The Twelve Vitali Ch. 16

Authors note: Hello everyone. Thank you everyone for the positive feedback and comments they mean the world to me and have brightened my days. I have particularly enjoyed the comments championing Cat character, thank you for those. While this chapter may dismay some but have a little faith that our heroine is and will very much remain the beautiful and flawed woman you all know and love. Thank you once again to Paul who continues to be my second set of eyes. ~ellie.

"Come, Pet," Hella said, and took a seat in the only chair in the room. She watched as the young woman looked around and stood uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot as if she knew she needed to sit somewhere but didn't understand. "There is a padded leather square for you to kneel on," she indicated a spot on the floor near her chair.

"Thank you," Cat whispered. Dealing with a rush of adrenaline and confused emotions, Cat followed the direction without thinking and knelt on the surprisingly soft leather square. Unsure of what to call the woman, she added, "Mistress?" as a question.

"In this room, you may call me Miss Hella," she said with a friendly smile, as Cat seemed to be trying to observe the few protocols she knew. "I have been told that you have a limited understanding and little to no experience with the BDSM lifestyle. However, your past and Nero's observations have placed you here in my care. You have a lot to learn, and this interview will be longer and possibly more trying for you than the usual, because that collar on your neck tells me that someone is impatient to offer you a contract when you leave my care."

Cat said nothing as she looked up at the woman who spoke to her as if what she was doing was the most normal thing in the world.

"Have you been intimate with a woman before?" Hella asked.

"No, Miss Hella," Cat said. "I have never felt that sort of attraction or affection towards women."

"A simple no will suffice. If I want further information I will ask," Hella said brusquely. "Since you bring it up, in your role as a submissive, what you are attracted to and who you feel affection for will have no value. You will obey whoever owns your contract. You may have a trial period to see if you are compatible, but make no mistake, there will be no love involved. Some Kept, after a renewed contract, can be held in high regard, but there is little room for affection or emotion in your role."

There was no question, so Cat remained silent, not wanting to anger the Mistress in this first interview, and she had been told once that if Hella wanted to know something she would ask.

"For many Dominants, the thrill is wrapped up in the power exchange, not the sex act itself. They crave the power you give them when you submit fully to whatever they wish, whenever they wish. It is, for this reason, you must insist on safe words and set limits on your use, or you may find yourself with permanent damage, not only to your lovely body but your mind as well," Hella lectured in a kind tone. "The men who take your contracts will not know anything about you except what we tell them in your profile. It is important that you are unscrupulously honest about what it is you like, what you can endure but do not like, and acts that you find you cannot endure no matter what the enticement."

Cat nodded her understanding, even though she hadn't been asked if she understood. She watched as Hella picked up a clipboard and looked at it.

"This is a quite extensive list of sexual kinks and fetishes, and what I would like when I read out each one is to know if you love it, like it, endure it, are curious about it or find it is a limit. If it is a limit, we will explore if it is a hard or soft limit. Do you understand those terms?"

"Yes, Miss Hella," Cat said softly.

"Good, we'll start with the more common ones and move on from there. It will also give me a good idea of your experience," Hella explained looking back at her list. "Name calling?" she asked.

"Depends on the names and if it's in the heat of the moment or if it is a constant occurrence," Cat answered honestly.

"Let's go through the options again, shall we? You will answer with love it, or like it, or endure it, or curious about it, or it is a limit. Do you understand those terms, Pet?" Hella asked pointedly. "I will mark name-calling as curious. In the future you will keep to the response options I have given you."

"Yes, Miss Hella," Cat answered with a frown.

"I am starting to see why Nero labelled you as a brat, this may take even longer than expected if I have to stop and spank you for not following simple instructions, little girl!" Hella scolded her.

"Striptease?" she asked.

"Like it," Cat responded, she didn't love it, but she didn't dislike it.

"Public nudity?" she continued without missing a beat.

"Limit," she said uncertainly. She might like a nudist beach if she'd ever been to one. However, even as she considered changing her mind the next question was out, and she needed to answer that. The questions kept coming rapidly, and she had little time to think and often surprised herself with her answers as she said the first thing that popped into her mind. Anything she didn't understand or wasn't sure about she said limit, hoping that, as Hella had said, they would revisit those and find out if it was a soft or hard limit.

