“Thank you everybody for coming tonight” bellowed Marlon Bianchi over the gentle hum of chatter buzzing around the table before him “it’s a pleasure to have you all here celebrating with our sweet Gina”
As the reigning patriarch of the Bianchi family it had been a tough decision the day he opted to hand over the family restaurant empire to his youngest daughter.
Marlon had questioned whether Gina was ready at just 25 years old and if she truly understood how cut throat the industry really was but the spunky Italian girl had taken it in her stride.
That had been six months back now and the business was going from strength to strength and nobody was more proud than Marlon himself.
“And here she comes now!” beamed the family head as his prodigal daughter hip checked the swinging kitchen door, yet another platter of food cradled in one arm as Gina slid her phone into the back pocket of her jeans as she walked towards her applauding family.
“Oh papa, stop” cooed Gina with an almost blush “everybody eat before it goes cold”
“Always the worker” chuckled Marlon as he took his seat whilst Gina sidled round him to place the meat loaded platter amongst dishes of spiced rice, rich creamy hand made pastas and tortillas as well as multiple freshly cooked pizzas according to her family’s dough recipe.
“Sit down Gina, you’ve cooked us a feast” smiled her mother, Sofia, as she watched her daughter dote over various members of the family.
“I will mama, just...” started Gina as she came up behind her sister Isabella with an arm around her shoulders.
“Sit Gina” insisted her mother with a stern look and a hand instinctively shooting to a motherly hip.
“Yes mama” relented Gina as she took the empty seat next to Isabella, contented that everybody was filling their plates.
“You’ve done amazing sis, enjoy it” purred Isabella as she hungrily filled her plate, eating as much as she placed before it reached the plate.
“Thanks Iz” smiled Gina in return, placing a hand on her sister’s plush thigh.
With only three years between them you would expect Gina and Isabella to share a striking resemblance but those three years and a marriage on Isabella’s side had made quite the difference.
See, the female Bianchi genes have quite a unique trait in that at some point or another their metabolisms fade to nothing and all that Italian home cooking takes hold of the hips and never lets go.
So whilst Gina was quite the stunner with a svelte olive tinted figure that had served purpose in her aggressive social media presence in advertising the restaurant chain since she had taken charge of it with a large part of her client base possessing a healthy attraction to the young chef, Isabella was much more motherly in appearance.
To be more precise Isabella was knocking on the gates of 300lbs that very night in no small part to her doting husband and Gina’s own cooking which was all firmly settled around her hips and ass, not to mention the plump middle that was sprouting forth too.
Facially the sisters were easily linked with Isabella remaining thin around the cheeks and neck but that was where the physical similarities ended.
The elders weight gain did nothing to damage their relationship though and they were inseparable through each other’s successes.
“A toast” declared Marlon from the head of the table “to the next generation”
“Oh god” muttered Isabella under her breath as the entire family looked to her and Gina.
“Just breath, it’ll be over soon” teased Gina as the glasses rose around them.
“To the next generation” came the chorus of voices before a unified drink happened as the younger girls laughed to themselves.
“Thank you everybody” began Gina, rising from her seat at that point with a delicate dab at the corner of her lips with her napkin “I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for you all here and I hope to do you proud in the years to come”
There was a delicate rumble of acknowledgment and clapping at the sentiment as Gina smiled at the crowd of family surrounding her, instinctively putting a hand to the vibrating phone in her tight jeans pocket, knowing better than to pull it out.
“Now, everybody eat and enjoy” announced Gina as she returned to her seat, delicate decorum resuming as she took up her cutlery again in sync with the people around her.
“You not going to say anything sis?” teased Gina again, side glancing Isabella who was far too busy practically deep throating a self constructed burrito loaded with Mexican spiced meatballs and rice.
“Huh? No way” grunted Isabella around a mouthful of food, tossing thick black curls from her face as she did.
“Really? No, like, baby news or something?” Gina continued to tease, knowing her sister wasn’t pregnant nor even trying.
The senior Bianchi sister nearly did a spit take at that.
“Ha, I’m just enjoying being married to an awesome guy right now” replied Isabella with a dreamy smile “think you’re closer to popping the baby news than me sis”
“Yeah right” smirked Gina as she delicately dug in to her food.
“Well maybe not but it’d make a change to see you pop a button or two from those skinny jeans of yours” teased Isabella, returning to her food with gusto.
*****
‘Phew, Isabella might get that popped button sooner than she thinks if I’m not careful’ moaned Gina to herself as she unlocked the door to her apartment and flicked the hallway light on.
It was past midnight after a long night of celebrating the family’s new found success and Gina was ready to be free of day clothes and curled up in bed.
Not to mention she had some things to deal with.
Casually discarding her boots by the door and sliding her phone from within her jeans pocket, Gina trotted towards her bedroom and began reading over her messages.
Most of them were standard social media notifications with most of them gushing over either pictures of Gina herself or the numerous updates about the restaurants.
One though, an email to be specific, caught her eye.
The subject line simply read ‘GV’ and was from a garbled address that Gina was familiar with.
It hadn’t been easy getting Fiona into Gloria Vandergast’s operation Gina knew something had to be done to get an edge on her biggest competition.
After all her father had spent long enough lecturing her on the ruthless nature of business so she had to put the lesson to good use.
The email was a simple link that led to an encrypted drop box containing a combination of audio files, videos, photos and a document containing brief notes about what the rest of the files were.
Most of it would have to wait until the morning but Gina had enough energy in her to skim through the notes to get the gist of what Fiona had found whilst undercover.
Most of it was standard ‘chef stuff’ in the form of new recipes that Gloria had concocted which were too dangerous to risk copying, Vandergast would know for sure then, but most promising was Gloria’s expansion plans for her empire.
‘Oh boy, that could be a problem’ thought Gina as she discarded her phone along with the rest of her clothes aside from her underwear as she disappeared into the soft bedding she had been craving for the past few hours, wriggling her narrow hips in between the sheets.
‘I’ll find a way’ Gina told herself ‘papa always said that Bianchi’s find a way’
The reassuring thoughts were the last thing crossing her mind as she fell asleep, her business mind subconsciously ticking away as she fell into a gentle sleep.