Capo Dei Capi (Secrets of the Famiglia Part 1) novel Chapter 29

“You both look ready, maybe I should pack my Glock in case some line-backer decides you ladies need some tackling.” His face is all kinds of serious, but I know he's talking smack.

“Yellow. Lady of the house, if your ass isn't down here in 20 secs, I’m going to finish ole daddios scotch, and Mr. Catelli is going to have to carry my ass to this dig,” Sienna screams from the bottom of the staircase.

My eyes widen as I move past Ren, to rush down the carpeted stairs.

“I’m ready, I'm ready. Sorry I kept you guys waiting.”

“How many years did you say this whiskey is again? I forget.” Sienna takes a sip of an almost full glass of Papa’s scotch. He hardly ever drank it. I knew there was a reason behind why he kept it at the back of his shelf. But he said I should make the Bray girls feel welcome and drinking his scotch is making them very welcome indeed.

I don't know much about them, but Sienna and Kylie are so alike in personality. I wonder who calls the shots between the two. Though they look entirely different. Sienna is a light brunette, long-haired Texan. She has a wide, full mouth that resembles Angelina Jolie. Her cheeks are thin and jawline sharp.

Sienna’s brown eye twitches as her red lips thin in what I would say is more of a pout.

Her eyes have been bugging me the whole day, it just seems off, unfitting. Almost as though they're contacts, color ones. But who would want brown eye contacts? Sienna obviously! I shake my head at the random thought and shake my head again, cringing when she takes another big sip.

“30 odd years, I think.”

“It's 45, my dad has the same one. It's meant for special occasions,” Ren corrects me as he comes down the stairs with a quiet Elisa behind him.

“Well, I'm here, that is one huge fucking occasion right there." Sienna winks at me when I start laughing.

“Kylie!” Sienna screams as she shoves the almost full glass to Ren's extended hand.

“Give me a minute!" Kylie yells back from the lounge area. I can hear her on a call.

“Kylie Bray, get your ass here now, tell that uncle of mine we'll be home before the roosters croak.”

“It's Momma, she wants our asses in Church tomorrow, you still wanna bitch and moan?” Kylie fires back in a deep Southern twang that is amusing as well as refreshing as her tall, lithe form walks through the archway leading to us.

Sienna’s golden skin takes a whole new shade as her big eyes widen when Kylie hands her the phone with her brows arched as if to say ‘you started it.'

“Hello, Aunt Hue.” I watch her thin cheeks get tighter as her small eyes get smaller, and full lips pout as she glares at a smiling Kylie who seems unfazed.

Ren hands the glass of Papa's whiskey to Kylie, who takes the offering and downs the remainder of the whiskey. As in, she swallows at least two fingers of potent whiskey as if it's water.

Her eyes lock on Elisa, who is silent behind us.

It's surprising when someone initially meets Elisa, and she chirps their ear off for a full hour then practically draws in on herself until she's just a piece in the room. It took me a while to figure out why, well, it took Gabriel a while. He was the one who made sense of Elisa's weirdness.

Turns out, Elisa has a mild case of schizophrenia. I can't really explain this to the two overly confident Bray girls.

“She's shy,” Ren explains.

I am relieved when neither of the Bray girls say anything about Elisa's silence after Sienna gets an earful from her aunt.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Kylie announces as I see for the first time she has a helmet with her.

“You not riding a bike, we'll go in my car, I'll pick you up in the morning to get your bike.” Ren stops Kylie in her tracks. Her shoulder-length hair flips as she spins around. Her black vest and ripped loose denim makes her look like a biker as she leans on her left side, jutting out her hips. Kylie is the girl who exudes confidence. She is the girl in school who keeps a tight circle, but is loved by everybody. Kylie is the one who is too good to bully someone for the sake of it. She is a lot like us, except we kill our enemies.

“You say the sweetest things, sugar.” Kylie winks at him as she makes her way to the passenger seat of his jeep. No questions asked.

“I thought you need to be 21 to drink or buy alcohol,” Elisa says as Kylie and Ren jump out of the car and head to the bottle store.

“We're from the South, if you don't have a drink by 13, then there's something fishy going on. It's the unspoken law of the South,” Sienna tells Elisa, who is sitting between us.