Chapter 4

The next few hours, Alessio spent his time at work and he could not wait to get home to his woman. His friends had caught him lost in his thoughts more than once and tried to ask him what the matter was but he kept his mouth shut. That was until lunch hit and he took out his lunch box that they all looked at shocked.

“You’ve never packed lunch before, I knew that something was different you walked through those doors this morning but this… oh shit!” His best friend, Corey exclaimed. “Who is she?”

That question made the rest of their friends halt, a few of them even chocked on their drinks. Alessio couldn’t blame them though, he was after all known as the not dating type. He had never dated or even paid attention to women after his girlfriend broke his heart and humiliated him in college. That was over 13 years ago, since then he was scared to give his heart to someone but Avanya was different. She made him feel like he was on top of the world and he can’t breathe without her. He smiled when he thought about her, the way she accepted him even after he practically took her against her will. The way she did not feel disgusted with his submissive nature and was more than happy to take care of him…

A loud gasp snapped him out of his thoughts and his gaze fell on Corey who looked like he has seen a ghost,” Holy hell! You are blushing, you have to tell me who the fuck this woman is.” He probed.

The rest of their friends nodded too stunned to say a word, Alessio sighed, there was no point hiding this from them. They had been with him at his lowest and never once made him feel alone so with that thought, he narrated the story to them. Their expressions kept switching from shock, to pale then amusement before going back to shock again. By the time he was done, they were all gaping at him.” Well, that was unexpected,” Liana breathed. The others were still trying to process the information.

They were happy that Alessio finally found someone who accepted him just the way he was. They did not like the way he took her but were happy to know that he realized that he was in the wrong and did not hold her against her will. Not many people liked Alessio and he was even the victim of bullying back in school. His only friends and family were; Corey, Liana, Amaryllis, Deimos and Mingjue, all of them met in University. The five of them had witnessed Alessio being bullied and stood up for him. Later they discovered that he was an orphan so they decided to stick with him and protect him. They have been friends for more than 8 years now, Alessio was very thankful to them.

“So when are we meeting her?” Mingjue asked.

Alessio fidgeted with his hands before hesitantly looking up at the older, Lee Wang Mingjue was the owner of the construction company Alessio and his other friends were working at. With Corey being the CEO and Liana his PA. Alessio was just content being a project manager. Mingjue founded the company however, the other five were there to support him from the beginning. He wanted them to be his partners but they refused since they contributed little effort in raising the money to fund the company. Deimos and Amaryllis chose a different field than them though.“I’ll have to talk to her first.” Alessio finally replied.

The others nodded in understanding,” Well, if she decides that she wants to meet us then you let us know. For now lunch is over so let’s get back to work.” All of them cleared the table before heading back to work.

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Avanya arrived at the place she kept seeing in her dreams. She stared at the mansion in front of her, it looked abandoned so she entered the gates and went inside. As she walked through the house, she saw everything was in shambles, there were bullet holes all around and the more she looked at them the more she the images in her nightmare became clear as day. She could hear the loud bangs of gun shots, windows shattering and the screams of all the people she knew. There were dead bodies everywhere, all of it was so loud.

Flashback

“Ava! Ava!” A deep voice shouted. A tall, handsome man was running up the stairs with a gun in her hand.

Avanya dashed out of her room and met the man half way through the corridor,” Father! What’s happening?” Her eyes were wide with fear.

The man had no time to explain as he heard gunshots getting closer to their location. He grabbed his daughter’s hand and pulled her towards the back exit. Luciano De Luca was tense, not because he was scared of death but because his little princess was in grave danger. As they ran, they encountered over a dozen men shooting bullets at them yet Luciano managed to protect his daughter. His wife was already killed, he could not let his daughter, who was the replica of her be killed too. Even if it cost him his life, Luciano had to save his daughter and avenge his wife. When he took on the case on the most powerful Mafia boss in all of Asia, he knew that he was going to be their target. Yet, the agent had never been one to give in to injustice due to fear of death, he didn’t care what happened to him as no one was ever able to find his true identity. But this was a different case, he was not just dealing with a normal criminal anymore, this was one of the most wanted man on Interpol and no one had ever caught him. Luciano had gathered enough evidence to put the man and his whole gang away for life.

Of course, it was never easy, somehow they found out his true identity and came after his family. Luckily, his three sons were in the army and would not be back for a few more months. He had hidden the evidence somewhere, he knew there was a traitor in the agency or else the mafia boss could not have known who he was. “Ava, I want you to get into the car and drive away. Do not stop until you reach your Uncle Edwin’s house, do you understand?” He asked firmly.

Avanya knew that something was really wrong, she knew that her mother was gone because she saw the emptiness in her father’s eyes. Avanya had always been a smart child with sharp instincts and since her childhood, she was never a troublesome child. She did as she was told without making a fuss and if she didn’t want to do something then she would just say so. Right now her father knew they were going to die yet he refused to let her die with him so he was at least trying to protect her. Avanya Nicolette Romano looked her father in the eyes, she was just 16 years old then.” I understand, father, I also understand that this is goodbye forever. I love you and mama a lot.” With that she got into the car and drove away.

When she looked in the review mirror, her father was surrounded and though he tried to fight off the enemy as much as he could, he was outnumbered. She watched as the man she could only guess is the boss shot her father right between the eyes before sending his men after her. Avanya managed to give them a good chase but things went south when they began shooting at her. They managed to make her swerve off the road only to realize she was on a bridge. When her car rolled off the road and off the bridge, Avanya though injured managed to remove her seatbelt and jumped out of the falling car diving into the sea. The car had exploded, she was lost in the water and was declared dead on the scene.

Flashback ends

By the time she came back to reality, Avanya had a migraine from the memories and her face was wet with tears. She took her phone out and searched up the incident.