Vladimir:
I walked inside the house with a heavy heart. The walls tightened on me with each step I took.
Knowing where I sent my wife not only scared me, but broke me, and knowing that she convinced me of it herself only made me want to bring her back, lock her in the room, and wrap my arms around her, hugging her tightly.
The woman was stubborn enough not to listen to reason, and if the Z case wasn’t the lead to him, and if I didn’t know that her own life was in danger because of his existence; I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing this. However, we all knew the reality of things and couldn’t deny it, and unfortunately for me, Eliana took that to her advantage.
The way her eyes met mine, the trust she had. The love and fear. I hated that she chose to put herself in this for us to end the whole thing. But we all knew that Lorenzo needed to be stopped. He has gone for far too long for us to just stay quiet about it now and despite me wanting to handle this my way; Anastasia had a different opinion.
“She will be okay, Vladimir” Viktor assured. I had to fight back glaring at my brother who knew how much it took for me to simply let her leave like that. The one thing that I didn’t want to risk was her safety, and I did exactly that.
“Let’s just hope that things go according to plan” the worry that I had that this might backfire was something that I wasn’t going to deny. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on it or overthink “did the kids reach New York?”
“They’re at the Ivanov Estate. Nikolay sent a message earlier” Viktor answered, his voice no longer sympathetic. The two of us knew how serious this was, and us worrying about it wasn’t going to change its reality.
“That’s one thing out of hand. I’ll let you finish whatever work you have, I have a few things to deal with right now”
*************************
Luka and I walked through the auction’s empty halls.
Knowing that it happened in MY grounds, where we Russian families didn’t allow it annoyed me. But I knew that I had to make such an exception to make things work the way I wanted them to. People had to see Eliana go for them to believe in our plan, and until I was able to hear of her; I was forced to trust that she knew what she was doing.
I knew that she left me something in the hall where she was being guided toward the door. Something to be able to trace her. I saw her snatching it from Lorenzo while he wasn’t paying attention, believing that the restrains he had on her were holding her. The woman has been trained well enough to be able to get out of them, but of course, the fucker knew nothing about that.
“What are we looking for again?” Luka asked.
“Anything that would lead me to Eliana” I said catching sight of the beeping phone. It was already a while past dawn, and the hall was clear for another few hours before the janitors and the maintenance teams arrived to clear it out. Things needed to be cleaned before any of the pedestrians saw it, and knowing that, I needed to be quick.
I walked toward the beeping phone and smirked. Whoever was calling, the number was a private line, but we could easily trace it. I answered the phone but didn’t bother speaking a word as I listened to the woman calling for Lorenzo.
“Fucking hell, Lorenzo, I know you’re angry with me; but at least say something” she said desperately. Whoever the woman was, she seemed to hate the fact that Lorenzo was ‘angry’ with her. Her voice showed us that she was crying and seeing as she sounded as desperate as she was; I hung the phone after Luka was able to trace where the call was.
“We’ll find out who the girl is, but judging by her accent, the woman might be Italian, or half Italian and would most probably be living here”
“If that was the case, why would she be speaking English to Lorenzo? Wouldn’t she be speaking Italian?” I asked checking the phone “find out who she is, where she’s from, and where she currently lives. We’ll see what the bastard is on to”
Luka nodded as the two of us walked back where we came from. The cameras of the place were disabled by my men. Placing the phone in my pocket, we walked out the backdoor to our car which was waiting for our arrival. The man at the door was drugged and asleep, he wouldn’t remember a thing when he woke up, and would probably be fired for ‘sleeping’ on the job. But I didn’t care. The idiot knew what he was signing up to when he took the job, and judging by the fact that he sold his own sister; he didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone but himself and his money.
“You haven’t spoken about it, but how are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Luka” I said nodding at the driver to take off. We needed to get home for work to start; the faster we got there, the better.
“And the Eliana thing?”
“I said I’m fine” I snapped. Luka knew for fact that I was anything but fine, and he knew that I would be quiet, holding in how I was feeling about the whole situation and that wasn’t something that he wanted.
“I know that you aren’t”
“Then why are you asking?”
