Celeste slowly stepped out of the car, nodding her head in thanks to Gerald. She waved off the Teppistas, “I do not need an escort to the house today.”

“But Mistress, it is a hike to walk up the drive, you need some sort of an escort.” Clyde insisted, “You can never be too careful ma’am.”

Celeste sighed. Once Clyde set his mind onto something, he could never let it go. “Clyde you can follow. Only you can follow me. I want at least a 10 feet distance between you and me.”

“Six feet and we have a deal.” Clyde’s eyes looked dead into her face, there were only two other people who could look at her like that.

“Fine. But I want silence, I would like to think.” Celeste started her walk up the drive, Clyde waiting exactly 10 seconds to follow her.

She always enjoyed the walks back from work. The 15 acres of land, and she rarely got to spend any time alone on it. Always being followed, constantly being escorted everywhere. Her life has never had a single alone moment; a large family and the guard around every corner. So these walks back to her house was the only moment for some form of isolation.

The cool night air felt heavenly against her face. The sound of crickets were music to her ears compared to the constant honking of horns and voices within the city. The countryside was the perfect place for her great-grandfather to build the start to their family home. Her mother gave Bruno and Celeste the plans for the house when they first got married. They were able to have the house fully completed and furnished by the time Sabine was born.

The house was made out of solid, red brick, with dark, re-enforced blue shudders on the front side of the house. Large, bulletproof windows allowed the perfect amount of sunlight in the house. The house’s boarders are enclosed with a large, twelve foot brink fence that covers the whole land, with Teppistas patrolling every quarter mile. The lawn, always perfectly manicured, and contained various pathways and vast gardens where Celeste and her mother would work every Sunday afternoon. The grounds also contained a large pool, an outdoor kitchen, fire-pit, and an in-ground trampoline; where in the summers on every Saturday the family would come over and Celeste would host grand BBQs and sleepovers for her children. Inside the gigantic house there were ten bedrooms, five and half bathrooms, a large study with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a finished basement and attic, a large formal dining room enough for the whole family with a breakfast nook, and a large kitchen that even Martha Stewart would kill for in a heartbeat.

As she reached the large, black, steel re-enforced door with the intricate design, Celeste sighed. This would be the last of the silence that she would receive for the rest of the night until she and Bruno would go to bed. She pushed the door open, and instantly heard the yelling and voices of her family.

“Sabine! Get down here and help your aunt Marie with dinner!” She heard Bruno yell from the kitchen.

“Bernardo! Can you please get your cousins inside! They need to set the table and put fresh flowers out on the table!” Antonia yelled to her son from upstairs.

“MOM! Liliana stole my shirt again! It doesn’t even fit her!” Emiliana yelled from down the hallway.

“Sabine! Did you hear me! I need you to get down here and help your aunt!” Bruno came from down the hallway, seeing Celeste in the doorway.

Every time that Celeste saw her husband, her lungs would always give out. He was absolutely perfect, the true divine image of God Himself. Dr. Bruno Milani-Caito looks could turn every woman’s head in the room. The fact that he had the kindest heart and a quick wit, he could have had any woman in all of Manhattan, but he chose her. She never understood why, but she knew that he saw something in herself that she never saw. That is what made her love him so, and what made him love her in the same fashion.

“Good evening love, did you finish the job?” Bruno kissed Celeste’s forehead as he greeted her.

“We can talk about that later after dinner.” She knew that if she told him now that a fight would erupt. Taking the high road would still end badly in her eyes; in this family there were no secrets.

“Celeste! Come and help me with the dinner! I need like five extra hands in here!” Anna-Maria yelled from the kitchen, “Antony Carmine the fourth! Stop chasing your brother with that knife this instant!”

“As you can see we have everything taken care of on the home front, it is truly a wonder why we even need you to stay at home at all,” Bruno smiled as they walked to the kitchen.

“Yes, clearly this is a sign that I should be working full time at the business,” Celeste immediately regretted saying that because she had little time at home as it was. All of the charities, running the clubs and restaurants plus the full work load of running the family business was so demanding, most days she was at her breaking point. That was not how her mother raised her, and that was not how her grandfather raised her mother. The head of the family does not show weakness, weakness meant that you were soft. A leader should never be seen as soft.

