Chapter 4
I have known Aro my whole life, but he still has the ability to make me—well, in truth, he makes my whole family—feel on edge.
He lives over an hour drive outside of the city, and is frequently here in the city dealing with his many nightclubs, strip clubs and other business adventures. It isn't often, however, that he's on our side of town, or even comes over for dinner. Apart from the random calls, we only see him once a month at the meetings.
The doorbell goes off and there seems to be a collection of sighs around the room. We all stand as my father goes to let Aro in.
He comes back a few seconds later with Aro walking beside him. Aro is around five-foot eight, with his dark hair and olive complexion. He always dresses to the nines and tonight is no different. Even he can make black dress pants, polo shirt, suit jacket and a fedora hat, look regal.
"Esme, my darling," Aro says in his deep Italian accent. "Boys," he grins as he first shakes mine then Emmett's hands. "Sweet, little Alice, you are looking so grown up. I do hope these brothers of yours are looking after you, si?"
"They are looking after me; some may say to the extreme," Alice chirps out with a little look at me from the corner of her eye.
"Ah, I see. They are your brothers; you should let them look after you," Aro tells her using a hint of authority to his voice.
"Come, let's sit down for dinner," my mother says; always the perfect hostess.
We all move to the dining room and Aro places his hat on the cabinet next to the table. I help Alice sit as Dad helps Mom. I look to see the two guards with Aro tonight, who are standing at the front door.
"I will be needing your boys' help, over the next few weeks," Aro says as he starts to eat.
"My attention is going to be taken up with the fact that Heidi wants to get married to her boyfriend of two weeks ..." Aro trails off as we all know what this means.
Heidi is Aro's daughter and will be taking over once Aro steps down. She is thirty-two, and is a little on the thick side, and has this princess-vibe attitude. She's a real sweetheart, and wouldn't hurt a fly, but she's spoiled. None of her qualities are very redeeming for someone looking to be put in charge of a large Mafia family. Therefore, I know whoever she marries will be who's really in charge, and the wrong person could do a lot of damage.
"May I ask who, Aro?" my mother asks keeping her voice calm.
"Matt King."
I close my eyes knowing this is not a good thing. Where Matt is not as big of an asshole as his father Jonathan, or even his shithead of an older brother Royce, but he's easily controlled. His father and brother will manipulate him into doing whatever they want. One thing Jonathan King hasn't been quiet about is how much he wants, and one of the things he clearly wants is to hold all the power. No – this is not a good thing. Minutes seem to pass, but it feels more like hours.
"So, I will be doing the father duties, meeting him and so on." Aro waves hand around. "I would like to ask you boys to look after my clubs?" He may have made it sound like a request, but in fact, he was telling us.
"Of course," I say placing a smile on my face.
"Emmett, how is the lovely Rosalie, she could have joined us, too, no?"
I swallow glancing at my parents and Alice before looking to Emmett, who has gone pale.
"We were going to inform you of their relationship after dinner," I say keeping my voice level.
"I am sure you were, but let's not dwell on this; she and Royce are divorced by Royce's choice, but family is the most important thing, and should always be first, si?" Aro says pointing his knife at Emmett who nods.
"There is one other matter that I'd like to bring to your attention. The Arthur Dwelling family has resurfaced." I rub the temples of my head. "I would like the whole family to keep watching out for them; it's still unclear if any of them are here. My men are looking into it. Keep in mind they could be someone that we haven't seen or heard of before so, keep your ears open."
We all nod knowing that Arthur Dwelling and his family were once a part of our family, but wanted more power. When I say more power, I mean, he wanted to dethrone Aro and take over. He was able to keep hidden his wants for a few years building his own family of followers; claiming that Aro had lost the true way of the Mafia life. There are also claims that Arthur was secretly seeing Aro's wife Sulpicia and they had some love affair.
It came to a big fight for Aro, and with the help of us, the Kings and Denalis, we were only just able to defeat them. Sadly by then, the damage was done. Many of our followers and Arthur had paid with their lives; this also included Aro's wife. Many said this hardened Aro, making him to not fully trust anyone any more, and become cold hearted.
Aro says no more and stands up, giving us a small nod. "As always, dinner was lovely, Esme," he says with a nod to her. "Boys, come by my office tomorrow morning at nine. I will give you the information for what you will be looking after. Until then, arrivederci."
Without waiting for us to speak, he walk outs. We hear the cars pull away and everyone just looks at each other.
"You're dating Rosalie Hale?" Alice screeches in my ear.
I press my fingers inside my ears rubbing them. "Shit, Alice, fucking ear drums, okay?"
She glares at me. "I can't date Jazzy, but he can date that slut?"
"Rose is not a slut, pipsqueak!" Emmett says harshly. "And, I didn't say shit about you dating Jasper. That's between you and him; don't bring me into it."
Alice just rolls her eyes. "I am dating him; I don't care what you say!" Alice jumps up and stomps her way out of the dining room.
"Fucking Mafia princesses are all a pain in the ass," I yell after her.
Why do I have a feeling my life is about to get a lot more exciting and difficult at the same time?
A/N: So what do you think, is he looking forward to a difficult time ahead?
