- 8 5 -

"I'm right here, don't lose hope, angel." His voice was like a sweet murmur and a soft melody to my ears as I searched blindly for him.

"But it's over." I whispered back into the darkness.

"It's never over. We just started. Our life together just started..." He tells me and I faintly see his hand reaching for my face, blurry and vague.

"Wake up, angel." I hear him say and nuzzle my face into his palm.

"Wake up." I hear someone say and my eyes shoot open, blinking rapidly to adjust to the bright light of my surroundings before looking at a plain room, peach coloured walls, big windows and larger curtains, dainty white furniture and a familiar figure.

"Igor?" I rasp and try to sit up, clutching the side of my neck with a wince.

"Careful, you were drugged." He says calmly and I frown, sitting up properly and looking around my surroundings.

"Where am I?" I ask when another voice speaks from somewhere.

"My house." I look towards another familiar figure sitting leisurely on the couch with one leg crossed over the other, his cold brown eyes scrutinising me.

Wait a damn minute.

"What the hell? Are you two working together?" I ask in complete and utter disbelief and when neither of them answer, it confirms my suspicions.

"How could you?" I turn to Igor, my voice cracking at the end.

"How could I?" He walks towards me and I back up.

"He killed my mother." I said and he looked away.

"I know." He said and my heart dropped.

"You knew." I stated in disbelief when he nodded once and I scoffed.

"And you claimed to love me." I said with a laugh, tugging slightly at my hair in shock.

What the actual hell?

"I do love you." He said, his eyebrows furrowing when I crossed my arms over my chest in fury.

Oh for fuck's sake.

"And yet, you're here with the enemy." I sneered and he took a threatening step towards me but I didn't back away this time, I stared head on into his stubborn eyes.

He won't hurt me.

"What about you, huh? Let's not forget the fact that you've been sleeping with the son of the man who murdered your mother in cold blood. Does that not matter?" He said with a venomous tone.

"It wasn't his fault. It was his father's." I gritted out with clenched teeth when Igor crossed his arms over his chest and smirked.

"It's not my fault either, sweetheart. We're even." He threw back and I fisted the blanket on me, not once looking away.

"As fun as this little lover's quarrel has been, I'd like to move on now." Ferruccio Angelo stood up from his place, fixing his dark blazer and walked a few steps towards me.

"If I may have some privacy." He looked towards Igor who nodded once and my eyes widened.

As much as I hated Igor, I wasn't scared of him.

I wasn't scared of Ferruccio either, but he had done something a seven year old was not supposed to go through or see.

I would rather be alone with my psychotic ex than this psychotic serial murderer who also happened to be my fiance's dearest father.

"You do anything stupid, old man—" Igor warned and Ferruccio chuckled, shaking his head.

"You don't have to worry about me stepping out of line—" He looked towards me and smirked.

"You should worry about your little girlfriend here." He said and I looked away immediately, clutching the sheets tighter as Igor threw me a 'don't-fuck-up-or-else' look before leaving the room.

It was nerve wracking, the little resemblance he had to Roman and it unnerved me at how I would handle this.

"So." He walked around the bed, standing a good few feet away from me. "How should we start off? Or where, should we start off?" He said and I rolled my eyes.

"At the beginning?" I raised my brows and he smirked, grabbing a chair and getting comfortable on it.

"As you suggest, cara mia."(My dear) He said and I looked away from his penetrating gaze.

"I was a young fool in love when I met Isabella all those years ago. She was a breath of fresh air."

"I remember watching a performance of hers my family had dragged me to and there she was, in all her glory, dancing her heart out." He looked somewhere in the distance, as if he was reliving the past.

"We met, we talked. I couldn't keep my eyes or my mind off her." I gagged internally, looking anywhere but at him.

Disgusting.

"And then I stupidly fell for her. Imagine that, a big bad mafia boss falling in love. But you can, can't you?" He looked right at me, or perhaps through me, and I knew he was referring to Roman.

"I don't know what spell you've put on my son, but he's gone mad. The same way I was. Like mother, like daughter, huh?" He chuckled humourlessly and I made a disgusted face.

"What's your point?" I asked him and he shrugged.

"The point? I have no idea, actually. I guess we can say the point is that all is fair in love and war." He said and stood up walking over to the window, he clasped his hands behind his back, looking out.

"I loved her, I really did. But she left me. Got married. Had children. I did see her again, you know, when she was expecting her first child." He said. I know.

"She became friends with my wife, Lilac." He chuckled, turning to me with a baffled look on his face when I gulped.

"Can you fucking believe that? As fate would have it, they became friends! And that, my dear, is how I met her again." He shook his head at the absurdity of the situation as I let his words sink in.

"I begged her, I really did. I said I'd accept her child as my own, marry her, love her, give her everything she needed or wanted, but guess what?" He looked at me with an incredulous look.

She refused! Said she loved her husband, not me! That she could never do such a thing to a friend of hers, to my wife!" He yelled and I flinched.

"She told my wife, who confronted me but I didn't deny it. No, I admitted my love for Isabella in front of everyone. I told them I loved her! The wife of the Russian mob boss!" He said, a madness swirling in his eyes that scared the shit out of me.

