The Twelve Zenati Pt. 02

Authors note: Hello everyone. Welcome to the new Twelve Tables series and the new family I have for you all to meet. I hope you come to know and like them as much as the families from the past series. Please understand this is a work of fiction and I am in no way an expert on mental illness or PTSD. This story is not based on real people or situations and any resemblance is mere coincidence. Thank you once again to David and Kate for being my second set of eyes. Enjoy! ~ellie.

The Twelve Zenati: Ch. 1

Vivienne.

"For fuck's sake, did you have to call him?" Genesis groaned at his cousin, Helena. "I came to you because I thought you had some sort of doctor-patient ethic!"

"Gen, you think you had a heart attack," Helena clicked her tongue. "What did you expect me to do?"

"Give us a minute alone please, Helena," Armando chuckled. "My son will be fine. You can trust me on that, but I promise to call if you're needed. I am sure his test results show no lasting effects. It was probably just bad indigestion; you know what wild tales he has always told in that little paper he writes for."

"Alright, Zio, but if he dies, I am telling Zia it was your fault," Helena warned him, trying not to sound amused as she wagged a finger at him. As far as she could see, there was nothing wrong with her cousin's heart in any of the tests results she had.

"So, tell me about the curse breaker?" Armando asked, his eyes twinkling with merriment.

"There is no curse! It's not like that!" Genesis shook his head in denial.

"When I saw your mother for the first time, she fell from a wall and broke her arm. The pain I felt, however, was like a knife twisting in my gut, then it radiated up into my chest and it felt like a gorilla took hold of my heart and was squeezing it in its big fist," he spoke casually as he watched his son try to hide the surprise from his face. "Once I recovered, I launched into action because I knew I had to save her. I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else picking her up and taking her to the hospital." He took a seat in the small consultation room and surveyed his son.

"There is no such thing as a love curse, Papa," Genesis groaned. "I know you all like to tease us about it, but now is not the time for family legends." His father had never told him the details of his curse breaker before, just that his heart stopped when he saw his broken dove. That is all any of the men in his family ever said about finding the woman they fell in love with. The fact that the details were identical to how he felt when he had laid eyes on Serena Seabrook was nothing more than a coincidence, he told himself. It was probably the beer he'd had at that seedy dive bar giving him nasty heartburn.

"Tell me about the girl that made your heart stop, then," Armando chuckled. "Where were you when you had this heart attack?"

"It's not like that, Papa. Trust me," he sighed and related the story of Father Bob Rossi and the woman who could bring down Remington Royce.

"So, a priest asked you to help save this young woman, and when you walked into the hospital room to meet her you had a heart attack?" Armando tried hard to keep a straight face.

"She is beyond broken Papa, brainwashed and tortured. Her whole personality was replaced with the Suebi version of the perfect woman. I don't know that anyone can save her," he said sadly.

"But you want to try, don't you?" Armando asked gently.

"I promised Father Bob that I would. Is that so bad?" Genesis said, defensively.

"Not at all. You're a good man Genesis. You always champion the weak and vulnerable. Here's the thing though. Let's say your Zio and his watchmen also have an interest in what the girl can tell them about Remington Royce and his Suebi network. Would you be just as happy for him or your cousins to help her?"

"No! This is my story, my lead," he blurted without a thought about the consequences of his words and had to endure his father's knowing smile as his eyes danced with merriment.

"Alright, calm down," Armando chuckled. "Your uncles and I will help you to help her. You can call the shots where she is concerned, with our full backing, on two conditions." He paused, waiting for his son to look him in the eye and nod in agreement. before going on. "First, you admit to me that this heart attack you described was exactly like I experienced when I first met your mother. The knife in the gut moving up to the gorilla fist around your heart," he paused again and saw the truth of that shared pain in Genesis' eyes. "Second, go along with the story of the curse breaker even if you don't believe it yourself. Not one man in this family would be game to stand in the way of the curse. Bad things happen when you try to fight it, or so they say."

