Eighteen

Alexander Nathaniel Rozzi

Surprisingly I was awake earlier than Auriella for a change, it was a rare occasion. I took a seat on the edge of her bed and I could already see her stirring at feeling someone else in the room.

"Ella," I whisper, brushing her hair back and stroking her cheek softly until I see her eyes open. "Good morning, Amore."

"What time is it?" She asks, squinting seeing I'm already dressed.

"Just after six." We had been up later than usual dealing with some issue with our phones and hadn't gone to bed until really late so it was no surprise she was up an hour and a half later than usual. Her eyes close again. "No, don't go back to sleep, I want to take you somewhere."

Her eyes open once again, curiosity filling them. "Where?"

"Come on." I take the blanket off her and she sits up, moving closer to me so I could give her a hug which I do, scooping her up and setting her in my lap for a few minutes. After a minute or so she stands up and disappears into her bathroom and while she's gone I start making her bed for her and tidying up her bedroom even though it wasn't messy, she only had a hoodie on the floor I'm guessing she took off in the middle of the night and just chucked it somewhere.

Ella emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later with her face washed and her toothbrush hanging in her mouth, she walks to her closet but turns around to assess my outfit. I'm wearing something I would have worn back home, an expensive polo shirt and even more expensive jeans with a pair of designer sneakers. It's what I used to wear daily when living in the city and interacting with people with a similar economic status as us but it's hard to wear what you're used to when the people here are so judgmental that you can afford to wear a shirt that costs more than they would ever pay.

Twenty minutes later Ella comes out and she's glowing wearing something she's comfortable in and not trying to fit into this small town we were thrust into. She's always found comfort in clothes, it's something she only discovered after we were rescued, something that doesn't have tainted memories of a life we never deserved, now she's back in her comfort zone she looks so much happier.

"Hi, gorgeous girl." I catch her eyes through the mirror where she's applying a layer of lip gloss. She looked breathtaking like she always did, but I did always have a spot for lace. Her hair was straight from when my mother took her out a couple days ago and she was wearing a black lace top and black jeans and she had a blue denim jacket and sneakers ready to put on when she finished her makeup. I run my fingertips over the see-through lace bodysuit "Is this new?"

"It's from the new collection that's coming out in a couple of weeks, but I have the only black version, I'm only making them in navy and white."

She had been working on a new line for ètinceler. It was called 'deep end and she was focused on all ocean colours and textures that reminded people of a beach trip. She had modelled a couple of samples to show me a couple of days ago but this wasn't a part of the things I had been shown.

"So, where are we going?" Auriella asks as we descend the stairs. Since it was already five all her siblings were sitting in the kitchen having breakfast and they all stare at us as we enter the room.

"Out for the day," I tell her, purposefully being vague. "I have permission to take you out for the whole day," I tell her and she turns to me, happiness rolling off her. She might like being with her brothers a lot of the time and making friends with them but it had always been us and it was weird not being back to have as much time as we wanted together.

"Are you asking me out, Rozzi?" Auriella asks, for a second forgetting that she wasn't supposed to use that surname but neither of us cared, they knew we had an adoptive family and they knew Ella's surname already from the night when we cooked together, bedsides I haven't heard Ella calling me that in a while and I missed it. She always called me by my last name, for as long as I had it. That or Lex but she couldn't use Lex.

"Yes."

"Wait where are you guys going?" Ezra asks, not fully chewing his cereal before he speaks, making me cringe a little.

"Just out we'll find something to do."

"Are you only coming back tomorrow?" Grayson asks, his eyes narrowing on me with a warning. Since he and Ella had gotten especially overprotective and always tried to make sure we did nothing inappropriate, he was a replica of Ambrosi and I was dead set on never letting them meet otherwise I would never get alone time with my girlfriend.

"We'll be back tonight but at like ten thirty since I have later plans." Ella narrows her eyes on me trying to work out what exactly I had planned but I never let my expression waver.

"Oh, by the way, Ev. You look great." Grayson acknowledges softly, and I knew he wasn't talking about her outfit. This was the Ella I was used to, the one who wore what she wanted to without being swayed by anyone's decisions, the one who excludes confidence and knows she's smarter than everyone in the room combined, the one that knows the world is her's.

Emmeline glances at her sister and Elle glances back at her. Ella hadn't mentioned anything going on between them but the tension today was different. Emmeline hadn't even glanced at me since we entered but I wouldn't ask her today, today was just about us not about annoying siblings.

"Thank you, Sonny." Ella knew what he was talking about. "We'll see you guys later."

Ella pauses halfway on our walk to the car. "Was I meant to eat breakfast?"

"No, Amore." I open the door for her and she slips in I close the door behind her after making sure she was in properly. I was going to stop somewhere for breakfast since the drive to our destination was just under an hour.

"So, where are we going?" Ella asks, glancing at me but I keep my focus on the road, I know my weaknesses but so does Ella, one batt of her eyelashes and a small pout and I cave. "Urg, you always do this when you take me on dates."

Due to our limited free time we didn't have much time to do big dates often but every so often out of nowhere we surprised the other with a day out, and since Ella had her turn last it was my turn and I had been planning this from before we even moved over here so it took a little longer to find the resources to plan what I wanted to in an unknown location where I didn't have the right connections, and if I did do it through more well know connections Ella would find out and it was part of the rules for the person leading the date to keep it as secretive as possible. The other rules were no work talk and limited phone and technology access besides music and emergency calls. This was our time and we had done this since we started dating almost three years ago.

