Author's Note: This is a request I've had for a while but I hadn't been able to write it satisfactorily before. I think it turned out pretty well. It corresponds to the earlier chapter when the kids find out about their parents' pasts. Hope you guys are enjoying! All your reviews and comments are wonderful. Thank you so much.

A Confrontation

It was typical for the families to get together every Sunday for a barbeque. It was also typical for most of their friends to show up with their families. Everyone would have a good time. So when the kids requested that this week it was only them their parents had all been a little surprised. Letty had been suspicious. Mia had been excited, thinking it might mean some important announcement. So she'd planned a special menu and fussed over it as Brian shook his head at her.

At eleven am Dom and Letty arrived without their daughter.

"She left the house at like nine," Letty explained. "Said she'd be catching a ride with Vince."

Brian laughed. "Those two are up to something."

"That's what I keep saying," she replied. "Dom thinks I'm paranoid."

"You are," Dom said. "What could they be up to? Some sort of big announcement? Maybe Vince got a promotion. Maybe he proposed to his girlfriend."

"Maybe your daughter got knocked up and she's too scared to tell you without backup," Letty put in.

"That's not even funny, Let."

"The look of panic on your face is though," Brian said with a laugh then ducked away from Dom's fist. They both tried to look innocent when Mia scolded them from the back porch.

They were unpacking the chips and beer when Vince's car pulled up. He got out and went around to the trunk to unload a beat-up cardboard box as his cousin went into the backyard to gather the adults. They came to sit at the table, looking at her warily.

"I swear to God if you're going to tell us you're pregnant someone is going to die," Dom threatened.

She laughed. "Dad, seriously? This is not about me. This is about you guys."

"What?" Mia asked. "What's this about?"

Vince lugged over the box and set it heavily on the table. Brian was the first one who seemed to recognize it.

"Oh, shit," he muttered.

"You guys have some explaining to do," Vince said, tossing a file at his father.

Brian opened it up to see his own mug shot.

Dom glanced at it over his shoulder then groaned. "This is going to take a long time. And a lot more beer."

Mia looked at her son. "What do you guys want to know?"

Her niece scowled. "For starters, why didn't you ever tell us?"

"It didn't seem important," Dom offered. "That's all in the past."

"It's still your life!" his daughter shot back. "A hell of a lot of your lives. And you kept it from us."

Letty sighed. "Because it's a complicated, fucked-up part of our lives. It's not pretty."

"We got that much," Vince said, indicating the box. "We need the details. The whys."

Mia glanced at her brother somewhat helplessly and he sighed, rubbing at the top of his head.

"You guys have had good lives," he began. "You haven't had to worry about money, about trying to keep a business running. You have your families, us. We've been here to take care of you."

Vince was sitting down now and his daughter had a somber look on her face.

"You don't realize, most of the time," Dom continued. "How lucky you are. We all had different situations… but we ended up without our parents to look out for us. We made our own family, but that didn't mean we were ready for the kind of responsibilities we had. Money became an issue. There was only so far the garage could support us – and I stubbornly insisted that Mia went to college."

"Fat lot of good that did me," she muttered.

"You always put that medical knowledge to work stitching up your brother on the numerous times he tried to get himself killed," Brian replied.

"I could do without the comments from the peanut gallery," Dom said drily and Letty shook her head.

"So you started to hijack trucks because of money problems?" Vince asked.

"It's the simplest explanation," Dom said. "And that was what led to everything else. We were on the run after that. Or at least I was."

"I want to know how Mom came back from the dead," his daughter stated suddenly, after a beat of silence.

"Tales of my death have been greatly exaggerated," Letty deadpanned.

"Some M.E. fell asleep on the job," Brian offered.

"And caused us all a lot of unnecessary suffering," Mia added.

"Shaw had his hands in everything," Dom said. "He knew he could use Letty and later that he could use her against me."

"Shaw was a piece of shit," Mia complained.

"Good riddance," Letty muttered with a sigh. "The point is I was never dead. It was simple misinformation."

"Just relieved to hear you're not a zombie," Vince said, and then dived away from his cousin's fist as everyone laughed.

The mood around the table lightened.

"I really want to know how you pulled that plane out of the air," Vince said as Brian stood to get some more beers for everyone.

"No, tell the story about Rio," his cousin interjected.

"Yeah, I wasn't around for that one," Letty agreed.

The stories and laughter filled the yard for the rest of the evening. Turned out that some of the stuff had been pretty damn awesome.