don't understand," i say, and place my pointer finger on the exact word. "Henryk is my uncle. That would make you my cousin, not my half-brother."

I seriously think he might have made a mistake. Albeit, his English is not bad. But mistakes happen.

Hell, even i — who has been fluent in the language for several years now —struggle at times. After all, there are three different variations of several words! Who wouldn't mess up from time to time?

But, alas, when he shakes his head in response to my query, i know there is more to it.

"We share the same mother. Not the same father."

What in the name of—

"Our mother was married to my father. Your father's older brother," he explains, as if the scenario is perfectly normal. "She had three children with my father, left him, then had ten more with your father."

What in the name of—

"I know," he says, reading the bewildered expression on my face. "It is a lot to comprehend. It is...средневековый."

"So, we're not in fact half-siblings but three-quarter siblings?" i point out, and i can't contain my grimace.

"Technically, yes, seeing as we are also first cousins," he confirms.

"This is cредневековый," i agree.

Damiano scrutinises me with those eyes of his once more. His expressions confuse me now. He is far more stoic than any of my brothers. He is much harder to read.

He is foreign to me, and i am foreign to him, yet we were birthed from the same womb.

"It's nothing you can't handle," Damiano's voice redirects my attention back to the present, his deep tone assertive rather than comforting. "And you will thank me for informing you...not literally, of course. But you will be grateful that i told you, nonetheless."

"You need to enunciate if you're using that word," i advise him, through sniffles.

"I'm sorry?" he says, raising his eyebrows at me, expectantly.

"If you pronounce nonetheless like that to an English speaking person, they'll laugh at you. No matter how severe of a tone you're using at the time. I'm sorry to burst your bubble but i know quite well what i'm talking about."

Sheepishly, i glance up at him once more, expecting him to be offended. But, to my surprise, the corner of his mouth lifts upward in amusement. And, for the first time, the smile reaches his eyes.

"I'll work on it."

I offer him a weak smile in return, only it vanishes a moment later when i realise that i have missed a very important piece of information he had previously mentioned.

"But, wait...your father has three children?"

I recall there being talk of a half-sibling in the past but i thought nothing of it. After all, with so many kids, it would not be a shock if one of my parents were to have another one from a previous relationship. And the idea of a half-sibling did not matter to me at all because my parents did not raise them and they were not raised alongside the ten of us.

But i never could have expected i would one day find out that my mother had been in a marriage with my father's older brother before she had been with him, giving birth to a whopping thirteen children in total.

I mean, this is so, extremely far-fetched that i can't help but question how much of it is true.

My life is but a circus.

"Three," he confirms, with a nod. "I have an older brother, Lorenzo, who is thirty-three, as well as a fraternal twin brother, Eden."

"And what of the marriage between our mother and Henryk?" i ask. "Why would she leave him for my father?"

"Our grandparents had arranged for our mother and my father to be together, only mother was not in love with Henryk. She was in love with Aleksander."

"Arranged?" i repeat his words, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion.

"Indeed," he confirms. "The Łabanowskis were indebted—"

"In-de-ted."

"Yes, like i said, in-dep-ted, to our mother's family: the Antonellis. Our mother was the eldest of four sisters and our grandfather was in desperate need of an heir..."

An heir?

"An heir?" i voice my query. "Why did the Antonellis need an heir?"

This time, he narrows his eyes at me, his gaze ever so calculating.

"Allow me to think of an explanation you will understand," he says, his thumb and forefinger caressing his stubbled chin as he deliberates.

I scoff at his patronisation.

"Try me," i quip.

He sighs.

"Essentially, our family benefited from many unethical practices back in the day. Our family, amongst others."

"So...the mafia?"

"No. Not quite," he says, an amused smile on his face. "Think of it as a family dynasty."

"Sooo...the mafia."

He sighs once more.

"We're a group of influential families. Indeed like the mafia. Only, we are not. Our force of influence is much more powerful...much more powerful than you could ever imagine."

I gulp.

None of this makes sense to me, in all honesty. But i suppose there is still so much more to be revealed. And there's no way he could be making this up on the spot, unless he is especially imaginative. Not that it would serve him any purpose to make up such a ludicrous tale to tell me, anyway.

Yet, still. It is so radical.