“Well, whatever you think is best for the family,” Bruno kissed her head one more time before they entered the kitchen.

The kitchen, as usual on a Sunday evening, was run by her younger sister Anna-Maria, the chef and knife expert for the family. She had aim so precise she could slice a piece of paper through the seam from fifty feet away with just a pocket knife. Even though Celeste mastered all of the aspects of her weapons training when she was only sixteen, her sister’s skill always dazzled her. Being a chef created a more flair and talent to the way that she could kill, torture and wield a knife in the kitchen.

Celeste grabbed the knife so fast that Antony did not even register that it was gone before his mother threw it at the butcher block with a thud. She bent down to his level and said in a calm voice, “Quel coltello non è tuo per giocare con Antony, ricorda posso facilmente avere il tuo fratello ti appendere dalla punta dei piedi al soffitto.”

Antony giggled, “Mamma would never let her baby hang from the ceiling.”

“Or maybe I’ll just send the tickle monster after you,” Celeste’s smile broadened as her son ran from the room laughing.

“I swear you have always had the darkest humor with everything,” Anna-Maria pulled the knife out of the butcher block and continued to cut vegetables for dinner.

“So what, at least my children know the difference of me joking and being serious,” she pulled the spare apron from the pantry, “I’m not always serious you know.”

“Hah, that is a lie and you know it. The only time that I ever see you so relaxed is when you are either at home or out in the garden with Mom.”

“That is because I can enjoy the peaceful side to life,” Celeste tasted the soup with a sour face, “This needs more flavor than garlic, you wonder why that critic said you over use the garlic.”

“Well it is not my fault that he has no taste,” Anna-Maria threw in the simmering meat into the pot with the soup, “Now, help me finish basting the roast or you will not get any of the apple pie for desert.”

….

The typical family dinner in America has the lovely house wife showing off her meal to the husband with two well-behaved children sitting quietly at the table, smiling away like there is no problems in the whole world. That is not the case, however, in the Caito household. A family dinner consists of loud talking, laughing, and the occasional fight that somehow ends as a joke. The matriarch sits at the head of the table with her husband on the right and her eldest brother on the left. The formal dining room was strictly made for these sorts of dinners; at least fifty people could be held at the table at a minimum. A large, crystal chandelier over the center of the table that was bright enough to light the entire room. Portraits of each generation hung on the walls, with photographs of the best memories artistically placed, some had the occasional secret hiding place for a specific weapon of choice. After everyone had their place at the table, Celeste would say the family blessing: offering another day of prosperity, hard work, protection of the family, and the hopes that Antony I would be proud of how much the family business has grown and developed since its beginnings.

Anna-Maria could cook a five star meal with just a pound of meat and bread if she wanted too. Dinner was usually served to them in the courses that Marie prepared them as, of course dessert was a big surprise. Last week the dessert was a classic family favorite: homemade moon-pies. The dinner usually hinted towards the dessert.

The conversations started as soon as the blessing finished and then dinner was brought out by the various staff members.

“Beautiful plating as usual Marie,” Celeste nodded down the table to her sister.

“Thank you, although it only took five minutes to make.” Her sister smiled down at her salad.

As Celeste was eating, she watched everyone make conversation with each other.

“I think that we need to make the room blue, make it neutral because we don’t want to know the gender of the baby,” Isobelle was telling Patrizio.

“Sabine, can you please put your phone on silent? It is vibrating the whole table,” Jessica hissed quietly to her sister. The only response that Sabine gave was sticking her tongue out.

“Do you think that we can get away with sneaking a peak at dessert?” Teo leaned over to Antony.

“The business is doing absolutely fine, we just need to send the last of the shipments then we can make the last quarter right on schedule.” Emmanuel was always talking about the business like an actual business. He never enjoyed being involved with it in anyway. Always the most moral person of the group.