"Fine. I have the same genetic disorder, heart condition, indigestion, whatever, as you," Genesis admitted grudgingly. "It hurt like hell, so 'curse' is as good as any word for it. That doesn't mean that I believe that the men in our family are cursed to suffer for their one true love. Or that anyone has just one true love. If you want to call my heart attack a curse, so be it."

"Good man, but Helena is pretty sure you didn't have a heart attack which is why she called me. Now, here are my immediate thoughts given what you have told me," Armando drew a pen from his pocket and searched the desk in the small consultation room for something to write on.

"You need that bodyguard to answer some questions. Interrogate her about how you get the girl to respond to people trying to help her. We're about to start picking up the Suebi, so you need to work on the priest and get every detail about the man who confessed the story about the girl. You need to contact her family. Not to do so would be wrong and could cause rifts between the families, but there are ways around letting them take her away. There is also a Papillo trauma specialist here to work with the Vitali leaders. I will send her down to consult with you." Armando was all business, and Genesis blinked in awe. Even though the new table had been announced as a safeguard against an attack such as the Donati family suffered, the older members were still not ready to retire, so little had been expected of any of the younger members except Dominic and Xavier, the heirs apparent.

"The watchmen are all pretty busy," Genesis said dubiously. "I would need some help from them, or at least access to their resources."

"Your Uncle will give you what you need, just ask. He can spare a man or two for you given the circumstances," Armando said. "No doubt he will want the information the girl can give as much as you do, considering who she was about to marry."

"Shit, we heard! Are you okay?" Gideon boomed as he burst into the small room, taking up a large amount of space, not only with his physique but also his larger-than-life personality. Genesis grimaced as he looked at his brother. This was getting worse by the moment.

"You should tell your brothers. They will be your biggest supporters if you do. Trust me on that," Armando chuckled again and clapped his son on the shoulder. "I'll go and see about that trauma specialist and get her to call you." He stood up and winked at Gideon before chuckling and leaving the room.

Genesis looked at his older brother and tried to reassure him that he was quite well and that he knew he was needed by his family during the location and arrest of the Suebi underground network that had orchestrated the nationwide attack on the Mothers of the Tables While their own family had taken the warning seriously and nullified the threat before anyone could get close to his Aunt or the wife of his cousin, Xavier, others had been injured. The mother of the Vitali table had also been airlifted from the desert airport of the Papillo to Darwin, and that had put extra pressure on the Zenati family's medical resources. He had just felt a strange twinge and wanted it checked out, that was all.

"A your-heart-stopped type of twinge?" Gideon's eyes widened.

"No, not like that, but I was in the hospital following a lead at the time, so I just asked Helena to check me out to make sure it wouldn't happen again," Genesis sighed. God! Were all of the men of his family crazy when it came to believing in this stupid curse? Against his better judgement, he began to explain how he had become involved with Bob Rossi and Serena Seabrook. The fact was that his father was right; he felt an unbelievably strong pull from deep within him to help the girl. He refused to believe it was a curse but rather, as his father had pointed out, that he had a hero complex and always championed the cause of the weak and vulnerable, and said as much to his big brother.

"So, this mysterious guy goes to confession and tells this Father Bob about a girl who was brainwashed. Then Bob comes to you with this story, and you think 'Great! Here's a way to bring down a man we believe is a main player in the Suebi organisation.' Have I got it right so far?" Gideon asked.

"Yeah, that about covers it, though she wasn't just brainwashed. Royce systematically destroyed her old life. He created a new identity for her and made her believe it and live it through the use of drugs, torture and brainwashing. She believes she is Serena Seabrook and that Olivia Gambaro was murdered by bad men. She believes that she is in love and was about to marry the man of her dreams, who did this to her, when she was injured," Genesis said disgustedly. The information he had came from Bob, but he had no reason to doubt the earnest priest, and what he had seen of the girl seemed to confirm what he had been told.

