AN: Really. I wasn't going to post this today, but the last review got me really excited and finish this chapter off quickly. You guys should surprise me like that often. :D It's past midnight and I'm so tired but here it is! I'm truly sorry for the epic fail in updating, but I would have done it sooner if I could.

Disclaimer: Everything Twilight is obviously not mine.

Nothing, I mean, nothing could prepare me to see the wrath of Ken's sister, who was also Nina's mother, Mia. From the moment I saw her, it was very apparent that she was very feisty, dominating, commanding with good intentions at heart. Delightfully reminded me of Alice.

Ken was in trouble because Mia had arranged a haircut appointment for Nina in the morning. Not only did he take Nina without her mother's he 'kidnapped' Nina while Mia was in the kitchen, getting the food ready for lunch. The infuriating bit was, apart from missing the haircut appointment, that this was the n-th time Ken had done it.

"... and I should seriously ban you from entering the house from now on!" yelled Mia through gritted teeth. I sensed we were nearing the end of her fireworks. All this while both Ken and Nina stayed quiet without uttering even a syllable. They must have gotten used to be in the receiving end of her eulogy.

"Okay. What do you have to say for yourself?" huffed Mia folding her arms in front of her.

"I was doing so for charitable excuse this time," Ken said carefully, sounding more like a question than a statement. The last thing he wanted was making the tirade even longer.

"What do you mean by that?"

"See these people I brought with me?" Ken gestured to introduce Jacob and me. I smiled grimly. Was he precariously going to blame me for kidnapping his niece?

He continued when he saw Mia's indifference. "They're my friends... umm... Bella," he prodded my elbow to move forward, "and... Jacob."

What Ken said must have triggered Mia's curiosity, because her eyes started darting back and forth from Ken's, mine and Jacob.

"I hope you don't mind that I bring them along Thanksgiving lunch." You mean we weren't actually invited? I glared at Ken and saw that he immediately ducked his head avoiding my gaze.

"Interesting... since when do you..." Mia didn't finish her question as Ken looked up to meet her eyes. "Nina. Wash your hands and get ready for lunch. Change your clothes, they're a bit damp, I don't want you to catch a cold. Where on earth did you take her, Ken? Meet the Rain God?" said Mia with slightly more annoyed tone again.

Nina sprinted upstairs before being asked twice. Smart girl.

"Show our guests to the dining room, Ken. Others should arrive shortly. Do you need change of clothes?" Mia's demeanor changed from being an irritable mother hen to an admirable host in matter of seconds.

"We should be fine," I said, answering for Jacob too. If I had to face another wrath of Mia, I had to be in my own comfortable clothes, and Jacob was never bothered with a little bit of rain. Mia nodded then gave a peculiar look to Ken before retreated upstairs, probably checking on Nina.

"Dining room is this way," said Ken gesturing us to follow him.

"Why did you bring us here, Ken?" I asked him straight away when I saw no one was in ear-shot.

"For lunch?" Ken offered a smile nervously while looking at Jacob, most likely requesting for back up. Jacob laughed and I started again, "You know very well what I mean."

"I don't want to have prolonged argument with my sister today, being Thanksgiving day and all, and well, as it turned out, I was right. You both became my satisfactory shield. I'm not asking much, am I?"

Hearing that, I couldn't help feeling grateful for what Ken had done. It was only natural that I helped him since he was in trouble for my benefit.

"Stay for lunch?" Ken pleaded, his eyes were hopeful.

"Our pleasure, Ken," said Jacob and I nodded to Ken, saying, "Absolutely. The least we could do after what you and Nina have done for us"

As if on cue, Nina bounded into the room, looking more refreshed with fancier dress and plaited hair. "Hi Nina Bella," Ken scooped her in his arms. "Let's face another... say, two hours of torture, then we'll flee to heaven. By heaven of course I mean Elaine's, okay?"

Before we knew it, the room became more and more crowded in a matter of minutes. It looked like me and Jacob were the only people in the room who couldn't understand Italian because none of them spoke anything in English to each other.

"Jacob, Bella," I looked around and saw it was indeed Mia who then continued, "You both can sit on those two seats in front of Nina and Ken."

