Title: Firestorm
Characters/Pairings: Fem!Xanxus/Squalo; Timoteo Vongola, Federico Vongola, Enrico Vongola, Lussuria, Levi, Mammon, Sawada Iemitsu, and Yamamoto Tsuyoshi
Summary: They had been sleeping up at the main house off and on, leaving the sheets of Xanxus' bed a mess and staring her family down over breakfast afterwards, for a good six months before anyone said anything about it.

Notes: Adult for smut and explicit violence. Part of Sugar and Spice, happening after "Fine-Drawn Nuances." Genderswitch, drama, angst, original characters, and mafia politics; see lysapadin . dreamwidth . org / 93976 . html for additional notes on characters. 50558 words.

Part One

Xanxus' family was, not to put too fine a point on it, kind of screwed up. There were parts of it that weren't too bad, Squalo supposed—Federico was clearly the best of the lot, and Massimo's brats were too young to be more than mildly annoying, which was the function of small children anyway—but the rest of them didn't impress him all that much. The Ninth might have been a damn fine mafia boss, but he didn't have the first clue how to relate to his daughter and it showed in the way he treated her. (For some reason, he seemed to be under the impression that eventually she would emerge from the cocoon of her tomboyish ways and turn out to be a beautiful, feminine butterfly. At least, that was all Squalo could assume, given the way the Ninth kept bringing the girly stuff up and ignoring the way it made Xanxus grind her teeth.) Massimo wasn't completely horrible; he was mostly preoccupied with his pack of kneebiters and his lemon groves and kept assuming that Xanxus and Squalo were engaged or planning to be, which was a delusion best left ignored.

But Enrico... Squalo freely admitted to himself and to Xanxus that he didn't like Enrico, who clearly felt that Xanxus ought to marry well in order to cement a good alliance for the Vongola, or, failing that, should have at least settled her affections on a more appropriate object than a no-name punk whose only saving grace was being damn good with a sword.

As far as Squalo was concerned, Enrico Vongola was a waste of space and oxygen.

After about a month of attending family dinners with Xanxus, Squalo couldn't keep his mouth shut any longer. "Boss," he said, once they were home again, safely within the walls of her rooms where the wrong ears weren't going to hear him. "You think I can get away with killing Enrico?"

He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching her take the dangle of beads and feathers from her hair; he remembered that after, watching her fingers still in her hair while she thought it over. Then she snorted and resumed what she was undoing, unpinning the dangle. "You shouldn't tempt me like that."

"Why not? No one would actually miss him." In Squalo's opinion, Enrico clearly hadn't ever managed to get over the fact that he was the oldest but not the one who would be Tenth. He made up for it by trying to impose his will on anyone who'd stand still long enough to let him do it: his drab little wife, for one, and Xanxus, for another, which was what had inspired the question about killing him in the first place. "He's clearly too stupid to live."

"Not going to argue with that." Xanxus set the dangle down on her dresser. Squalo could see the reflection of her face in the mirror; her expression was distant. Was she thinking about this evening's debacle, when Enrico had implied that she ought to think about retiring from the Varia and, in his words, settling down? Or was she thinking about some other example of his stupidity? They had a whole range of them to choose from, after all.

She shook her head after a moment. "The old man wouldn't like it much." She ran her fingers through her hair and turned away from the mirror. "So you'd better not."

"Pity," Squalo said, but then Xanxus dropped her fingers to the hem of her camisole and peeled it off, which gave him something much better to think about than Enrico fucking Vongola. "God, Boss..."

She smiled as she tossed the camisole aside and prowled over to the bed to claim his mouth; they both forgot about Enrico at that point.

Squalo always did wonder what would have happened, after, if they hadn't.

They had been sleeping up at the main house off and on, leaving the sheets of Xanxus' bed a mess and staring her family down over breakfast afterwards, for a good six months before anyone said anything about it. (Well, said: they'd all done plenty of looking. Federico pretty much beamed at them any time they caught his eye and the Ninth looked rueful but pleased and Enrico tended to look like he'd been sucking on a lemon; Massimo didn't live at the main house so who knew what he would have looked like or if he'd even have noticed.)

It happened like this: Squalo hadn't really been paying attention to the conversation over the remains of breakfast; he'd been lingering over the last of his coffee instead and daydreaming a little over the pleasant ache in his thighs and ass from the night before, when Xanxus had bent him over a stack of pillows and fucked him silly. When he realized that Xanxus had gone stiff in her chair next to him, he cursed himself for having let his guard down that much and for having assumed that they were in friendly territory just because they were having breakfast with her family. He should have known better than that.