My mother was never an elegant women but she always thought of herself as highly important, i'm sure. I don't doubt she's part of the reason for my brothers' vanity. Perhaps her way of thinking was due to the fact she was once apart of this whole...dynasty.

"You really look very much like her," i say, before i can stop myself, only now realising that those Italian features of his must be be the cause of our mother.

"Pardon?"

"Like mother, i mean," i elaborate. "You look a lot like her...not in a feminine way. I'm not saying you look like a woman. Only that you remind me of her," i clarify.

"I've been told," he agrees.

"She was beautiful," i muse.

"Indeed she was," he agrees once more.

"I don't look anything like her though, do i?" i ask him, my eyebrows furrowing in thought.

"You do. A little," he disagrees. "Only, you are far more beautiful, i am sure."

"She thought of me as such. Only, i wanted to look just like her," i admit.

Damiano's eyes soften at the corners.

"There are many women in our family who are just like mother," he tells me. "But there is only one you, Rori. Remember that."

My heart warms a little at his encouraging words.

I feel as though i should be scolding myself for being so happy at the sound of his praise, but the truth is, not many of my brothers ever compliment me.

In fact, when i do realise that Damiano is technically a brother of mine and, during our first meeting, has both blackmailed me into seeking revenge on one of our siblings and given me a confidence boost, i feel even more disbelief.

After all, he wouldn't be a Łabanowksi if he didn't play mind games, would he?

"I will," i mumble, before adding a barely audible, "thank you."

He nods in acknowledgement and there is a moment's silence as he waits for me to continue my interrogation.

"Only...how can it be? That our family is so powerful?" i ask him. "Part of me doesn't believe you."

Damiano is clearly a patient man. Or at least, he is being patient with me. The look that he gives me in response, however, is ever so subtly patronising and i begin to feel insecure.

He clearly thinks i'm as stupid as i seem.

"Tell me, Rori, at the age of thirteen, how did you get away with murder?"

I shrug my shoulders.

"No weapon was found at the scene, except for the one he was holding. They deemed it an act of murder-suicide," i explain, my voice small. "Only...there was never any talk of CCTV. After all, the area was hidden quite well."

He nods.

"Lorenzo controls everything from a distance," he explains. "And when i say everything, of course i do not mean it literally," he clarifies. "Only that, should he need to, he is able to."

He pauses when he sees the confused expression on my face.

"For example: should our brother need access to CCTV footage, it is granted."

It feels strange hearing Damiano refer to this man as 'our brother' when he is in fact a stranger to me, just like Damiano himself.

But what is even stranger, and even more incomparable, is this 'force of influence' he is clearly referring to.

If we are not apart of some mafia, who are we?

"Are you saying that...Lorenzo knows about what happened?" i ask him, cautiously.

"No, i am not. Lorenzo does know, however, that i requested access to this particular CCTV footage."

"Because you wanted to blackmail me?" i ask, my tone less than kind.

"That wasn't my initial reason, no," he denies. "But we'll get to that."

I huff in dissatisfaction and he raises his eyebrows at me by only a slight amount, his stoic expression still firmly fixed onto his face.

"What about your other brother, Eden, what's his deal?"

Damiano's expression hardens at the sound of his twin's name.

"Eden is a family man; a husband and a father to his daughter and son who are seven and four. He lives in Chicago. He moved to the US long before i did. He was supposed to be studying a year abroad but he ended up meeting the love of his life here and so, that was that," he says, an underlying sombreness to his words. "Before that, he and i lived with our grandparents in Russia. Lorenzo, on the other hand, was born and raised in Italy, alongside our mother's family."

I can't believe i have so many relatives i do not know of. I have been an aunt since i was eight years old, as it turns out, and i have just discovered that i have three aunts of my own, courtesy of my mother. And if i have three aunts then i am bound to also have cousins...

Here i was thinking that my parents do not have any family; that i do not have any living female relatives. It turns out, i have been living a lie.

I so desperately want to find out more about our family tree but there are more important things to figure out first.

"You guys were separated?" i ask.

"We spent our seasonal breaks in Italy but, besides from that, we never saw our older brother," he explains. "Even though Lorenzo was ultimately the one who brought the two sides of our family together, us Łabanowskis were never made to feel welcome," he says, quietly scoffing, a solemn smile on his face. "Eden and i could not relate to our brother in any way. Nor our cousins."

