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Jada considered, pursing her lips. "Four would be a good start," she said cheerfully. "I can always spread them out, and re-evaluate between spawn. It's hard to go completely insane when you have a competent nanny, however. their sanity may be in doubt, but I'll still get to enjoy all the good parts." like holding them when they had a nightmare, teaching them to read, listening to them babble about their day, and worry over how all the school activities were going to go. All the things she would never get to do for Hope.

Her laugh was automatic, but the darkness in her eyes was hard to hide. She still ran at monsters, and some corner of her mind sometimes hoped she wouldn't get to run away. That maybe one day she'd encounter the wrong person, and the darkness that lurked in the bulging cracks of a splintering heart would ooze out and take away everything that had been Jada. She sucked in another breath, puffing it out.

At the revelation he was dating, sort of, Jada smiled, reaching out to squeeze his hand. The Audrey- the Daphne- she knew had loved Elzo. It hadn't all been pretty, but- "I'll have to meet them," she said with a warm smile. "They won't be bothered by us making a wee fuss in Rome, will they?" instant concern- no amount of knife-twisting would be worth poking a needle at his relationship.

As for her cook- Jada blinked at him, mouth dropping in a silent oh s**t. "I just told her the truth. I'm a lonely single mother with two children, a cat, and an extended family that barely likes itself. My father helped with the twins, but it got harder and harder- they look like their father. Lucas and Zora can't stand the lies. Was never very close to my parents' aunts and uncles, much less the army of russian and irish cousins. And once she saw me trying to cook, she realized I would likely burn the house down."

Jada kind of felt bad. But this was life or death. "We're doing macaroni every Tuesday," she said after a moment, generous to the last. "You can come over for a regular dinner." Footsteps on the stairs, a cadence she knew wasn't Giulia. Giulia had more energy. Aidan had more purpose. "So, Elzo," she asked him, hearing the feet draw nearer, "How much do you want to stick it to your dad?"

He wouldn't have a chance to answer before Aidan burst into the room, darker hair than Giulia's but those same bright blue eyes, and flung himself over the back of the couch, flailing heels over head into her lap. "Jada! Mommy, don't believe Giulia, okay? I saw what happened." he flopped his head backwards onto her chest, snuggling into her lap, and grabbed at the cat, peering up at Elzo. "Mom, who's he? Do we finally get a dad?"

"Oi!" Jada protested, "I'm dad enough, thank you, young sir. Aidan, meet Elzo. He's a friend." Jada looked at Elzo over Aidan's head, waiting for him to realize what was clearly there.

Jada knew the moment Elzo realized what she hadn't told anyone. It was hard to hide. It was part of why they had moved around so much. Why they hadn't been back to Italy with her since... why she had an entire army of lawyers fighting tooth and nail over a piece of paper. Aidan's smile was huge, bright, and unclouded, and his eyes lit up at the sound of another pair of footsteps darting into the room. "Mama, don't you believe Aidan!" Giulia declared promptly upon seeing Jada, and then gave a furious gasp at the sight of her sibling half-hidden on her lap. "I can't believe-"

"Giulia, shhh, come here. Come meet Elzo. It's been a long time since you've seen him." Giulia slipped around the couch, straw-gold hair and bright blue eyes that were identical to her brother's; having so much curl to her hair, and so much of Szelem in her face that she could have passed for Jada and Elzo's daughter, not their half-sister.

"Did you steal his cook, Jada?" Aidan's voice was a chirp.

"On accident." Jada gave her friend a wry smile, but doubted he saw it through seeing himself in the little boy on her lap.

"You can't let him go without dessert on macaroni night!" Giulia decided, plaintively, dislodging the cat and clambering onto Elzo's lap. "We'll make dessert when he gets here and then when dinner is over, the dessert should be baked. Do you like brownies, Elzo?"

"How about you go do your homework and tell chef to expect one more for dinner tonight, just to be on the safe side? Elzo and I have some more to talk about." twin noises of protest, grumbling.