He hadn't been paying enough attention to know what Enrico had said first, or what Xanxus had growled at him in return, but the man's round face flushed as Squalo tuned back in, and he raised his voice. "No, I will not shut up. This has been going on for quite long enough and if no one else is going to say it, I will!" He cut his hand through the air; his wife leaned away from it while the Ninth and Federico both frowned. "Considering your position in this Family, it is past time you grew up and began acting like a proper daughter of the Vongola should. It's the least you could do."

Xanxus was drawn tight as a bowstring, practically vibrating in her chair, and her lips were pressed together so tightly that they'd gone white.

Federico coughed. "Like a proper daughter of the Vongola should?" he repeated, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. "God, Enrico, have you been reading trashy novels again?"

The look his brother gave him was full of venom. "Laugh all you want, but this isn't a joking matter. Her behavior is a disgrace to the Vongola name." He swept his hand through the air again. "Bad enough that we've let her run around calling herself the head of the Varia for these past few years, but we're going to lose any hope of establishing a solid connection with the Miccoli if we don't get her under control soon."

Someone was growling; maybe it was Xanxus or maybe it was him, or hell, maybe it was the both of them. Squalo didn't much care, too enraged on behalf of the Varia and its pride and Xanxus' pride, and what did Enrico mean, a solid connection to the Miccoli?

Federico was still smiling, but all the laughter had gone out of his voice when he said, "There's more to life than connections to the Miccoli, you know. I thought we'd established that."

"We've established that you're an idiot," Enrico retorted, slicing his hand through the air yet again. "That boy is the only one they've got. We could be adding all their territory to the Vongola's holdings inside a generation and triple our income and power base, if only you'd just get your head out of your ass and—"

Federico interrupted him, voice sharp. "And treat my sister like a bargaining chip? Disregard her personal preferences in the matter?" He lifted his eyebrows. "Speak over her head like she was a child who doesn't know what we're talking about? Sis, how about it—you willing to marry Angelo Miccoli? Gotta admit, it'd be good for business if you would."

"Fuck, no." Xanxus' voice was harsh; she nearly vibrated in her chair. "I'll kill anyone who wants to try and make me, too." There was Flame in her voice, the roar of an inferno bearing out how seriously she meant that.

"There you go, Enrico." Federico leaned back in his seat. "It's a moot point. Even if I were the Tenth—which I'm not, yet, by the way—" The Ninth inclined his head, mouth quirked beneath his mustache, as if amused by the acknowledgment that he was still the head of the Vongola. "—she says she won't do it. And I wouldn't care to be the kind of boss who would try to compel her." He lifted his coffee cup to his mouth and paused to give Enrico a look full of gentle curiosity. "Are you saying you would be?"

The part of Squalo that was able to stand aside and observe no matter how heated the fight saw how that struck home. Enrico's face flushed darker before he rallied. "That's not the point, anyway," he blustered. "She shouldn't be running around like she is, because it's shaming us all. God knows she ought to at least pretend that she's better than that."

Squalo's vision narrowed to one point, the man sitting across the table, and was overlaid with a haze of red. A hand there, on the back of the heavy chair. A boot here, between the plates and the centerpiece. A flickering twist of his wrist to drop the blade down out of the straps that held it concealed in his sleeve. Momentum enough that his target's expression had only just begun to change before Squalo slammed into him, bearing him and his chair over backwards. Air on his teeth as he brought the sword around for what would be a quick, clean slash across the unprotected flesh of his target's throat—

"Squalo!"

Squalo stopped, the edge of his blade just kissing Enrico's throat as every muscle in his body froze at Xanxus' shout. Beneath him, Enrico had gone grey; sweat broke out across his skin as he stared up at Squalo, which was right and good. Red still hazed his vision and someone was snarling—no, that was him. Well, and why not? Enrico had all but called Xanxus a—

"Stand down, Squalo." Xanxus' voice was hard and did not brook any arguments.

It took every bit of Squalo's self-control to obey her—the first time he'd ever had difficulty doing so. He unlocked his muscles slowly, pulling the blade away from Enrico's throat with the greatest reluctance. "Boss," he said, hoarse, eyes never leaving Enrico's as the man raised a hand to touch his own throat, fingering it like he wasn't sure it was still there. "Boss, please—"

"Don't be an idiot." Xanxus' voice was taut; that percolated through Squalo's rage as his focus began to open up again, bringing with it the awareness that there were more people in the room than there had been, men with guns, most of which were pointing his way. "Stand the fuck down."

