MIA
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When I thought the melody of Last One Standing would play, Leo, that scheming idiot, put Lovely by Billie Eilish and Khalid to play, "Come on, quick thinking. You two, sing this one together." This bitch-
I swallowed the curses and quickly picked Billie's part for myself as the cue for her part came, which would be hard to anyone since it's a mood absolutely different from Godzilla, especially for my part, to go from a quick rap to a soft emotional low-pitched vocal like Billie's. But I'm not anyone, and I instantly adapted myself to it, feeling the necessity to get her pitch absolutely perfect, not to make Misha think badly of me, since he was doing an stellar job with Khalid's part.
Bringing out the emotions I feel for him, without making it obvious, I kept my eyes on his the whole time, and he did the same, also putting the perfect amount of feelings in his voice. And as our voices harmonized with each other at each second we sang verses together at the same time, I felt my heartbeat quickening, and I had to swallow the overwhelming desire to smile, because it was not what the song needed.
It would be totally weird if did, so I pushed that deep down in me.
And as we sang the last notes of the melody, I did my best not to look as fucking affected as I actually am, and I instantly broke the eye contact, unsure of myself and of what I could do if I kept my eyes on his like that. Sucking on my cheeks, I glared at Leo, who had a satisfied wide full-of-teeth smile on. "What was that for, asshole?" I growled at him.
"I just thought your voices would harmonize perfectly in Lovely."
"It did," Luigi pointed.
Swallowing, I got back to sitting on my side, putting my legs over the arm of the chair I'm in again, looking at my front instead of to them, because he's right in front of me, and I won't be able to keep quiet if he keep staring at me like that. Not when he's in love with my damn sister and is siting with her.
"You should try being a singer, Mia!" Maria chuckled.
"No, thank you. I'll leave the artistic career to you, Natasha, and Hendrik. If I tried it on, I would be too good and I would outshine you, you wouldn't like that, would go back to throwing tantrums, and we don't want that. Besides, I like engineering better," I kept my tone as passive as possible, still struggling not to smile. "Hacking is my thing, you can enjoy the rest."
"Thank Dio for that," Pieter chuckled anxiously. "I don't want to have you as competition for the head of the Santorini main businesses."
Smirking, I side-eyed him, "I'm more into the Von Barnhardt businesses, brother. You have nothing to worry about on that. I'm not competing with any of you. In the end of the day, as Von Barnhardt-Santorini, and soon also Campobello, we are all on the same side. Our empires will merge undoubtedly, and we'll all take care of different aspects of it. I'm your ally, not your enemy, that's what I tried to tell you when I was little, but you were all too blind by the fact that I was better than you, to even listen to me."
Rolling my eyes, I picked another spoon of tiramisu.
"We all in the same package now, since mama is marrying zio Ricco. We are all to be one famiglia. The twenty of us are the future in here, more empires will merge with ours, when the Lamberti and the Brunelli get together with Santorini and Campobello, that by then will already be Campobello-Santorini instead."
"So, yeah. We are one thing. One famiglia, taking care of different businesses, allied for the best interest of our net worth. Your enemies will be mine, and I'll be taking care of them, as the manager of the security of our conglomerate, since papa's security assets became mine. I was never your enemy, I've always been the protector. It's what papa trained me to be."
Smiling softly, I turned my gaze to Maria, who was blushing.
"Using the heroic philosophy that Anya used earlier in the table, you are the group of heroes in the front of the famiglia. I'm the morally-grey anti hero in the shadows of the famiglia, taking care of you all, doing everything to make sure you will come on top, and to take care of anyone who messes with us. You don't need to worry about my way of acting, since you won't appreciate knowing exactly how far I would go for you."
"You just need to take care of your parts and I'll do mine. We don't need to be best friends or to confide in one another, we just need to stick together and to do our best to make the conglomerate grow to be greater than it is now, yeah? You are all more than qualified for that, you all got accepted into the Ivy leagues, after all, even if not all you attended to it, it's no small feat."
They must be finding it weird that I'm talking this much to them. I never talked this much with any of them. But whatever.
We are all adults now, it's different.
"Papa trained me, not just because he wanted me to be strong enough to protect myself and never be a damsel in distress, but so I could be able to protect you, not just cybernetically speaking, but physically, if needed. I promise him I would do so, for all of you, be it my siblings, my nonni, mama, zio Ricco, your nonni, the seven Campobello kids, your partners, and even Grigori Mikhail," I mocked, to make a point.
"And of course, your future kids. I hope you won't dare to look down on me on this just because I'm the youngest, or I'll get mad."