"But the guy is brain-dead. Machines are keeping him alive. He isn't a threat anymore and can't give us any useful information. So why not just hand this girl over to the experts that know how to deal with this sort of shit?" Gideon asked. "The girl got a bad deal, but we can send her to the Papillo or the Battaglia hospitals where they are set up for this type of thing. I am sure her family would be glad to know she is alive. Why do you want to get involved in helping a woman who is possibly damaged beyond repair?" Gideon needed his brother to admit the real reason out loud. He could already see it in his eyes and his movements, but he needed to hear his brother say it before committing himself to the cause.

"A priest asked me, and I gave my word," Genesis shrugged. The fact that the moment he had walked into the hospital room and seen the fragile-looking woman he had determined that he would be the one to help her was beside the point. Bob had spent hours trying to get her to talk and eat, but she had ignored him and Genesis as if they didn't exist. According to the doctors and nurses, the only time she interacted with the hospital staff at all was through her bodyguard, Leila Miles.

"So what? Priests always ask us to go to church every Sunday. It doesn't mean we show up," Gideon chuckled and leaned back in his chair. "Why don't you just admit the curse is real, even though you have gone out of your way to prove it wrong?"

"You should have seen her, Gideon. She's the epitome of the lost lamb, as Bob called her. She looks terrified of everything and everybody. I just wanted to make her see that we were just trying to help her, that we meant her no harm," Genesis tried to explain. "She's on pain medication for her injuries, but she is being sedated as well because she is so distressed about being separated from Royce, even though they have explained the situation to her several times."

"She's your curse breaker, isn't she?" Gideon asked again, not letting his brother dismiss the subject. "You would know if she was. Tell me what happened when you saw her. Did your heart really stop?"

"The curse is bullshit, and you know it," Genesis shook his head in denial.

"Seriously? You tell me this story. You obviously want and need my help and expect me to believe she's not your curse breaker?" Gideon chuckled. "Go on then, pick any Zenati man, any of them, no matter how far removed, and tell me about how they met their wife and if they claim their heart stopped because she was in danger or hurt."

"You can twist any of those stories to make it sound like the curse was at work," Genesis sighed.

"Just admit she is your curse breaker. Admit what you felt when you first saw her and I will move heaven and earth to help you. So will Noah. Hell, I can't imagine anyone in the family wouldn't help you," Gideon chuckled. "We Zenati only get one shot at this love thing, and if you mess it up because you can't accept that the men of our family are cursed, then nothing I can do will help you. So, tell me what really happened when you walked into that hospital room."

"I got your message. What's going on?" Noah, the third of the three brothers ambled into the room and flopped into a chair.

"Gen found his curse breaker," Gideon announced.

"Yeah? Didn't think you were a believer," Noah chuckled, looking at Genesis.

"I'm not! I had a twinge," Genesis grumbled. "I just want to help this one girl, okay? It's no different to what I did for any of the girls from that trafficking ring."

"You couldn't hand those girls over to immigration fast enough," Noah laughed. "Can I take it you want to hand this girl over to someone? Have you called the police?"

"The police are already involved as well as a macho, motorbike-riding priest, and the guy we think is the leader of the Suebi in this territory," Gideon explained and grinned at Noah, as his eyebrows continued to rise with each person named, making Genesis groan. Gideon told Noah the story as he saw it, leaving out a few pertinent facts, but Genesis found that he couldn't deny any of the things Gideon had said.

"Alright. So tell me your version then, if she isn't your curse breaker," Noah asked the grumbling Genesis.

"She hasn't even looked at me nor will she talk to me. Gideon has lost his mind with all this curse bullshit," Genesis appealed to his younger brother. "He just uses the curse as an excuse for not dating."

"Okay, so why am I here?" Noah asked.

"I need your help," Genesis sighed as both brothers grinned widely at him. "Fine, you're as bad as Papa. Call it a curse or a gift or whatever, but I need your help to help her."