"Yes, Boss." Squalo sucked in a breath through his teeth and stood, raising his hands as he did and twisting his wrist so that his sword dropped back into its sheath. He stepped away from Enrico.

There was a moment of silence—everyone processing what had just happened—before everyone started talking all at once, the bodyguards barking questions and Enrico pushing himself up off the floor and saying, "He tried to kill me!" and Federico saying, "What did you think he was trying to do, ask you to dance?" and the growling sound Xanxus made when a pair of the bodyguards came over to cover Squalo. He stayed perfectly still, letting them do it, because he had sort of promised that he wasn't going to let anyone else shoot him.

The Ninth had to raise his voice to cut through all the hubbub. "Everyone, please. Calm down." And he was still the Ninth, because everyone did shut up, though God only knew how long Enrico was going to manage to stay silent. He was glaring at Squalo, hatred twisting his mouth.

Hadn't made any friends there, had he? Squalo showed Enrico his teeth and had the satisfaction of seeing the man take a step back.

"I believe we're just fine here," the Ninth told the bodyguards, his tone brisk. "We had an exciting moment, but no harm done. You may go." He made it sound like it hadn't been anything more than a scuffle over who would get the last cinnamon roll, not—anything else. The man who must have been the most senior of the bodyguards started to open his mouth, the look of disbelief writ clear on his face, but the Ninth simply repeated himself, tone firm. "You may go. Now."

They went, though not a one of them looked happy about it. Squalo lowered his hands after they had closed the door after themselves, feeling the adrenaline beginning to ebb from his system.

"He tried to kill me!" Enrico said, apparently no longer able to contain himself. He leveled a shaking finger at Squalo. "I'll have your head for this."

Squalo grinned at him. "Come and get it," he said. "Please."

Enrico looked less certain of himself. Then Xanxus said, tone so cold that the words practically had icicles hanging off them, "If you touch him, I will end you."

Holy fuck, he'd never heard her so pissed off.

As Enrico's face paled, Federico said, slow and thoughtful, "I kind of feel like I ought to be making a threat here, too." He rubbed his chin. "I don't know—no, wait, how about this? If the three of you don't knock it off and sit down, I am going to knock all your heads together until you agree to start acting like adults."

Squalo was willing to give Enrico this much: once he got an idea into his head, he didn't let go of it easily. "This is—"

The Ninth brought his hand down on the table hard enough to make the silverware rattle. "Sit down!" The gesture was so uncharacteristically violent that it got all of them looking at him instead of glaring at each other. The Ninth frowned at them. "That is an order."

Enrico had to pick up his chair and Squalo had to walk back around the table to return to Xanxus' side. She was standing, too, holding herself perfectly, dangerously still. There was Flame in her eyes, the only real sign one what she was feeling, because her expression was as frozen as a statue's. Squalo gripped her shoulder; the muscles under his hand were tight, but after a moment, she returned to her seat.

The Ninth puffed a breath through his mustache once they were all sitting and glaring at each other. "All right. Enrico. Apologize to your sister."

"What?" Enrico turned red, swelling up like the toad he was. "Apologize to her? What for?"

Squalo snarled in spite of himself and saw the man flinch. "How about starting with the part where you suggested we just let her run the Varia? Or maybe the part where you said she shames the Vongola? Or, I know, the part where you implied she's a—"

"Any of those would be good, yes," the Ninth said. "I am terribly disappointed in you, my boy. I don't know how you could say such things about your sister—"

Everyone had a breaking point; that appeared to be Enrico's. He slammed his fist down, the gesture an unconscious reflection of his father's, and shouted, "Because they're true!" He glared at his father, shoulders heaving in his rage. "And because I'm sick of this—this charade where we pretend that a whore's daughter is actually part of the Vongola while we let her drag our name through the mud! For God's sake, Father, you could at least have some respect for Mother's memory, if nothing else—we all know that woman never saw you in her life before you went and took Xanxus from her!"

Xanxus was the first person to speak into the dead silence that followed that. Her voice was quiet and flat. "What did you say?"

Enrico's attention swung from his father's frozen expression to Xanxus. "What I should have said a long time ago." He pointed a finger across the table at her. "You're not my sister, you're not Vongola, you're not anything but a whore's daughter, and if you didn't know that then you're even more of a fool than I had thought, because it shows in every single thing you do."

