What the fuck is this…Why can't they just make three buttons?
James thought as he stood in the new house, staring at the control panel. It was far more complicated than the one in the other house, with more touchscreens.
So what do you do when you know nothing about it?
Just press everything until something actually happens.
He tapped one of the icons, and suddenly, the window shutters rolled down and the whole living room became dark.
"James?" Bella's voice came from behind him.
He turned toward her. "Oh, Bella, can you help me?"
"Yeah, what do you need?" She stepped closer, looking at the panel.
"I just want to turn on the air conditioning, but this thing does everything except that."
She looked at the screen for a moment, then pressed one of the icons. The air conditioning switched on instantly. With another tap, the shutters rolled back up.
"See? It's easy, just one press." She said with a smile.
"I feel like a boomer looking at this thing." James whispered with a smile.
Bella laughed. He truly looked clueless.
"Well, welcome to the modern world, grandpa."
James just smiled and went to sit down on the sofa. Bella followed, sitting beside him.
After a second of silince she spoke.
"Are you really going to meet that guy?"
"Yeah. After all, hewrote more than ten letters by hand, he's got dedication."
"But he's still the NSBI director…"
"Don't worry, I'm meeting him in a safe spot." James leaned back, relaxing. "Anyway, I saw I was trending online, but then it all disappeared. Was that you?"
"Yeah." She leaned on his shoulder. "I used a little trick to delete all the posts about you."
"There's a program, some AI-powered thing, that spams the accounts that posted about you. The websites detect the activity as bot behavior and delete the posts automatically."
"Wow, I never knew about that." He said, leaning his head against Bella's.
"Yeah, it's a pretty new technology, but it's really useful for getting those fuckers off your back."
James hummed in thought before asking, "Where's Ferucci? I haven't seen him in weeks, only heard about what he's been up to."
"He's still blaming himself for not being there to protect you. I told him a hundred times that he's not your bodyguard, but he won't listen."
"That idiot… I never asked him to be my bodyguard."
"I know, but he sees it differently. He thinks he failed you."
James leaned back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. "Where is he now?"
"Last I heard, he's been handling some business. Probably trying to distract himself." Bella said.
"So instead of talking to me, he's out there butchering?"
He is really a maniac after all.
"I will speak with him but now I need to find Charlotte, she wants to talk to me about something."
He stood up, but as he looked back at Bella, he noticed her smiling at him with a slight blush on her face.
"Nothing. Just go and see her." She smiled, still blushing slightly.
James didn't think much of it and left to find Charlotte.
James finally found Charlotte in the backyard, sitting on the grass with a pile of colorful building blocks in front of her. She was completely focused, carefully stacking them into what looked like a tiny castle.
"Charlotte." James called.
She looked up at him, her bright eyes lighting up as she smiled. "Look, I made a house!" She pointed proudly at her creation.
James chuckled, crouching down. "Not bad. But where's the door?"
"Oh… I forgot." She quickly grabbed another block and tried to fix it.
James smirked. "So, Bella said you wanted to talk to me?"
Charlotte nodded, then patted the grass next to her. "Sit first."
He raised an eyebrow but sat down anyway. "Alright, I'm here. What's up?"
"I want to be a Bellini!"
James blinked, taken aback by Charlotte's sudden outburst.
"You… want to be a Bellini?" He repeated, making sure he heard her right.
Charlotte nodded, her little hands clenched into fists. "Yes! I want to be part of the family! A real Bellini!"
James sighed. "Charlotte, you are part of the family. Why are you saying it like you're not?"
Charlotte shouted again. "No, I mean really part of it!"
James stared at her for a moment. "Charlotte… do you even know what that means?"
She nodded again, determined. "Yes! It means being strong! It means nobody can mess with me! And it means…" She hesitated before lowering her voice. "It means I'll never be alone again."
James felt a small pang in his chest at her words. He looked at the little girl in front of him, so young, yet already carrying thoughts too heavy for her age.
"You're not alone, Charlotte." He said. "You have me, Bella, and my mother."
"No. I want to be Bellini and not Augustus!
James froze for a moment, his smirk fading as he processed her words.
"You… don't want to be an Augustus?"
Charlotte shook her head. "No! I don't want that name! I want to be a Bellini!"
He hadn't expected this. Augustus, that was the name she was born with, the family she came from. But now, she was rejecting it completely.
"Because they don't care about me. You do. Bella does. Grandma does. You're my family."
"Charlotte..." He said after a moment, "you don't have to throw away your name to be one of us."
But I want to! The Bellinis are my real family! I don't want to be an Augustus anymore."
James just whatched her determined expression. He knew she meant every word, but this wasn't a decision to take lightly.
"Charlotte, that's your family. The blood in your veins, your history. If you throw it away, you're not just getting rid of a name, you're cutting ties with everything that made you."
She didn't hesitate. "It's okay. They didn't care about me anyway."
James studied her, his fingers tapping lightly against his knee.
She was just a kid, but the way she spoke, it wasn't the voice of someone making a childish decision out of anger.
"That's not something you can take back, you know."
"I don't want to take it back." Charlotte shot back. "I don't want to be an Augustus anymore!
James thought about it, he could make a phone call and her name would be changed but she was young to really understand the world around her.
"Heres the deal. When you turn eighteen and actually understand what it means to be a Bellini, then we'll make it official."
She huffed but didn't argue. Instead, she looked up at him with big, determined blue eyes. "Then I'll just have to grow up fast!"
If she became eighteen would be more than forty years old, huh…maybe she can take over the family.