Jada bit into her lower lip, watching Elzo's face. He was doing such a decent job of staying neutral, right up until Giulia climbed into his lap, and even Jada could feel her eyes stinging. She'd done her best to protect them- all of them. It was part of why she had been so careful, moved around with them so much, not let them be in the public eye, but not in a place long enough... but they deserved more. They deserved to be children, now when it was going to matter the most. And Elzo deserved to know that not everything had been tainted by his father.

"Will you let me play with your hair now?" Giulia asked sweetly, giving Elzo a bright smile, staring at him with matching eyes. "And she can be very mean. Do you know she wouldn't let me buy a mini pony? And she still hasn't gotten us a puppy." But Giulia slid off his lap, trailing a tiny hand over his bright silvery hair with awe. He did look like a grandpa, or like- "Sophie! Mama, he has hair like Sophie, from the um- the Castle movie!"

"Kind of!" Jada replied cheerfully, and sent both kids off with a kiss. Aidan gave Elzo a small wave, and then ran off with his sister, who was carrying Cat-stor, shutting the door with a loud bang.

And for a moment there was silence, and Jada's exhale felt loud in the room, the freezing New Year's breeze blowing in through the open window. Her skin goosebumped, and she blew out another breath. "I was hoping to break it to you a little differently," she told him, and there wasn't any false pep in her tone. "I couldn't keep it hidden much longer. They deserve a little more of a solid life than the wandering around we've been doing."

She had asked him how much he wanted to stick it to his dad, and right now- wondered just how angry he might be at her, as well.

"I've handled Giovanni before, and as long as I'm still rich, dubiously single, and arguably attractive, he hasn't pulled out too many of the sharks." He might have physically stalked her, he might not have. She'd spent too much time in too many parties she couldn't' remember well. Gotten sick from things she knew she hadn't taken. "But I'm getting tired of pretending to tolerate his little games; and after four years, even my waterfall of lawyers is running dry on excuses to avoid the paternity tests."

Even the one she had seen, and set on fire. Any idiot with eyes could tell that those children were related to Giovanni Xanis. But whether they were his children, that was another matter. "As for what your father has or hasn't done to me-" her hand curled over her belly, knuckles white. "That's a fight between the two of us, and I'm... admittedly on the defensive."

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "In a DNA test, a father and son share enough DNA that it can regularly show a false positive in the test," she said after a full, long minute. "Identical twins are also unable to be determined, since all the genetic markers are identical. Unless your father has an identical twin who isn't an a*****e-"

Jada sucked in her breath. "If the test comes out, I wouldn't be able to win. I'm just the sister, even if mother's will was clear. Giovanni is their father, and I'm a young, single woman with a... history that he would rake through the mud. Now, how much of that history I let him orchestrate- doesn't matter." she kept her eyes closed, focusing on the breath in, the breath out. "They don't have much that was left in their name, and he doesn't know that. I could keep him from most of it using technical legalities- their trusts in my name he would have to fight for, the fact I inherited most of mother's things, to care for the child."

She waved her hand. Elzo had asked how. What she had in mind... "You said you were ill-suited to be a father, so how about you not go it alone?" her voice was wry, the proposal not.... a tasteful one. "It would be an easy matter to place your name on that line."

It would be Game. Set. Match.

"I want you to claim them," she confirmed, and she didn't sound very happy about it. "I was hoping you'd be able to produce some magical Xanis brother, honestly, but beggers can't be choosers. I don't know what your-" she bit her tongue, visibly, preventing herself from insulting Elzo's parentage too much. "I don't know what Giovanni has planned, but when I came back to Destiny City, I knew he'd step up his game."

His eyes were closed, and Jada looked away. What she was asking him wasn't kind. It was a bad friend who had to resort to such things, but for the twins... Jada needed backups on her backups. She would see Giovanni killed before he got his hands on those babies. "Giulia and Aidan are happy, Elzo. It's the one thing I've done right in my life, keeping them that way. I won't let him have them." she would do whatever she had to in order to keep them safe. Lie. Cheak. Kill. Make a soul-shattering deal with Giovanni Xanis to keep him away.