Squalo tasted blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten down on his lip to keep himself from leaping across the table to kill the man where he stood—later, he would do that later, sometime when Xanxus hadn't gone the color of paper save for the hectic spots of color burning on her cheekbones. She turned to where the Ninth sat at the head of the table, his expression suddenly apprehensive. "Is this true?" she asked, still in that dead, flat tone.

Yes, Enrico fucking Vongola was going to die. Slowly, if Squalo could manage it, and screaming the entire time.

The Ninth was silent; when he spoke, it was in careful, soothing tones. "Enrico is speaking very much out of turn—"

Xanxus cut him off; her hands had begun to crackle with the Flames wreathing them. "Is. It. True."

The Ninth flinched away from the question. "I have always thought of you as my daughter."

Stupid old man. Stupid, stupid old man. Squalo hadn't actually needed any more proof that the Ninth didn't understand Xanxus, but this was idiocy beyond measure when the one thing Xanxus valued more than anything else was the truth.

Xanxus stared at the Ninth, the man who'd told her he was her father, for a long, frozen moment. "You're not my father." Only a fool would have taken the emptiness of her voice as calm.

The Ninth winced. "Not technically by blood, but in everything else—"

"You fucking liar." Xanxus' voice rose sharply on the last word as her Will blazed up like a firestorm around her, more Wrath than Sky. Squalo gritted his teeth at the heat rolling off her, turning his skin tight, but stayed right where he was. Enrico, at least, looked like he was second-guessing his decision to reveal this truth, shrinking into his seat, while Federico looked pale and worried. Not that Squalo gave a fuck what any of them thought just then, but someone had to watch the boss' back. "All this time, you were lying to me, you shitty old man, all this time you were lying, you let me think I was—you let me think—you son of a bitch!" She stood, driving her chair back with such force that it fell over, her Will a corona blazing around her. "Was I the only one who didn't know?"

Her ostensible family exchanged looks; that asshole Enrico contriving to look satisfied in spite of everything, Federico and the Ninth looking worried, and Enrico's wife looking like she wanted to be anywhere else in the world. "Sis," Federico began.

God only knew what he thought he was going to tell her; Xanxus didn't give him the chance to get any further than that. "I'm not your sister!" she yelled, Flames roiling around her fists. "I'm not your sister, I'm not Vongola, I'm not—and you all knew it! Did you enjoy it? Did it make you laugh, did you think it was funny that I believed it? Hahah, that Xanxus, isn't it funny, she's nothing more than trash from the gutter, but she thinks she's Vongola—"

"Stop that!" Federico said, loud enough to cut through her shouting. "You're not trash and you are Vongola and anyone who says otherwise is wrong—"

"Liar!" Xanxus swept a hand across the table in front of her as she yelled, sending plates and glasses and silverware flying. "You're all liars, you're all—you—!" She took up the pitcher of orange juice and hurled it at the wall, where it shattered and sprayed juice everywhere. "Everything I know is a fucking lie, everything is—"

Squalo took a breath and said, "Not everything, Boss."

All things considered, he wasn't surprised that she'd temporarily forgotten his presence. He saw a shudder roll through her; the gaze she turned on him wasn't quite sane, but she shaped the syllables of his name, near-silent, which was good enough to be going on.

He stood. "These assholes don't deserve any more of your time, Boss," he told her. "Come on. Let's go home."

He'd never come so close to giving her an outright command, which made a damn good reason to be nervous (on top of everything else). Her eyes blazed for a moment in reaction to that. Squalo held his ground and the rest of them held their breaths, until Xanxus nodded, clipped, and made for the door without another word.

Or not quite. She had it open when Federico tried one more time. "Sis—"

Xanxus stopped and looked over her shoulder; the door began to smolder under her fingers. "You're not my brother," she said, each word enunciated distinctly, and went out, stalking past the people gathered in the hall—most of the Ninth's guardians, plus Federico's right hand and Enrico's weaselly little secretary and a handful of nervous bodyguards.

Squalo lingered long enough to sweep a contemptuous gaze over her so-called family. "You're all a pack of fucking idiots," he told them, and spat just to get the taste of their stupidity out of his mouth before loping after Xanxus.