I conjoined our fingers and lifted her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. I felt the raised scars from the worse injuries she had to her hands, mainly from when we were learning to fight and we didn't know the correct form to save our hands. I glanced at her hands, it was weird not seeing the huge diamond that normally sat on her fingers but I knew it now sat on a chain around her neck.

My wife.

She only had been for a couple of months, and mainly on paper. We had a struggle at Ambivalent with our partnership so to make it easier for us we just signed a marriage certificate but it was more of a formality. It wouldn't feel real until a couple of years into the future when I watched her walk down an aisle towards me in a white dress.

"What," Ella asks me with a smile as I watch her while waiting for the light to turn green. She had been singing along to the music and looked lighter than she had in a while. We had been here for a month and in that time we had spent time that would normally be equivalent to like two days together. We were getting fed up with having no alone time so I had approached all the parents yesterday and we had been given the go-ahead for getting out today and could stay out until midnight since tomorrow was Sunday. In fact, I had been given permission for Ella and me to go out whenever we wanted if we let them know first until nine thirty on weekdays and midnight on weekends which I thought was fair.

"I've missed you." We knew what I meant, physical time together but we hadn't had time to bind on an emotional level, everything had been hectic but right now we didn't have anything to worry about, I had people who had eyes on the biologicals at all times, we had the Lombardi twins on standby in case anything went wrong and they had us on speed dial.

"Only a couple more months, hopefully before the new year and then we'll be done." November had just started so two months to completely wrap up was a bit ambitious but if anyone could do it, it was us. "What are our plans for the holidays?"

Normally our grandmothers hosted a large holiday ball, it was extremely fancy and we had to dress. Ella loved it and spent all year working on a dress for it. It was nice because all of our friends and family were there and it was a good place to catch up with people we hadn't seen in a while.

"I spoke to Nonna yesterday." I tell Ella, "She says she wants to hold it closer here this year, and maybe she and the family can meet our biologicals."

"That'll be cool, we can go to the ball and maybe spend the next day without biologicals then maybe book out a restaurant so they can meet under neutral ground." I knew what she was thinking and it made me smile, she knew our grandmother wouldn't get along with her parents. Our families were extremely close-knit and loved every one, but Lilliana and Nicholas hadn't been the best to Ella in the weeks she had been here, most of the time they forgot she existed along with their six other kids but every so often Lilliana will make small remarks at Ella about what she's wearing or our relationship and she's also tried to get money out of Ella. Never mind all the men in Ella's family who would go to war for her, it was Marisol Soleil who was the scariest, I mean she had raised six boys.

I finally get close to where we are going and when Ella sees where we are I can feel her pretty much vibrating in excitement.

"Lex."

"Yes, my love."

"Why are we at an airport.'' It was a private airport, much like the Soleils had at the back of their property, just not as big.

"Because we're going somewhere," I told her, she was used to flying at least once a week, if not to go somewhere she just wanted to get up in the sky and just circle overhead for a while. Azariah was a pilot, when he was in the military he fly planes as his uncle did and when he retired to join the Agency his uncle gave him his company, Roman Airways, Ella had learnt how to fly a plane at eight but legally got her pilot's licence at thirteen and she has been unstoppable since. "Come on, Amore."

Not even waiting for me Ella goes straight towards the small plane that only holds two and takes her seat and preps everything to fly. Even though I had learnt how to fly in case of emergencies as well this was Ella's thing, something she was passionate about and she shared with her dad, I know a lot of their bonding was done in the sky just like how mine was formed with my dad when he went to list properties, he was the one taking me to all these houses and making me fall in love with architecture.

"So where are we going?" Ella asks, still readying the plane for taking off

"Anywhere you want," I tell her, relaxing in my seat. It was only the two of us, no crew or anything and spontaneity was fun when most of your everyday life was planned for months. "We can fly to a nearby city, Dallas is about an hour from here or we can just fly around for a little bit, there's also a hangar cafe you can fly to maybe forty-five minutes from here."

"Let's go there, we can get some breakfast and we can figure out what to do afterwards." If I thought Ella was looking more like herself earlier this was even more like her. She had on her earmuffs and a pair of aviator sunglasses. I was wearing the same. She started talking with air control and got permission to take off.

I had been on many different flights with dozens of different pilots but I always felt safest with Auriella flying, she had all the control and she knew how to fly. She was in her element, so much that we didn't talk for the next three-quarters of an hour until we were ready to land.

The cafe we were going to was special, I was doing my research for what to do with Elle and came across it and it was perfect. You can either drive out or you can land on a runway in front of the cafe. It was something she would love, there would be other planes and pilots.

I was right, Ella descended out of the air and onto the runway and when she got out of her seat after we landed there was a grin on her face that hadn't fallen. "This is awesome." She whispers in awe. "Thank you."

"No thanks, Ella."

So, one year since I have first started writing Perilous Intelligence. I finished it in six months but then I started rewriting it. These characters had been formed from so long before I even started writing but it is so incredible to how they have basically become an extension of myself.

Thank you all for reading, it truly means a lot to me.

Next chapter should have a bit of action in it, the violence kind, if I don't change my mind and scrap the whole chapter

See you next update

Ara <3