"This is ridiculous!" Hella stopped asking questions. "How am I supposed to train an innocent little girl who seems to have an entire list of limitations and very little curiosity?"

"If it was a term I didn't understand, or I wasn't sure, I said limit, because you were going so fast I had no time to think," Cat explained honestly, thinking she had been asked a question rather than realising it was rhetorical.

"Hands behind your head!" Hella barked. The girl frustrated her, and she knew that if she punished her now things might get out of hand. Instead, she gritted her teeth and counted backwards from ten. If this girl was going to make it as a Kept she needed to be broken and rebuilt the way they needed her. Her suspicion that there was more to this girl, along with the protection of the collar she wore, stayed her hand for now. Her cousin owed her some answers first, and she intended to get them.

"You will return to me tonight after dinner. Take note of the way you walk out, because I will not come to escort you. You will be expected here no later than seven thirty. If you are early, you will kneel on that square and wait for me if I am not already here. Do you understand those simple instructions, Jane?" Hella said as if talking to a simpleton.

"Yes, Miss Hella," Cat said quietly, blushing slightly that she had not impressed the woman who would train her. She hadn't been sure about being intimate with a woman, but it seemed she hadn't even made it past the interview stage after promising Matteo she would try to accept a Mistress. She felt dreadful and hung her head.

"You can go and rest before dinner. I trust you can find your way back to your room at least," Hella sneered.

"Thank you, Miss Hella," Cat said, rising to her feet and turning to leave the room.

Hella watched her go. Jane had a tall, slender, leggy build, with breasts that sat perfectly on her frame without seeming overly large or small. The fact that she was just the sort of girl that Hella would normally be attracted to was not lost on her as she watched the slight sway of Jane's hips as she left the room. It could be quite easy to get carried away while breaking her bad habits and creating the perfect sex toy for her lucky new owner. First, though, she needed to discover why she wore that collar and why the three brothers were showing such an interest in her. After a minute or two of thought, she picked up her clipboard and followed Jane from the room in search of answers before Jane Bennet returned for her evening session.

*****

When Matteo and Ricco had arrived home, Jacobi waited for them and followed them into the penthouse. As usual, Lisa greeted them and took their coats before offering food and drinks.

"Have you eaten, Cobi?" Mateo asked.

"No, but I'm good," he said, brushing off the offer.

"We'll have a platter, cheese, fruit that sort of thing," he told Lisa. "Drinks?" he asked his brothers. "More wine or something stronger?"

"Coffee would be good, strong and black. And could you throw something sweet on the platter too?" Ricco spoke directly to Lisa rather than go through his brother. He lived here for the moment, after all.

"Coffee is good," Jacobi agreed.

"Make that three, we'll be out on the deck," Matteo said before walking into the apartment.

"Matt, can you give us a few minutes?" Jacobi asked.

"No," he answered without explanation, and walked out onto the rooftop deck and flopped into a comfortable chair with a sigh. "It's been a fucking long day, and I have shit I want to say to both of you myself."

Ricco shrugged when Jacobi gave him a questioning look, and the twins followed Matteo out to the deck choosing chairs close to his.

"Right, let's call it what it is," Matteo said in a tired voice. "It's yet another bullshit game created to make us toe the family line. Stefano is sick, and we know the table will have to be announced soon. They're not going to put an eighteen-year-old in the chair, and, let's face it, Zion and Lucca's talents lay elsewhere so far, so we're it, the three of us. We're older, more settled and wiser, what choices they have come down to the three of us." He looked at his brothers as they took in what he was saying.

"I won't give up Cat, you won't give up Maryanne, so it's one of us along with Ricco," he spoke directly to Jacobi. "Now here's where you fucked up that idea," Matteo said, being brutally honest. "Saying that you will share your life with your brother is one thing, actually doing it is another. Tell me about Ricco and Maryanne's first date?"

"Why would they date?" Jacobi asked as if Matteo was an idiot for asking the question.