Just getting out of the house and back to Varia headquarters wasn't anywhere near enough to ease Xanxus' temper, not that Squalo had expected it to be. She tore through headquarters like a hurricane and the Varia were, to a person, smart enough to dive for cover when they saw her coming. Squalo trailed after her, most of his attention on her, and shrugged at the enquiring looks sent his way in her wake. Gossip being what it was, they'd all know something had gone down between the boss and her so-called family before lunch. Keeping them briefed wasn't really his primary concern just then.

Xanxus seized on the first object that came to her hand the second she was inside the door of her quarters—the little table that she normally used to catch the contents of her pockets—and threw it against the wall. The frame cracked and a leg came loose; she strode across the room to pick it up and slam it into the wall again, and again, gouging chips of plaster that went flying everywhere out of the wall and reducing the table to so many pieces of kindling.

Squalo scattered the ones who would have lingered in the hallway to get a glimpse of Xanxus' rage by dint of glaring at them until they dispersed; when the coast was clear, he leaned in the doorway and watched her.

Xanxus snatched up a lamp and sent it hurtling through the air; Squalo settled in to wait. Furniture was furniture; if she vented some of her fury on it now, she'd have a lot more fun planning Enrico's assassination later.

Fucking hell, though, what had the Ninth and his boys been thinking? Letting Xanxus believe one thing while they all knew differently—Squalo couldn't see any way that wouldn't have turned out badly. Maybe if Xanxus hadn't been Xanxus, proud as Lucifer and just about as insecure, maybe then it could have worked, but Christ, didn't they know how the Vongola as a whole tended to treat her? No one had forgotten where she'd come from, no matter what kind of lip service they'd given her adoption, least of all Xanxus herself. That was probably most of the reason she hadn't ever bothered to adopt the manners of the nice girls—everyone would have just watched her that much more closely, waiting for the moment she'd do something to betray her origins.

Idiots, all of them, because not a one of them had the sense to see what she was. Maybe that was just what held the Vongola together—a single mass delusion that kept them from being able to recognize quality when they saw it.

Stupid fuckers.

The room was in ruins before Xanxus began to slow down, reduced to shredding the bedclothes in the middle of the destruction she'd wrought. She'd stayed silent through her fury, all her shouting done, and the only sound she made now was the ragged panting of her breath. Squalo watched her start in on the sheets, tearing them to strips, the wild energy from before slowing down and turning methodical, and figured it was time to speak up. He came away from the door, closing it behind him, and threw the lock. "Fourth squad's been getting uppity lately. Want me to call them down to the training hall so you can pound some sense into them?"

He saw the way her shoulders stilled when he spoke, drawing up tense and tight, like she'd forgotten he was even there. Maybe she had. "What?" Her voice was hoarse, though she hadn't really done all that much shouting.

"If you still need to take something apart, the fourth squad would be a good place to start." Squalo kept his tone casual. Normal. Just another day at the Varia headquarters, nothing special to see here. "Cavilo has been getting mouthy, and don't even get me started on that brat Belphegor."

Her shoulders began to shake; he had a bad moment before he placed the sound she was making as laughter: rasping, half-voiced laughter. She dropped the ruined sheet and looked his way, a grim parody of a smile twisting her expression. "Didn't you fucking hear them?" she asked. "I'm not—I'm not anything, I'm just trash, just a stupid piece of trash—"

"Boss!" He'd never raised his voice to her, barring the sort of shouting that went on in training or on a mission, so it worked, at least as far as stopping her from saying those things about herself went. Didn't stop her from looking like she did, eyes all dark and hollow, like her fucking fake family had managed to reach inside her and eviscerate her. It made something in his chest hurt to see her looking like that. "Boss," he said again, softer, and went to her. Xanxus made a sound, a choked-off protest, when Squalo went to his knees and pressed her hand to his cheek. He ignored that and looked up at her. "You're still you, Boss. You're still you. You're the woman who took the Varia and held it when she was only eighteen, and you're the best damn boss we've ever had. None of us gives a shit whether you're Vongola blood or not—that's not how we decide those things. You know that." He kissed her knuckles. "We follow you. Not your name. Anyone who thinks it works like that is too stupid to let live." But then, that was Enrico fucking Vongola all over.

Xanxus inhaled, slow and stuttering. "Squalo—"

"Yours, Boss." He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. "It was you that I saw first, not the boss's daughter. And it was you who kicked my ass right there in the hallway up at that fucking house. You, Xanxus. Not the old man's daughter and not the Vongola, you. I lost my heart to you before I ever even knew your name."

She curled the hand he was holding into a fist. "Is that true?"

