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“But the story goes, one of the first members of my family had a son who was strong and good. He lived his life as a soldier, fighting for good. One day, he and his brother were traveling back to town when they came across a horse without a rider. The brothers searched and searched until they finally found the rider. A woman had fallen off in a nearby creek. They rescued the woman and brought her to the nearest town. That woman was the princess.
“The king knew he owed a great debt that could never be repaid to the brothers, but he vowed to give the brothers whatever they wanted. Jewels, money, power. But the brothers were more interested in his daughter than the money.”
“Naturally,” Nina says as she rolls over onto her stomach, resting her head on her hands as she listens to my story.
“The brothers fought over the beautiful princess. But, ultimately, she chose neither of them. She chose an actual prince to marry. The brothers were heartbroken and grew to resent each other until, one day, the king sent them money as payment.
“That money turned into more money. More jewels were sent. And those jewels turned into power. People would turn up at their doorstep, asking for their help. Giving them money. Giving them women. Giving them everything they could ever want.
“They soon learned the power they wielded if they had the richest people in the country in their debt. So, that is exactly what they did. Soon, they became as powerful as the king himself.
“My family continued the tradition for years, becoming more corrupt and evil as each descendant took power until here we sit.”
Nina bites her lip to keep from laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, come on! You don’t really expect me to believe that crazy story you so clearly just made up, do you? You just made up that story as an attempt to get me to choose one of you.”
I grin. “You can think I’m a liar all you want. I’m not. Now, do you want me to finish answering your questions or not?”
She sighs. “Continue with your lies.”
“My family still carries on with the old tradition of getting powerful men—”
“And powerful women,” Nina interjects.
I smile and nod. “And powerful women to owe us a debt, therefore giving us power over them. Our regular business and sources of income are building and selling powerful weapons. But we never give our enemies any weapons more powerful than what we already have. We build the weapons mainly for ourselves as a way to gain more power. We use it to protect our homeland here, which the Italian government allows us to do pretty much whatever we want with.”
“So, basically, you became the unofficial kings of Italy,” Nina says.
I smile, liking the thought of us as kings.
“Our work requires us to do a lot of different things. We have meetings during the daylight, negotiating terms of the debt our clients owe us or discussing weapons that we will sell or gain. At night is when we make the trades or deal with clients who think they don’t owe us a debt. We make it clear that no one gets away without paying back their debt.”
I watch her eat up every word I say even if she thinks part of it is a lie. Or all of it. But she still hangs on to every word.
“Sometimes, those meetings don’t go so well, and we have to use force to ensure the meetings go our way.”
She frowns. “But why does Arlo always end up hurt, and you never end up with much more than a scratch on you?”
“Because I’m that much better at avoiding getting shot than he is.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Fine. You already know the answer anyway. Arlo is a martyr who will take a bullet for someone he cares about. He won’t let me get shot even if it would do me some good to realize that I’m not invincible.”
Nina laughs. When her laughter settles down, she asks, “And Enrico?”
“He went to America to negotiate a trade we have been working on for some time. It’s tricky negotiations. He won’t be back for several months yet.”
She sucks in a breath and nods. I watch her as she opens her mouth to ask another question and then stops as she looks past me. I don’t have to turn around to know who she is looking at.
Arlo.
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Arlo