"I don't expect there would be any walking back," she said simply. "You would have paternal rights. My father would know it is bullshit, of course. He knows full well which Xanis knocked up my mother. But he wouldn't argue it. And your father could try and continue to take custody, but he would be approaching from needing to provide proof that he is the father, or he would have to abandon that tactic and apply for custody as a grandparent, which... is distinctly different when a legally competent father and a mother's will both support a different caretaker."

Unless Elzo would want custody. Hopefully it wouldn't-

"I think," she said after a moment, "That the media will think you're a lucky b*****d; or that we're not actually in love, and I've wooed you to try and keep the children-- and you're still a lucky b*****d." Jada cast him a quick, toothy smile.

The look he gave her was one she had been on the receiving end of far more than she would ever share, and the instinct to give him the same doe-eyed look she gave his father was firmly ramped down. "You know I can handle that b*****d if I have to. It is just a long game, and there aren't many ways I can win for 11 more years." She wasn't playing a game with Elzo, wasn't fighting him.

"I haven't made that promise," she told him simply, "and it has crossed my mind more than once, Elzo. You might not care about what they have, but you know he does." Jada closed her eyes. She had lost so much. Hope. Her family, tearing itself apart because of her secrets, big and small. "They are all I have, Elzo. They are the only things keeping me clean, and on the straight and narrow, reminding me why it wouldn't be better to just- I won't lose them. I don't care how long I have to fight, what I have to do, or what devils I have to sell body and soul to. I am keeping them safe, and happy."

She opened her eyes to his shaking, and in a moment she was dropping herself into his lap, wrapping her arms around him until was probably quite squished. "You are gonna deal with this hug," she informed him briefly. Elzo was... family. "I am so sorry I kept them from you," she said after a moment, and her voice was thick.

"You should have been able to know them sooner. I should have told you when you came back." She dropped her head to his shoulder, still wrapping her hug around him. "I am so sorry you had to wait so long, and meet them like this."

And it wasn't the worst of the things she hid from him- or from Marlo. But Hope was dead, and telling them about her would bring them nothing but pain; Aidan and Giulia were alive and had been hidden from their own family for the few years Jada had been certain.

"I am so sorry, Elzo. I hope you understand, even if you are angry with me." God, she should have chosen another name for her daughter. She couldn't stop the shake in her voice when she said the word, anymore than she could stop the fact she was suddenly crying.

s**t.

She had needed a hug, she didn't even care that she was the one giving it. Jada was a social creature, who had been feeling alone for far too long, and she clung to her friend, desperately hoping she wasn't losing another one

He hugged her back, and she clung to him with a soft wail, burying her face in his neck. Jada still barely spoke any Italian, more than the little she had tried to learn when- so she understood very little of the words pouring from his lips. But they weren't angry words. They weren't hate.

She clung to the branch of affection like someone drowning, clear desperation in the shake of her limbs and the clench of her slender hands. He kissed her face, and she didn't even twitch to protest, because ********, she needed the cuddle, and the confirmation she hadn't well and truly messed up everything in her life.

He rocked her, and she curled into his frame, closing her eyes. "Thank you," she told him, clinging to him. "Thank you." some of the weight that had been pressing her down was lifted. She believed him. Elzo would protect them. That was what big brothers did, right? She inhaled deeply, puffing out air.

"I-" how to even... How could she say thank you? "Giulia likes seals," she said instead, something frantic fueling her, she needed to say it- "and Aidan is a mommy's boy. And- if something- if something happens to me, Lucas is the only one who can get Giulia to eat her brussel sprouts, and Zora tells their favorite stories, and- if that- nightmare future happens, take them with you."

She wouldn't live through it again. She wouldn't watch them all die, she would go down swinging, and needed to know-

But it could wait. Jada closed her eyes, sucking in a frozen breath. "I'm so sorry I didn't let you know sooner. It Ihas been..." a wry laugh escaped her. "Giovanni has been keeping me on my toes. The law is on his side, and I hadn't resorted to bribing him yet, or giving in to-."

She leaned in, pressing a sisterly loss to his forehead, trying to control her breathing. "Thank you, Elzo." He was the best ally she could have hoped for, and the fact he hadn't raged...