Squalo looked up at her, silently cursed the Ninth and his whole stinking family for the way doubt shadowed her eyes, and said, "I've never lied to you, Xanxus. Not once. I never will. I promise."

Then he had to bite his tongue to keep from saying anything more than that, because he suspected that making elaborate arguments would only make things worse.

Xanxus gazed down at him, her eyes dark and the muscles in her jaw working silently. Squalo waited, because at the bottom of it, this wasn't any different from all the other things between them. In the end, what happened rested in her hands and was her decision to make.

He really did hope that what happened was going to giving Enrico fucking Vongola a pointed explanation of just how badly he'd fucked up, though.

"Never once?" Xanxus asked him eventually, breaking him out of the pleasant contemplation of what that explanation might consist of.

"I'd cut out my own tongue before I'd lie to you," he said, itching to wrap his fingers around her fist, but—not yet. Not until she'd decided whether she believed him.

Fuck. If the Ninth's idiocy had broken that, Squalo didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew it was going to involve blood and screaming. Lots of blood and screaming.

Neither of those was going to be his, either.

He was watching Xanxus closely enough to see when she swallowed, the muscles of her throat moving. "Be a waste." The words came slowly, rough and a little hoarse, as she uncurled her fingers. "If you did that."

Squalo leaned into her hand when she touched his cheek, relief making him giddy. "Guess that means I'll have to keep on telling you the truth, then."

"Promise?" Her voice was low, raw with the hurt she'd taken.

"I promise." Squalo covered her hand with his own and kissed her palm again.

Xanxus exhaled, shoulders easing marginally. "Get up here."

Squalo did, pushing himself up off his knees. Xanxus pressed against him the second it was feasible and did her best to burrow into his chest; the breath he took then felt sharp in his throat. "I've got you, Boss." He wrapped his arms around her, murmuring against her hair. "I've got you, Boss, I promise."

She made a noise against his shoulder, the content of it muffled but her acknowledgment clear, and pressed closer. Squalo set his fingers in her hair, stroking the tangled fall of it, and let her do as she pleased. When she began to shake, he just tightened his arms around her and didn't let go.

"I don't want to see anyone," Xanxus had said when Squalo got around to asking her whether she wanted to hit the training halls to pound out some of the morning's tension. He couldn't blame her much for that, so he suggested moving to his quarters ("No offense, Boss, but you can't stay here, it's a wreck.") and called for someone to get to work cleaning her rooms up.

Xanxus retreated to his bed immediately and dragged him with her, pretty much cocooning them in his blankets once they were there. Squalo let her do as she liked—wasn't like he was going to complain if she decided she wanted to spend her time in his arms, and the Varia could look after itself for a day without getting into too much trouble—and passed the silent hours of the morning and afternoon by running through what he knew of the Vongola's security. Getting Enrico probably wouldn't be too much of a challenge; he was a surplus son, not the heir. He did an underboss' duties, which meant traveling, but Squalo was willing to bet that his security wasn't half as tight as the Ninth's or Federico's.

They had Tartaruga on second squad; she was a devil with a rifle and a scope. That would do for Enrico.

Federico and the Ninth were going to be the real challenges. They were the heart and soul of the Family, with a full complement of guardians apiece and all the Family's security to stand between them and a hostile world. Getting through all that was going to take some doing.

Good thing he liked a challenge, because he had all the motivation in the world curled against his chest, brooding silently. He'd see the whole set of assholes dead and buried for her sake, and to hell with anyone who tried to get in his way.

Would she want Massimo, too? He hadn't been at breakfast—he and his family lived separately, tending to the family's lemon groves. But he'd probably known the secret, if Federico and Enrico had. Maybe he'd have to leave it to Xanxus to decide whether she wanted to make a clean sweep or leave it all to Massimo to pick up the pieces. Squalo grinned at the thought of Massimo as the Tenth—Massimo, who manifestly had no interest in the job. Wouldn't that be something?

Hell, come to that, Xanxus could take it herself.

Squalo blinked into the hazy afternoon light, thinking that one through. Maybe she could, actually—it would depend on how many people had been in on the conspiracy surrounding her parentage. The Family at large didn't suspect anything—couldn't, if he, who had made knowing everything about Xanxus his top priority, hadn't known. It had to be a very small conspiracy. Federico, probably his right hand; the Ninth and his right hand, maybe a handful of others.

And if it came down to Massimo or Xanxus, Squalo knew where he'd put his money.

Would serve that shitty old man and his two-faced sons right, too, if Xanxus took the Family herself. Would show them all.

