Third Person's POV

Moments earlier...

Romeo's head was wandering. No matter how he tried to focus on the conversation with his newly met grandparents and, uncle he couldn't. He was so far out of his element that his brain was dissociating from the conversation as a way to save him from it.

He had been fine in the room until then; sure he had felt a little over his head walking into a room full of gazillionaires but he could manage. What was hard was talking with total strangers like they were family.

It was the first time he realised he didn't think of his sister and father so much as strangers anymore, either. They weren't family, but they weren't mysterious people he happened to share DNA with.

His head swivelled around the room. Martino was taking control of the talking like he always did, with Matteo adding a few comments here and there to keep the stories Martino was spewing off as accurate as possible. Dante was watching for any threats towards them but even he was commenting on a few things which were out of character for him. Romeo thought he must have been more comfortable with these people because they were related to his mother.

Romeo was allowed to slink back into the background of the conversation like he always did, even though he wasn't the middle child, he felt like the fit in like one. He was shorter than Dante, but taller than the twins. He wasn't as smart as Matteo was, but he did feel like he was higher ranked in intelligence than Martino and Dante. There were so many situations he just blended in and he loved it.

"So, what do you all do?" Altea, their uncle's wife, asked. She was the nicest in Romeo's opinion and he didn't understand what she was doing in a family like there.

"At the moment, we haven't been doing much." Martino answered. "But back home, I have a job at a garage fixing cars. Matteo and Romeo are in college, and Dante's a firefighter."

"Oh, how lovely." Altea smiled at them. Although she was nice, Romeo didn't really like her for some reason. He seemed to like the more rugged characters, the ones who were involved in the world of the underground. He had already taken a liking to his overly unemotional grandfather, who had some nothing but grunt all evening.

"Well, we have to go around and greet a couple of other guests." Their grandmother, Viola, announced after a bit of small talk. It only took minutes for the brothers to be left alone.

"So what do you think of this?" Martino questions his brothers. Now they have been left alone. "Imagine if we had grown up going to things like this. It's insane."

"It's weird, but I think it would have been normal if mom wasn't a kidnapper," Matteo answers his twin; Romeo can't help but snort at his older brother, calling his mother a kidnapper. Dante though, glowers at the older twin.

"She can't be a kidnapper if she's our mother."

"The definition of a kidnapper is someone taking away someone illegally. We sure as hell didn't leave the country legally, Dan." Matteo scoffs. "It doesn't matter if she was our mother or not, our father is still a parent and you need both parents' consent to be able to take the children out of the country."

"Can we not do this here, please?" Romeo had enough of his brothers' bickering, it seemed none stop lately. He had learnt to just tune them out, but today he knew that this wasn't the time nor the place. They were all under scrutiny and he felt anxious.

There was a weird energy around here, one he had never felt before, but it put him on edge.

They didn't stop. Romeo was used to being ignored. He was the youngest after all. He just leaned in his chair with a headshake and an eye roll. He closed his eyes to try to block all the sounds of the arguing.

One minute he was doing that and the next all he heard were screams from around him and a tight grip on his body.

He didn't even have any time to react. It was pitch black, but he knew people were grabbing his brothers as well. Romeo was panicking and just as he tried calling out a gripped his mouth tightly, not allowing any noise to be heard from him.

Even with his lack of speech, Romeo fought and fought, but at the sound of gunshots, he paused, only being moved by the people that were hauling him. He was still at the words of warning that the next shot would be in one of his brothers.

All four of the Di Vittorio brothers were still. They had always said they would risk their own lives for one another. They just never imagined the opportunity for that would ever arise for that to happen.

+

They were chained in a dark room. They hadn't left the building and, for that reason alone, Romeo was hopeful that they would be found quickly. He heard the men talking. He couldn't understand much of their Italian, only a couple of words that he had picked up on during his stay here, but Romeo could tell from their body language that they were cocky. For some reason, these men didn't think his sister would find them.

Maybe he was being naïve but Romeo had no doubt his sister would save them, he just knew they she would be here soon but from just a glance at his brothers' faces he knew they didn't hold the same sentiments about the situation. All three of them were obviously panicking and Romeo thought he must have been dropped a few times as a baby because he didn't at all feel scared, merely annoyed at the interruption in his day.

He sighs; well he guessed this was better than being bored out of his mind in the ballroom.

A man approaches them; all but a sliver of skin between his cap and the mask covering his nose and mouth was showing. But Romeo could see his tan skin and his brown eyes that held hints of red in them. They were more of an amber colour.

For the first time tonight, Romeo was truly uncomfortable, not the discomfort he's had since he arrived.

The gaze of this man was unsettling, and Romeo was itching to get out of the ropes that bound his hands behind his back.

He was urging Livia to hurry up and find them as one of the men started riling up his brothers, spouting off nonsense to annoy them and get them angry. It was working.

Romeo couldn't get himself to say anything though, he blocked out Dante's shouting and his eyes furiously scanned the room, looking for a way out. He noticed a cupboard in the back of the room, a broken mirror on the front of it. There was nothing truly special about it, except it pointed out into the hallway they had been brought through.

The door was only opened a sliver. No one could see out of it from their angle but the mirror was in just the right place.

He kept his eyes trained there and his heart rate slowed when he saw whips of blonde hair moving and then a set of green eyes met his through the mirror, holding eye contact with him.

Instead of looking unsettled, his sister was smirking like there wasn't anything wrong at all. That should have probably worried him more, but it did the opposite. Romeo had never been calmer.

He sat there as the second gunshot of the night went off. The world devolved into chaos around him and he stayed seated like there was nothing even happening.

Hi ;)

Ok I do know this is very late, and I apologise. Things should be getting back to semi normal soon, I have about a week and a bit left of Easter holidays but after that I should have more scheduled time to write.

Next chapter should be the end of all this drama, i think so don't quote me.

What do you all think of this chapter? Romeo was definitely born for this life. I'm working on a Di Vittorio brothers tiktok/reel that should come up soon if you're following me on those platforms and you want to see it.

Please vote and comment and tell me your thoughts

Happy reading

Ara <3