I sat on one of the seats she indicated, and looked around the big table. All of them were relaxedly chattering with each other and they didn't even notice two strangers, me and Jacob, sitting at the same dining table, intruding, even. That thought somewhat put me at ease and I smiled at Ken when I saw him looking at Jacob and me. "It's okay," I whispered. "Looks like we're invisible."

"Totally. Do you notice that even I am too?"

I looked around again. It was true. None of them really paid attention to Ken. They all passed him while cooing at Nina, as if he didn't exist. "Why's that? Aren't they your family?" I whispered again.

"Extended family. To them I'm just... different." He didn't say anything more on the matter and it was time to say grace. A man who looked a lot like Ken but with more wrinkles and white hair welcomed us in English, and then started praying in English too.

After dessert was served, most people had left the table. Even Nina was entertaining guests outside.

"So..." It was Mia's voice again calling behind us. "Are you his friends from LA?" Inquisitive, just like Alice.

"No." Ken replied for us. "I met them on the plane."

"From LA?"

Ken shook his head no. "From Seattle."

"Oh, right. You had a detour," said Mia knowingly.

"Drop it, Mia." Ken ground his teeth, obviously trying to fight for dominance but utterly failed because Mia just recomposed herself and asked me another question. "Are you staying at his apartment down town?"

"Mia, please. Can I talk to you privately?" I sincerely hoped he was normally not like this when asking permission from the judge to approach the bench.

"No. Obviously you've been avoiding me so I'm handling this matter my own way. If you want me to be nice then stay out of it and reply only as asked," affirmed Mia in complete authority.

"You see," Mia turned her attention back to us again, looking intently at both me and Jacob. She had been doing that a lot. Could she read something on the back of our eyes? "My little brother here has been somewhat... secretive about his personal life. Up until recently I was fully informed about the going-ons on Ken Martini's life. I am protective like that and I do this because I care about him." I heard Ken sighed in defeat and Mia glared at him. "He hardly comes to family gathering of any sort, with the exception of Thanksgiving. Out of those rare sighting of him, only once before did he bring someone along. So, the million dollar question is, are you, interested in my brother?"

I gulped as I heard Ken cursed somewhat loudly. She couldn't have been more forward than that.

"I'm... in a relationship. So,... no...." I mumbled my response, looking down at my feet. A few minutes must have passed and there was still silence in the air. I looked up and her eyes were still... expectant, still staring at us even more intense than before. She nodded at me and then her gaze deviated slightly to my left. Jake.

"Are you kidding me?!" So he did catch on her intents.

Her eyes quickly darted back to her brother, who's shaking his head profusely. "Please, Mia. Later."

"I will hold you on to that," she gave him her word of warning before leaving the room to join the others outside. I could hear Nina singing some Italian song when she opened the glass door while the adults cheered on and clapped along.

"Sorry about that, guys. She's just upset that I have been missing in action and avoiding her lately. Still, there was no reason for her to act like that. I sincerely apologise for my sister's... crudeness."

I saw from the corner of my eyes that Jacob was about to say something, so I elbowed him and said, "That's alright. Are we safe now or should we expect her to come back with another session of Spanish Inquisition later?"

"It's best to flee the scene. With her, you can't assume anything. Wait here, I just need to do a deal with a certain niece of mine."

When he was out of sight, I hissed to Jake, "I really don't want to be too involved, Jake. His private life should stay private. Certainly he was uncomfortable so let's not pry on anything, okay?"

He snorted at me. "I'm not a gossip girl, Bell. You think I'd want details of what her sister might have implied? Of course not."

"Then what were you going to say, just then?"

"You mean when you consciously tried to hurt your elbow?"

I scoffed at his male arrogance.

"If you must know," he replied, "I was going to make some witty remark about it. I'm glad you stopped me though, because I could probably offend him unintentionally. Or his sister. God, isn't she scary? Could you imagine being her husband?" He shuddered at the thought.

We didn't say anything more because we saw Ken was walking quickly towards us. "Let's scoot." he said without stopping.

I trailed behind Jacob but managed to ask, "What about Nina?"

"We are going to Elaine's to get her gelati. And extra extra biscotti."

*

Elaine's was owned by a generous middle-aged lady with the same name. She gave her 'special tubs' of her mixed gelati. Her gelati came with extra extra scoops, extra extra extra biscotti, a humongous panini and a huge serving of lasagna, enough to feed a couple, possibly three hungry mountain lions. We chatted with her for a while, discovering that she opted to open during holidays like this because she didn't want to miss out on the cheeriness of people during these times. The happiness that she brought just by a few scoops of gelati.