That pleasant chain of speculations occupied Squalo for the balance of the afternoon, until Xanxus stirred against his shoulder and said, "Call for something to eat, Christ. I can hear your stomach growling." She sounded subdued, but who could fault her for that?

"Sorry, Boss." Squalo stroked his fingers through her hair, not quite ready to move just yet, empty stomach notwithstanding. Not until he'd checked in with her, anyway. "You want anything?"

Her sigh brushed against his throat. "Not really."

That didn't seem like a good sign to him, not when it had been hours since that catastrophe of a breakfast and Xanxus could be relied upon to have a healthy appetite in conditions that made strong men turn green. Squalo thought fast and shrugged, careful of the weight of her head on his shoulder. "Okay, if you say so."

"I'm going to use your bathroom," she announced, pulling away from him and fighting her way out of the nest she'd made. She wasn't quite looking at him, God only knew why, and let her hair fall around her face to shield her expression as she picked the dangle out of her hair, which was all wrong and felt kind of like a knife twisting in his gut to see.

Squalo kept that off his face and just pointed. "It's through there."

Xanxus nodded, dropped the dangle on his bedside table, and went, moving on silent feet. Squalo watched her, worry gnawing on him, till she'd closed the door behind her.

He heard the shower go on while he was trying to get the assholes down in the kitchen to understand that he wanted enough food for two people, but only one plate for it, but a bottle of the good scotch and two glasses to go with it, Christ, what was so difficult to understand about that? He got his point through, probably, and slipped into the bathroom to leave her some fresh towels after he'd done that.

She stayed in the shower for a long time; Squalo used that time to triage his email, sorting through the daily reports from the squad leaders and the reports from the handful of people they had in the field. Fortunately, things were quiet at the moment and there weren't any fires to put out, though there were plenty of artfully worded emails wanting to know what the fuck was going on with the boss. Squalo set those aside to deal with later and deleted the series of emails from the main house unread. Wasn't anything those assholes had to say that he cared to hear.

The water cut off before the food showed up, though just barely. Squalo watched the reflection on his laptop's screen, the way she opened the bathroom door a crack, and felt the steam-heavy air curl out from it, and carried on with what he was doing. "Been a quiet day," he said when her reflection moved out of the bathroom, a pale blur moving across his screen that went to his closet to rummage through it. "Lussuria's squad came back in. Says it went off without a hitch."

Xanxus grunted something that was an acknowledgment, probably; when he turned away from his laptop to look at her, she was pulling one of his dress shirts around her. The tails of it were just long enough to keep her decent, which was just as well—someone knocked as she did up the last button. He had gotten the kitchen assholes to understand, because they'd sent up a veritable mountain of food, a loaf of bread still hot from the oven and a plate of melon and what was probably the largest steak he'd seen in his life. Xanxus raised her eyebrows when Squalo set the tray on the bed. "Hungry?"

"Starving." He tore a piece off the bread and started in on it, because the scent of the food made him suddenly aware of how ravenous he was. Xanxus didn't say anything, but after a few minutes of watching him, she stretched out a hand to pick up one of the pieces of melon and began nibbling on it. Squalo hid his smile, nudged the tray closer to where she was leaning against his pillows, and didn't say a word when her desultory nibbling turned into an all-out assault on the tray.

"You think you're sneaky," she said when they'd demolished the meal.

Squalo licked his fingers and grinned at her. "Dunno what you're talking about, Boss. I just told the kitchen I was really hungry. Guess they took me seriously."

Her mouth quirked, the closest she'd come to smiling since Enrico'd opened his stupid mouth. "You—"

Someone knocked, probably the kitchen staff coming back for the tray. "Good timing," Squalo noted, piling the empty dishes back onto the tray and sliding off the bed. He braced the tray against his hip so he could get the door, ready to compliment the staff on their timing, and stopped short when he came face-to-face with Federico Vongola.

Squalo stared, shocked to see him in the heart of Varia headquarters—people from the main house never came down to visit them and always expected to be waited upon at the main house. "What the fuck," he said, too surprised to even pretend to be polite. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Federico looked solemn, worried around the eyes; his right hand was standing behind him and looking on edge. "I'm looking for my sister. I need to talk to her."

Squalo barred the door with his arm, just in case Federico got any bright ideas about barging in, and shot a look Xanxus' way. Her face had gone pale and her eyes were dark under the damp tangle of her hair; she shook her head, no, silently. All right, then. Squalo shifted the weight of the tray on his hip, looked Federico straight in the eye, and said, "She's not here."