"So he could form his own relationship with Maryanne instead of living like a sequestered monk until he decided to start dating Cat," Matteo pointed out the obvious. "Why would you think Papa would accept a triad where the Oracle had no relationship with the mother but one of sisterly affection? You fucked up big time, man, but it's not too late to fix it if he and Maryanne are willing."

"She's pregnant!" Jacobi looked horrified.

"So? Then she'll be a new mother or breastfeeding or tired from dealing with the baby, and by the time you might consider letting him start a relationship with her she'll be pregnant again, and you'll be making the same arguments!" Matteo was on a roll. "In the meantime, he has no wife, no love, no family of his own, and he gets to fuck a Kept and play with his nieces and nephews. Sounds like everyone's perfect future, doesn't it?"

"That's not how it would be!" Jacobi spluttered. This was not what he had expected when he came here tonight.

"How would it be, Jacobi? Tell me. Make the whole situation make sense somehow, and I'll take off the watch and send Ricco home to start living the life he should have been for the last two years," Matteo challenged him. "If you can't tell me how it would work out for Ricco, then you have to face the fact that he will be bound to me and not you, even if it's only by a watch."

"I'd be interested to know the answer to that too," Ricco said seriously, as Jacobi looked at him for help when Matteo finally stopped talking because Lisa had arrived with a platter of food for the men to share. "You are a miracle worker, Lisa," Ricco smiled at the woman as he picked up a chocolate truffle from the platter and put it in his mouth. Lisa smiled indulgently and returned to the kitchen to finish preparing the coffee.

"No one took the chair from you, Cobi. Papa just wanted you to acknowledge the fact that Alessandro not only lived but saved your life. He didn't deserve to be ignored. They would have forgiven even that, but you have to know they were watching all of us closely after we returned from the Kimberley," Matteo said as if it was obvious. "You blamed Ricco for the reprimand and then took off with your wife leaving him here alone, and that was your biggest fuck up. If you'd included him in your life, even just that once, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here with this fucking ugly watch on my wrist and hating what is happening to the woman I love as we speak."

"I tried to tell you," Ricco said. "Look, I get it, you love Maryanne, and you wanted the honeymoon to last forever, but you can't have it both ways, and you know that. If anything, you should feel relieved, because if you continued to expect me to live without a real lover or family of my own, I would have resented you and probably ended up hating you. What you wanted and tried to do, not just to me, but to everyone, wasn't fair."

"Are you two finished?" Jacobi snapped.

"Probably not, but you have the floor if you want to say something," Matteo shrugged. "He's been a grouchy bastard since you left him to fend for himself, so I imagine he has a few things of his own to say."

"So, say you get the chair, and he is named Oracle," Jacobi said the obvious so he didn't have to face the accusations against himself. "You're telling me you'd have a true triad, live in a ménage trios?"

"He's already slept with her, nothing I can do about that," Matteo shrugged, avoiding having to answer the question directly. "Ricco and I are coming to terms with what these watches might mean, we haven't had the in-depth conversation about that yet though."

"You know that's what I've always wanted, so don't look at me. The fact that it's with Cat, who I already love, just makes the idea even more appealing," Ricco said honestly, picking up his coffee and taking a sip along with another truffle. "The problem both of you have to come to terms with is what if they give me the chair? Would you put Maryanne aside to be Oracle? Matteo would leave the family rather than see me marry Cat instead of him. What would you do?"

"Maryanne's a Donati; they'd never ask that of me. They wouldn't risk the wedge it could cause between the families," Jacobi shook his head disbelievingly.

"I guess Lucca could do the job if you both leave," Ricco said casually, trying not to laugh at their looks of shock.

"You think that's really an option for them?" Jacobi asked.

"He's got as good a chance as us, if not better. Despite what I said earlier, Lucca has more than proven himself lately. The fact that you and I flaked out and left him running things after our family trip would weigh in his favour. He's always stepped up when one of us dropped the ball," Matteo gave his younger brother credit for always being the reliable one.

"You'd really leave the family?" Jacobi was shocked by the information.