A frown forms on my face as i think about their misfortune.

Sure, my brothers and i are as dysfunctional as can be and our childhood wasn't exactly brilliant, but, at the end of the day, there is a bond there. We were separated for five years and i could not possibly go through that again. I can't imagine what it would have been like if we were separated from the very beginning.

"That's real shitty. I'm sorry," i tell him, my tone sincere.

He offers me a small smile.

"You of all people do not need to apologise."

I nod, averting my gaze elsewhere.

"Do our mother's family know of our existence?" i ask him. "The ten of us, i mean."

"Of course. That is why Mother and Aleksander moved from place to place so much," he answers. "Henryk wished to kill them both, for he was in love with our mother...perhaps even more so than she was with your father."

I gulp, and fear must be visible in my eyes as i cling on to his every word.

I spent my entire childhood running away from my own family without truly knowing?

"When our mother's father found out about her affair he was...яростный. Both sides of our family upheld strong Catholic views. No divorce, no contraception, but also no abortion...that is why there are so many of you little bastards running around," he explains, cracking a smile. "Essentially, Grandfather removed mother from the equation. He was not mad like Henryk was. He was still her father; Henryk was a mad man. He wouldn't have dared to go after your family while Grandfather was alive, however, and so that's why it took him until eight years after your birth to finally act."

"Is he behind my parents' disappearance?" i ask.

"Of course." Damiano nods. "It was he who took your father's life, after all."

My eyes widen and my mouth parts, releasing an involuntary gasp.

"My father is dead?"

Damiano's eyes narrow at my words, his expression nothing short of unamused.

"You didn't know?" he asks me, his tone severe. "Your brothers never told you?"

"No," i murmur, fearful.

He scoffs, averting his gaze and shaking his head in a disapproving manner.

"Tali inutili codardi," he curses.

"Posso capire quello che stai dicendo," i tell him.

He greets me with a blank stare — here i am able to note even more of a resemblance to my siblings — and nods his head once.

"Certo che puoi."

I choose to ignore his displeased tone.

"What of my mother? What happened to her?" i ask.

"Lorenzo banished her to an unknown location," he responds, almost sorrily. "No one has heard from her since and our brother will not speak on the matter."

"But she's alive?" i ask, sceptically.

"She's alive," he confirms.

"Oh," i say. "I sure hope she got the help that she needs."

"I'm sure of it," he curtly responds. "Anyway, Lorenzo met with Zephaniah shortly after the death of your father. He gave your brother a financial compensation and told him to move to the USA. Permanently."

"What date was this?" i ask.

"February of 2012."

I remember this year rather well because it was the beginning of the European cold wave and one of our harshest winters yet. Though, thankfully, we did not experience even the most extreme conditions.

The only benefit of Russian winters were the ponds which were frozen over with thick layers of ice, making for an excellent skating rink for the neighbourhood to use after school.

A girl in Vinnie's class so generously gifted me her old skates when i was around six and that was when i first fell in love with the sport.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but i was quite a natural at it too and it is the one thing which brought me happiness throughout the years that followed.

I haven't skated since we moved to the states, however.

It makes me sad to think about, really, as skating truly was my utmost passion as a child...

Deep in thought, it takes me a good few seconds to notice the sullen expression on Damiano's face, and, when i do, i can't help but pull a judgmental expression of my own.

"Gosh. You're very jolly, aren't you?" i ask, sarcasm dripping from my every word.

He raises his eyebrows at me. I don't think he enjoys my joke.

"Indeed," he answers, impassively. "Something on your mind?"

"I've got a million and one things on my mind, you have to be more specific," i tell him.

He sighs in resignation.

"I mean, you just revealed the most mind-blowing information about our family in less than sixty minutes —which is more than i've been privy to throughout my entire fifteen years of life — including the fact my father was murdered by my uncle seven years ago and my mother was banished to God knows where by my brother, whom i didn't even know existed. Not to mention, you — yet another brother i didn't even know existed — is blackmailing me in order to seek revenge on, surprise, surprise, my brother. Oh, and we're Catholics all of a sudden. What's up with that?"

All i want is for someone to appear from the shadows of this less than welcoming room right now and tell me this is all some kind of sick joke.