Ken suggested that we took our supplies to his apartment so we could share Thanksgiving dinner together. Jake was all for free food and I was more excited when Ken mentioned he could download the recorded stuff onto his computer to analyse it. He could even make a copy in a CD.

His apartment was one of the most luxurious at Park Avenue. While the building in 5th Avenue was also luxurious, it was dated and had its certain charms. Ken's was modern in every bit to the extreme, with top class security systems and futuristic décor.

Seeing how eager I was, we decided to deal with the recording business first before doing anything else. Without giving a tour around his place, Ken directed us promptly to his office, and fired up his iMac which looked nothing like my prehistoric one.

Ken translated and typed his conversations with Maurizio, starting from the important bits where they got in front of apartment number 27. He played and stopped repeatedly while typing and explaining each point. Maurizio had told him that the house belonged to a church but no one had occupied the apartment for long period of time. It would have visitors from time to time, but only short term. A week or two, three weeks at the most. Mostly just a couple of days. An Italian Catholic priest was the one who'd come most often, mainly for sorting out mail and find out if there's any problem. It was never rented out, and the property could sometimes go months and months without anyone appear to be in it, yet the owner had hired a cleaning service company that would come once a week to do house-keeping. Maurizio would let the cleaning service to enter with his key, as the priest had instructed him to do so. Their works involved changing the bed-sheets and comforter which had appeared not been slept on, vacuuming the already super clean carpet, cleaning the pristine bathroom, even down to re-stocking the fridge. It seemed to have baffled Maurizio and I felt the same way.

I kept looking at Ken's neat translation document on the screen. I didn't realise Ken was out of the room when Jake nudged me. "What do you make of it?" he whispered.

"I don't know, Jake. I don't know," I replied, still staring at the screen. "What do you think?"

"I'm confused. First of all, what's with the Italian? Is everyone here Italian or what? Even the priest is Italian!" He still kept his low volume, although I could tell he was straining it.

I nodded, agreeing with his observation.

"And then, on top of that, what's with the cleaning obsession? Don't you think it's a bit bizarre?"

I simply nodded again, absolutely in agreement and at a loss of what to think.

I bit my lip and braved myself to say, "I think we should go back there, Jake. I want to see and touch... I want to see it myself."

"No, no way, Bella. We're lucky enough to get this far without getting anyone suspicious. Don't push it."

"I've got to, Jake. What else can I do?"

"Sit back and re-think our strategy? Come on, Bells, don't be absurd and don't get carried away. You can't even get past the doorman."

"But..."

"And I'm against of doing anything criminal." Jake said with final tone.

I huffed loudly. "Of course we're not going to be doing anything criminal. My dad is a cop, remember?"

"Trespassing someone else's property is a criminal act, Bella. I don't even need Ken to tell me that. You can't go in there, Bella. I won't allow it."

"You don't need Ken to tell you what?" We were both startled by Ken's sudden appearance at the door.

"We have a... disagreement." I merely stated.

"You're just being stubborn and difficult."

"You said you're going to be supportive."

"Only when your acts are justifiable."

"Which they are."

"Not."

Our voices got higher by each argument, and Ken was back at being next to us when he said, "Well, I could help being the judge but unfortunately I have no clue on the matter. With the amount of help I had given, do you think I have the right to know at least the general idea of the matter?"

I blanched at his words. We could not possibly tell him. This was why I was reluctant to ask for help, because he might know or even put two and two together. We just could not...

"This Bella here, she's looking for her boyfriend who's gone missing with his family." Jacob started, pointing his finger at me.

"No, Jacob. He's better off not knowing."

Ignoring my warning, he continued, "His family is extremely dangerous and very secretive. Hence making her quite difficult to find them."

"You mean... like some kind of a mafia family?" Ken whispered the mafia part, as if the word was a taboo to say.

"Yes. Exactly like that."

Ken was livid. "What on earth are you getting yourself into, Bella?!"

AN: Ken's just a kind soul. Give him applause.

Reviews are better than mountain lions feasting upon lasagnas. What's your favourite food?