"But did I get her? No. Did she at least love me back? No. She said she cared, but not loved. She never loved me. You know what that's like, don't you? To love someone with your whole life and then they betray you?" He turned towards me and I froze.

"Yes." I mumbled under my breath, fisting the sheets tightly.

"Fate has a weird way of doing things, doesn't it? It played with me, made me fall for a woman who could never be mine. Made her friends with my wife. Then I murder her, because if she wasn't mine, she was no one else's either." He spoke bitterly and I gulped, fighting back the tears.

"And then, it surprises us even more!" He walks towards me and I could have sworn I saw his eyes soften the longer he gazed at me.

"Fate made our children fall in love with each other." He whispered, running his hand over my head as he twirled a lock of my hair around his finger while I shut my eyes closed.

Please don't kill me.

"You look just like her. Like my Isabella." He said and I kept my mouth shut, knowing if I said something back, he'd kill me in an instant.

"Fate has a weird way of messing with your head. Here you are, the daughter of the woman I loved and then killed, madly in love with my son who is ready to die, and kill his own father for you! Such a tragedy." He said, moving away from me and walking towards the door.

"A tragedy indeed." He murmured to himself as he left the room, locking the door behind him.

I let the tears fall then, clutching my chest as I cried and cried and cried, for my mother, for Lilac, for myself, for Roman, for our future.

Will we even have one now?

- A N T O N - S O L O N I K - E L I A S -

"Sweetheart, go to the room and rest." I tell Ana as she taps her foot nervously on the ground, her eyes snapping to meet mine from where she is pacing.

"I can't, Anton. Heather, she could be anywhere, with that son of a—" She takes a deep breath as I open my arm for her and she walks over to me, snuggling into my chest.

"I know, love, I know. I'm worried too, but we'll find her. Don't stress too much, it's not good for your health." I stroke her hair tenderly.

"I can't help it." She whispers when my eyes meet Alex's and he purses his lips. I know what that look means. No luck.

"Go, stay close to Maria." I tell her and she knows better than to argue as she nods once and leaves the room, just as Roman comes back in with a bandage around his arm and Enzo gets up from his place.

"Are you feeling bett—"

"Any news? Anything?" His eyes move from mine to Alex's to Ivan's in desperation when I release a breath and shake my head.

"Not yet." I say and he nods once, his eyes glaring holes at the wall and his jaw clenched.

"Fucking find her before the day ends or I'll end the both of you." He snarls to Enzo and Gabriel who nod once and get to work with their tech buddy whose name I couldn't care less about. Also because I forgot it.

I watch as the Italian walks over to his seat and slumps on it, opening his own laptop and harshly pressing keys on it, getting to work as I move next to Ivan who was busy on his phone and hands it to me as I put it on speaker.

"Viktor. Any leads?" I say, hoping, praying, my sister is alright and that we find her in time before anything else happens.

"We caught three of their men, two Russian and an Italian. They refuse to talk, though. Where should I bring them?"

"Here." Roman's voice makes me look at him and I nod after a moment.

"The Italian estate. Get them here as soon as possible." I say.

"Will do, boss. And uh—" He says and I wait for him to continue impatiently.

"You father, sir, he's—" I cut him off, looking at Alex who stads up worried.

"I'll deal with him. Just get the men here for now." I tell him and end the call.

"Go home, take care of dad and our uncles. Take Ivan with you." I tell Alex who nods once.

"Do we tell them everything?" He fixes his blazer and I nod.

"We need all the help we can can get, all the favours we're owed. And a lot of fucking people owe dad and Mikhail." I say and Alex nods, looking at Roman who stares right back.

"Better not fuck this up then." He says looking at Roman who doesn't answer, getting back to work as they both leave.

"You're marrying her." I say after a while of making endless phone calls and directing security.

"And?" Roman looks up from his phone as he ends the call he was previously on as I take a deep breath, my hands twitching to grab the gun in my belt and shoot someone. Anyone.

"You know why that can't happen." I say, crossing one leg over the other as he taps his fingers on his table in a steady rhythm that echoes in my mind like a dull headache.

"Says the brother she thought was dead and it was her fault he died." He said and I gritted my teeth, narrowing my eyes at him as anger coursed through my veins.

"Says the man whose father killed her mother and left her as a sign of mercy." I snapped at him and he stood up, grabbing my collar.

"Don't you fucking dare bring that bastard in this." He snarled at me, his tone deadly and his voice deeper with the anger brimming in his eyes.

"She's with that fucking psycho father of yours because of you." I smirked at him and he chuckled humourlessly.

"No, she's with her psycho ex because you were too much of a pussy to end him yourself." He sneered at me, leaving my collar and straightening his blazer as my nostrils flared.

"Your bitch has brought those traitors, they're in the basement." He said and walked out of the room.

"He was talking about Viktor, not your girlfriend." Enzo said, trying to clear up things when I glared at him and he backed up a step with a sheepish look.

"I fucking know that, you dumb fuck." I snapped and got up from my place and followed Gabriel down to the basement.

My men followed me, Viktor meeting me in the basement and nodding at me once as I looked in front at the three tied up men.

Roman stood leaning against a table with a cigarette dangling from his lips and smoke around him as his eyes met mine.

He reached into his pocket and tossed me one too, making me smirk as I lit it up and took a deep breath.

This was going to be entertaining.