That it's just one of my brothers playing a cruel trick on me, or that Zephaniah sent Damiano here to test my loyalties towards him and our family.

Something which would be ridiculous, yet not completely far-fetched in his case.

Or maybe John Quiñones will pop out of thin air with a camera crew, saying his famous line: 'Excuse me Ma'am, i'm John Quiñones with the show 'What Would You Do?'."

But despite the fact Damiano has not given me any proof other than his identity, i know he is telling the truth.

After all, who would make up such lies?

"It is completely justified for you to feel overwhelmed right now," he says, after i have calmed down. "Perhaps i should have waited—"

"No!" i cut him off. "No, i'm glad you told me...what you did," i reassure him. "There's just so much to wrap my head around, you know?"

He nods, the creases around his eyes softening as his jaw unclenches and he looks at me with an earnest expression.

"I am sorry that this was not shared with you sooner, Rori. If you have any questions, you may feel free to ask them before we continue."

Boy, do i have questions.

Tonnes, at that.

But i honestly feel much too worn out to bother with them right now. All i want is to be back home and in my bed.

Safe, protected, warm...anywhere but here.

"Zephaniah," is all i say, attentively lifting my head up. "I want you to tell me exactly why we're plotting against him and what we're going to do."

Damiano's expression turns cold once more, as i mention our brother.

"There were multiple offences leading up to this moment. Some of which are best left untold," Damiano answers, his tone resentful.

"Just give me one good reason—"

"He slept with my girlfriend of two years."

An uncontrollable gasp leaves my mouth as soon as the words leave his: a gasp of disapproval due to the fact Zephaniah has slept with someone his brother was once in a relationship with and a gasp of shock due to unlikeliness of it.

"Zephaniah wouldn't do that," i argue, almost immediately after. "I know my brother and i know about all of the fucked up things he's done in the past, including sleeping with his ex-girlfriends mother, but he wouldn't do that. He's not a cheater and he certainly wouldn't sleep with his own brother's girlfriend."

"You'd be surprised by what you don't know about your beloved brother, Little Red."

I almost shudder.

"Even if it is true, why would you take revenge what must be years after. When did this happen?"

"A couple of years ago. And there's more to the story," he tells me, his tone severe. "This girlfriend of mine; she fell pregnant with his child. The woman from the CCTV footage — the one who was shot and killed — that was her."

My mouth parts once more at this shocking revelation but no gasp comes out. I simply stare at him in disbelief, willing him to continue.

"Zephaniah abandoned them when they needed him most. That night when she was assassinated, she was going to look for him...She thought he had flown back home. To his family. To you."

Our eyes meet, as he pins me with a meaningful look.

The words 'she fell pregnant with his child' are all i can focus on, however, as i acknowledge that the soon-to-be-mother i failed to save that night was not just any mother, but, rather, the mother of my brother's child.

"After the assassination — yet unrelated — Zephaniah framed me for embezzlement. Not only that, but embezzlement of our own family's charity: The Antonelli Foundation. I spent eighteen months in prison. Eighteen months i shouldn't have spent in prison. All thanks to Zephaniah...The man is heartless."

He would go hungry to make sure i was fed.

"He has no regard for other human beings; no regard for anyone but himself."

He would take the fall for things he didn't do in order to protect us.

"He wronged me. And he thought he could get away without consequences. What a fool," Damiano snarls with contempt. "And so, yes, i am taking revenge. And unfortunately for you, Little Sister, you're being dragged into this mess whether you like it or not."

"What good am i as your pawn?" i ask him, out of genuine curiosity. "I'll only disappoint you."

"Disappoint you will not," he tells me, the corners of his mouth forming a knowing smirk. "While Zephaniah has no regard for anyone, you, Rori Łabanowski, might just be the exception."

(Edited)

A/N: After practically rewriting this entire chapter, i'm still not sure if i like it. It's short - the shortest chapter i've written in a while - and i feel like the conclusion is too vague. It kind of had to be vague though as, although Damiano gave the basic explanation as to why he is pursuing his revenge, the full story has yet to be revealed...Anywho, i hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Let me know your thoughts and what you think of Damiano so far.

UPDATE: When editing this chapter for grammatical errors, the comments on the A/N disappeared entirely, even though i changed nothing in it...so i promise i wasn't ignored.