"If you'd asked me that this morning I would have assured you I was deadly serious. Now I'm more open to possibilities, but I doubt I could watch Cat marry anyone else. I couldn't be there if it happened that way. I'm not sure I could let it happen that way. I guess we won't know until it happens, if it happens," Matteo admitted, while the idea of it happening made him feel sick. The idea of her undergoing training as a Kept made him feel awful as well, and, as always when he thought of her, the image of her in a Kept dungeon rose in his mind. He was barely holding it together, and he groaned. "Fuck the coffee, I need a real drink!"

*****

"This is a joke," Hella said, walking into Francesco's office and throwing her clipboard on the table. "You better get those other two Muppets you call brothers down here and tell me what the fuck is going on!"

"Hello, Hella, having a good day, are we?" Francesco said banally as he put down his pen and sat back in his chair, picking up the clipboard.

"That girl is not ready for me, she is not ready for anyone in my team! You need to find her a nice gentle Daddy who will let her pretend play at BDSM for whoever put that protection collar around her neck!" Hella spat angrily. She was still frustrated, both by her attraction to the girl and her obvious naivety.

"I assume when you say Muppets, you're talking about the future leaders of our family?" Francesco smirked. He could sense the reasons for his cousin's frustrations. She was normally so even-keeled that her anger amused him, so he humoured her and called Nero. "Hella says she's not up to the challenge we have set her," he chuckled into the phone, watching Hella and wondering if he could actually see steam coming out of her ears. "Good, see you in ten minutes. Can you pick up Marcus on the way?"

"You're a shit!" Hella snarled as Francesco put his phone back down on his desk.

"That's true," he nodded. "You love me, despite my faults, so stop pretending you're angry with me and tell me what happened with Jane."

"I'll tell you what will happen if you keep pretending she's a regular recruit!" Hella fumed. "I will break her! I will break her and rebuild her the way I want her, and whoever put that pretty collar around her neck will be more than a little disappointed in the lipstick lesbian I return to them, trust me!"

"I don't know, I have always found that to be quite an appealing trait in any woman," Francesco smirked.

"She's a brat, not in the immature little girl way, but in her constant pushing of rules to suit her way of thinking. She can't answer a simple yes or no question without explanation, which always sounds like a compromise or negotiation. There are no automatic responses, and when pushed to make them practically shuts down. Some of the things she put limits on were ridiculous, and she admitted that if she didn't know or knew and wasn't sure she said limit rather than admit the first thing that came to mind!" Hella said with her voice still raised with frustration.

"Did you tell her that you would discuss the difference between hard and soft limits after the interrogation? Maybe she was waiting for the discussion to ask questions and be sure," Francesco suggested. He had witnessed Hella's interrogations before, and the rapid-fire questions even got to him at times.

"Of course, I did," she rolled her eyes. "How else would she know those limits would be tested? The fact remains, though, that she has no clue, and I do not see why she wasn't assigned to one of the gentler Dom's first to learn the basics, she obviously has issues, and would do well with a Daddy type who would patiently explain everything to her."

"You're right, I expect," Francesco acknowledged.

"Don't sit there and try to placate me," she warned. "That girl will be back in my dungeon in two hours, and I am warning you..."

The door behind her opened and Marcus walked in. "Nero is on his way, I happened to still be in the building," he said as he closed the door and took a seat. "It's me that you need to talk to anyway, Hella. I haven't briefed Francesco yet because the background story in her profile is true up until the last twelve months."

"Poverty-stricken childhood, drug-addicted mother, younger brother, absent, unknown father," Francesco said, opening the file on his desk and scanning over the information. "Turned to a petty criminal at a young age who used and abused her but housed her and her brother when they had to leave the government housing after their mother died or be forced into the system. Did I miss any of the highlights?"

"No addictions, herself, worked two to three jobs at any given time to provide for her younger brother, who was less than grateful and going down the same road as her boyfriend," Marcus added. "Frankie Vitali's football program scooped up the brother in one of his street sweeps with the police engagement officer, and the kid got his act together slowly. The brother now works for Vitali developments on an internship."