“For you to admit it to yourself, Vladimir” Luka said calmly “anyway, I’ll have the men crack the phone when we get home and I’ll trace the woman. Then wherever she is, we’ll find out who this ‘Lorenzo D’Angelo’ is”
Eliana:I woke up to freezing cold water being splashed on my face, startling me.My body was bruised from being beaten, and I wasn’t surprised with the way I was woken up. Lorenzo has been making sure to make me suffer in every possible way, and him waking me with a freezing bucket of water was the last thing I now worried about.“Drink” he ordered throwing a plate of soup in front of me. I glared at the plate for a second before grabbing it and taking a sip of whatever he had for me. I knew that I needed to survive for Vladimir’s sake. If I was sent here; it was because my beloved trusted my intuition.I was thankful that the man was decent enough not to sexually abuse me despite my ripped clothes. He believed that I was too ‘tainted’ for his men to touch me, and being thankful for that; I didn’t bother answering him.“How many times am I to explain to you that I had nothing to do with my mum’s death? Bloody hell, if I married Vladimir, it was to keep her safe!” I said following my
Vladimir:“I take that you’re not in your best of moods” dad stated once he took sight of me walking into the house. My knuckles were filled with blood after tracing one of the men that would lead us to the woman.It seemed like there was a call made by her to the man, and seeing as he refused to give me any answers; I was forced to take different methods. His eyes which were wide in fear eventually had him spilling out that the woman was Lorenzo’s mistress. She didn’t know that she was ONE of his mistresses, but it seemed like Lorenzo was punishing her for some reason.“I really don’t feel like talking about my mood right now. If there’s nothing that you’re going to tell me, I’m going to my room” I said glaring at him. I knew that he didn’t approve of me giving Eliana to Lorenzo, and I did not want to have this conversation with him. He’s already shown his anger and annoyance by it before the auction. Therefore, I wasn’t in the mood for it.“The kids called, I thought that you’d want
Eliana:I had to fight back hissing in pain as the maids washed my body.The fresh wounds made the whole thing a lot harder for me, but I was glad that things were somewhat moving from where they had been for the past few days.I knew that Lorenzo wasn’t going to simply ‘trust’ me. But I also knew that even the slightest hope of things going from me being tormented to me joining him on the table meant that things weren’t just stagnant.Having sent Vladimir a message. I was now more comfortable with how things were going and where they were about to reach. The man must have been going mental over worrying, and I was glad that he didn’t know of what was happening; otherwise, I knew that he would have done his best to come here and shoot Lorenzo’s head, and although that would have solved a lot, I knew that it wouldn’t have been the end of this.Knowing that I had a brother somewhere wasn’t assuring to me. It was the ONLY reason why we were keeping him alive. An enemy that we knew was al
Vladimir:“She did deserve it” I told Luka who shook his head as we left the house. I nodded at the men to pick up her lifeless body as we entered the car. The woman got what she deserved. It was her who decided not to cooperate, and regardless of knowing that she was lying, she still continued to lie.“At least we found the papers we were searching for, or some of them. No wonder Lorenzo kept her here. It would have been impossible to actually suspect that she would have anything in relation with him, his businesses, or who he is here” Luka said as he handed me a file. The rest were being gathered by the men as they searched for anything that could be of use. It turned out that the woman had a room UNDER her living room. It was where she was hiding the documents that we needed.“Fake her flight. We already have her tone, have her send Lorenzo a call that she was traveling to Italy. We would figure the rest out later. However, for now, it would be best that he believed that she was aw
Eliana:“And how am I to earn your trust?” I asked Lorenzo as I sat in his office. The two of us came here almost immediately after eating, and Lorenzo seemed to find my impatience amusing. However, he didn’t understand that it was mostly annoyance “I believe that you stripped me out of anything for a while now to know that I have nothing to hold on to”“Exactly” he said crossing his arms over his chest “for now, you have nothing to hold on to. But I don’t trust what you’d do if you ever get to have everything”I simply nodded as a response, waiting for him to proceed with what he was going to say. Seeming impressed, Lorenzo opened a drawer, handing me a file. I stared at the file, but didn’t bother opening it until he nodded at me to do so. Inside the first nylon sheet was a picture of a woman. The woman looked no older than thirty, the smile on her face reached her eyes. But going through the pictures, I frowned when I saw that she was stealing money, putting it inside a bag she had
Vladimir:I stared at the message Eliana sent me for a few seconds as I tried processing what might have been going on.My heart raced against my ribcage as I fought the urge to call the number, trace where the person was, and go ahead searching for my beauty. It would only cause her trouble and for that reason, I was forced to stay quiet, and remain calm.“What do you want us to do?” Luka asked. The two of us were inside the office when I got the message, and I have been trying to collect my thoughts since then.“Find out where she sent the message from, I’ll manage a way to reach to her” I said and Luka nodded “try hacking through the cameras if any, anything that could help me listen to whatever conversation they may be having. I need to hear Lorenzo’s next move for me to be able to know where to find her”“We need to tell Viktor about this too. He and Anastasia would try and find something too. Thing is, we need to ensure that things go smoothly as anything detected could be an is
Eliana:I paced around my room as I waited for Vladimir to come.The man was mad for coming here, and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t take everything in me not to wrap my arms around him, hug him tightly, and kiss him senseless. The way the two of us looked at one another, shared a glance, then forced ourselves to remain calm was painful, but it had to be done.The bedroom’s door was knocked twice before it was opened, revealing my husband who was escorted by two maids. The maids were outside the bedroom. They helped me get dressed in the black sleeveless dress that I was wearing before leaving the room, leaving me to wait for my husband.He stood by the door, waiting for the maids to close it before he turned around and locked it. His eyes looking me up and down before he opened his arms for me to walk into. I ran toward him, ignoring my aching muscles. The bruises that Lorenzo inflicted on my body were yet to heal completely, but I was thankful that I was at least somehow
Vladimir:Eliana and I walked toward the dining room. The two of us playing the cold act despite the love bite on my beauty’s neck. If anyone told me that my longing for her would drive me into a full night of sex before; I would have told them that they were crazy, but fucking hell did I miss her a lot.Having skipped dinner yesterday, we knew that we shouldn’t skip breakfast. Otherwise, Lorenzo could be disgusting enough to try and enter the bedroom to see what we were on about.We entered the dining room. The maids having opened the door for us, neither one of them bothered saying a word, I don’t even think that they were allowed to. Lorenzo’s eyes met mine and he smirked, placing his hands on the table and resting his chin on them “I take it that you too had an active night”“I don’t think you missed us too much. Plus, you would have needed time to digest the fact that you’d be seeing me every day” I answered coldly. I nodded at Eliana to go and sit, and nodding, she played the ac