*****

"The prognosis isn't good," Vivienne Papillo said sadly. She came to the hospital to help the Vitali deal with all that had occurred at the Papillo airport and the seriousness of Theresa's condition. She was an expert on trauma-related psychosis, one of the best in her field, and when she had heard of the girl and her story, she had readily agreed to help. "It's my opinion that she truly believes in her new identity and that Remington owned her body and soul. She is unwavering in that or her love for the man, which is why she is refusing to interact with anyone but the bodyguard he put in place himself. The only way that woman gets her to acknowledge anyone is to call her by the assumed name and tell her Remy wants her to speak to them. Even then, Serena will just shut down after a few words, as if she knows that he wouldn't have told her to answer whatever question was being posed."

Genesis nodded. He had assumed as much from the few words that he had managed to overhear before she fell silent, as if at some unspoken command. It was as if there were trigger words that would just shut her down, and he had expressed as much to Vivienne when she had agreed to help in treating Serena.

"I will need to look into it a little further. I know of only a few cases where this much damage was done to a woman's personality. This isn't really my speciality area of trauma-related psychosis, but I am well aware of the research and able to advise you. I wish I knew what sort of medication they used on her. Perhaps in the roundup we might find the man who knew about her treatment? The one who confessed his sins might be forthcoming again?" she asked.

"If the Tatar are as good as they appear to be, there's a possibility that they could find the chemist himself," said Genesis, who had already thought about this and trying to find a way to reverse the effects of the brainwashing. It appeared to be complete though. There didn't seem to be any trace of the girl who had once been Olivia Gambaro. Her sister was arriving tomorrow, and he hoped the familiarity of a close familial bond would help her.

"Hmm, I will have to follow that up. It's fascinating that the new identity has completely erased who she once was," Vivienne continued to muse over the problem.

"If I buy you lunch, will you tell me about these other cases?" Genesis asked. "I want to help this woman. I just need to find a way to reach her."

"I can tell you a little, but as I said, I would need to do some further investigation into how the girls have responded to the treatments we recommended in each case," Vivienne agreed reluctantly. She used 'we' in the broad sense because, while she knew of the cases, she hadn't been involved in any real work with them.

"There were treatments though, so that is a good sign," he smiled and, leaving his brother watching over the girl who slept once again, he guided Vivienne from the hospital to a nearby restaurant. The pair remained quiet during the short walk, both deep in their own thoughts about how to treat Serena.

Genesis was relentless in his questions and was quick to pick up on what was left unspoken. They spent a long time over lunch discussing the few cases of extreme brainwashing that Vivienne claimed to have researched, if not consulted on, though she never qualified that specifically.

"I don't see how you could use any of those treatments, seeing as the man who bound her to him is lying in a coma," Vivienne finally shrugged helplessly. "Even if you were willing to take on such an arduous task, honestly, you don't seem ruthless enough to carry through with what would be needed. That's only if you could find a way around the issue of consent for a change of ownership, even temporarily."

"Ruthless?' he frowned at the woman.

"These men created the perfect woman in their eyes. They cut away their strengths like you would sever a decaying limb from a tree. They find and exploit all of their weaknesses and strip them bare of any self-worth that might make them rebel against what is happening to them. All their insecurities, their loneliness, their failures in careers and with the people they cared for, all are used against them. From the sound of it, this girl had hit rock bottom on her own when Remington took her, and she was easily exploited and broken down further until she was totally reliant on him for everything in her life, every decision, every thought." She tried desperately to explain better how deeply Serena was damaged and what would be needed.

"What would have happened if he was busy or detained? He didn't have her with him twenty-four hours a day. The bodyguard we took into custody said she worked at a restaurant while Remington went to his offices each day. He kept her separate from his business dealings and subterfuge apparently," Genesis said.

"If that's true then he would have put people in place to watch over her, the bodyguard perhaps, but she would have had limited power. Maybe, if he had a second, they might be able to broker a change of ownership, or even someone she saw as her boss at her job might have the power to do it," she said thoughtfully. "But it would have to be done in front of the comatose man for her to understand that Remington was not going to come for her anytime soon and that this was a necessary process she had to accept. It would depend on how much control the second or boss was allowed over her when Remington left her with them. They may have to tell her that when and if Remington recovered he would come for her, which opens up a whole other can of worms for you to navigate," she sighed.