Federico's mouth tightened; behind him, Fedele rolled his eyes. Squalo tensed, ready for them to try to force their way in or for Federico to call him on the lie. Then Federico sighed. "Damn. I'd hoped she'd be with you. If you see her before I do, would you give her a message for me?"

Squalo felt his mouth twist. "Don't you think you people have said enough for one day?"

It was a palpable hit; Federico grimaced and raked sandy hair back from his eyes. "All the things we've said so far have been the wrong ones, I think. I'm trying to find the right ones. Please. If you see her, tell her that she is Vongola—she has all the heart and fire of the Vongola, all the strength and pride of us, and that's all that matters. All that should matter. But if it's the blood that bothers her—she's got that, too. It's not Dad's blood, but they traced her mother back to the Second. It's a collateral line, sure, but it still counts as Vongola blood. She's every bit as much of a Vongola as I am." He stopped and ran his hand over his face. "Still not the right words," he muttered, as if Squalo weren't standing right there watching him. He looked up again, fixing his eyes on Squalo's. "Just—tell her all that for me. And tell her that she's still my sister and that I love her and that I'm worried about her. Enrico was wrong, is wrong, about everything, and he's in so much trouble right now, you wouldn't believe." Federico's voice trailed off on that, grimly satisfied.

Squalo waited a beat to see whether he was going to go on. When he didn't, he asked, "You done?" Federico nodded. "Great. Hold this." He pushed the tray into Federico's hands and shut the door in his bemused face.

The bark of Federico's startled laughter reached through the door. So did the way he lifted his voice to say, "Take care of Xanxus for me."

Squalo made a face at the door—teach granny to suck eggs, huh?—and turned back to Xanxus, who'd pulled her knees up to her chest and was hugging them. "The fuck." Her voice was pitched low, frustrated. "The fuck are they up to now?"

Time to crack the scotch open, Squalo decided, and did so, splashing a generous amount into each glass and setting them on the bedside table. "Dunno, Boss." He climbed back into bed with her, settling himself at her shoulder and spreading a hand against the tense line of her back. "You really care?"

"No." That came out sounding more like wishful thinking than actual conviction, but hell if he was going to call her on it. Xanxus buried her face in her knees. "Hate them all."

"Can't blame you for that," Squalo said, carefully, letting her feel her way through this. He knew what he wanted to do—burn the whole Family to the ground and piss on the ashes, and the only one he might regret was Federico, maybe, or Massimo—but he hadn't grown up thinking of them as his family or trying to get them to see him for his own worth.

So he rubbed his hand across her shoulders, slow, and let her get on with whatever it was she was doing—thinking, brooding, whatever. Eventually she said, muffled, "Was he telling the truth?"

"Just now, you mean?" Her head moved, the nod buried against her knees. Squalo considered it, the tightness of Federico's mouth and the worried line between his eyebrows, plus all things he'd ever seen of the man in other circumstances. "Mm. I'm pretty sure he believed what he was saying." Didn't make it true, of course. For all they knew, the Ninth could have spun another line of bullshit for his favorite son to make him feel better.

He felt a shiver run through Xanxus then as she curled herself into a tighter ball. Squalo bit his lip and smoothed his hand up to knead her nape, where the muscles were so tense they felt like cables under his fingers. "Would it make it better or worse if it was the truth?" Start there, and they could work out from that.

"Don't know." Her voice was soft enough that Squalo had to strain after the words. "I don't know anything anymore."

Squalo worked his fingers over her nape, which wasn't having an appreciable effect, and thought about that. "That's not quite true," he said, feeling his way along the words carefully. "You know you have me."

Xanxus didn't say anything to that, not at first, and Squalo wondered whether he'd overstepped himself. When she finally stirred, turning her face to look at him from under the fall of her hair, he breathed easier. "I have you," she repeated, not quite a statement.

"Yeah, you do. I'm yours, no matter what." Squalo brushed his fingers through the fall of her hair, combing it back from her face. "I promise."

Xanxus closed her eyes and sighed, deep and slow, and flowed out of the ball she'd curled herself into to twine her arms around him. "Mine," she said against his ear. "I have that."

"Yeah, Boss." Squalo wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to her hair. "I love you."

She sighed again, her arms tightening around him. "Mine."

"Yeah," he promised her. "No matter what." And as long as they had that straight, there wasn't anything the rest of her godforsaken Family could do that would touch them.