Chapter 2

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”