“Yes, plus we need to answer the Mister Domingo proposal. Either way we still can make a profit. Just negotiate the terms more to our benefit. I do not appreciate how they think that killing a mistress will become messy.” Celeste wiped the last of her salad from her mouth, “The only problem we would have to deal with is cleaning up the mess afterwards.”

“Anya can easily move around any evidence that the police might find. Besides we are going to make it look like a suicide,” Bruno took another sip of wine, “Or we could just find someone else to place the blame for.”

“We need a clean way of doing it. He said nothing on her face because she was extremely vain. Plus she would be the one to commit suicide because of her need for attention,” Anna-Maria chimed in after thanking Gerome for setting the main course down.

“What do you mean?” Celeste started cutting into her medium-rare steak with a caramelized apple drizzle and a side of mashed potatoes and gravy.

“I mean that it is obvious that she has some form of attention issues. The way she dresses in the photos that Anya took of her, the messages that we found on her computer to him and seeming like hundreds of other guys, and simply how she gave him an ultimatum to pick her over his wife. Come on they met in a sex club for God’s sake.” Anna-Maria was great at reading people, that’s what happens when you are a chef with a psychology degree, “She craves that attention and uses her body to her advantage. The way we need to kill her is with an overdose of pills. She would never deface her body, plus I bet she would take lots of pills with the way she parties. Or we could just do masturbation gone wrong, she is also a sex addict. Plenty of people die that way. Normally seen as just an accident.”

“Now let’s not talk about business at the table with the children here. They are still too young to be hearing this,” Celeste waved her hand, signaling that the conversation had ended. “We also need to start making preparations for our new family.”

“What new family?” Antony III chimed in.

“The family that we had to take in due to her husband leaving her for the help. Sad case it was, I heard about it before the recital. She lost her main source of income, plus I have a soft side for women in need.” Celeste finished her glass of wine as she looked down the table to Antonia, her first husband was a kill she would never forget.

“We don’t even know who they are, what if they are only using us for the money? What debt do they have to us in order to stay here with us?” Bruno questioned.

“We should send out Anya and have them checked out, I am not going to give my vote unless we know everything about these people,” Anna-Maria voiced, Vicente nodded in agreement.

“They do not owe us anything in return. I am taking in her and her son into our family and that is final. What would my grandfather say if he knew that you were denying a family our help and services,” Celeste shook her head, “We will vote on the matter after dinner.”

“I just wished that you would have told us before you made the decision,” Bruno went back to eating.

“Do we have anything else that will be discussed at the meeting?” Antony III asked.

Emmanuel wiped his lip, “Were you able to achieve receiving the information that we needed?”

“Yes, he told me where the shipment was, it took a long while though. He toughed it out for a couple of days but I was not going to mess around anymore,” Celeste did not look up from her plate.

“I need to know how much money to subtract from the book from the payoff. Plus if we have to send a larger payout to whoever he was working for, unless he told you that he was working alone,” Emmanuel started to mentally calculate the risks and money, it started making Celeste’s head hurt.

“No, there is no need. I did not pay him off and we do not need to send out any money. The family does not payout any rivals,” Celeste finished her meal, placing the utensils down carefully as not to show her rising anger.

“What do you mean you did not pay him off?” Bruno stopped eating, “You just let the man go? He stole almost two million dollars’ worth of illegal arms, broke into our warehouse, and you would just let the man go?”

“Bruno, do you think that I am that soft as to let a thief run in my town still alive?” Celeste snapped back at her husband.

“What do you mean ‘still alive’? Did you kill him?” Bruno’s voice started to rise.

The adults erupted into a loud furry of voices: “Was he working with someone else?”; “What does he know?”; “Did he tell the people he was working for about us?” Celeste was able to hear Bruno’s voice over everyone else, “What were you thinking? You possibly endangered the family.”

Celeste slammed her hand on the table, the room came to a still halt, “ENOUGH! I am the leader of this family that means that I know what is best for the family! I do NOT put the family in danger, if anything I protect you from everything outside these walls! Do you know how many people are out there who want to kill us?! Do you know what measures I have taken to protect every single one of you? We will not talk about this until the meeting. Children, desert will be served in the living room. We need to have the meeting now.”