Chapter 20 : I'm Coming Back To Bulgaria

Mafia's Nemesis

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Antonio's Mansion : 4:30 AM

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The room is silent, cloaked in darkness while moonlight leaks through the curtain.

Antonio jerks on his massive bed with a strangled gasp.

His sculpted chest rose and fell like he’s been running for miles. His finger claws at his sheets like they’re chains. Then stills.

“Mama…No” he screamed out, his voice raw and broken.

In a single motion, he jolts upright in bed, gasping. Cold sweat drenches his body, and his sheets tangled around his legs like shackles.

His hand shot to his brow, fingers tracing the ridge of the old scar.

It throbbed beneath his fingertips and old pains immediately roared to life.

Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them.

He blinked hard, forcing the tears back—but as he closed his eyes—he saw them again.

Overwhelmed by emotions, he kicks off the sheets and staggers to the bathroom like a drunk, palms pressed to the walls to steady himself.

Inside the bathroom, Antonio braces over the sink. Trembling.

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the porcelain, breaths coming in ragged cuts

He couldn’t bring himself to look in the mirror.

He turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face—desperate to drown the images.

But it didn’t help. Nothing ever does, since he was a child.

He glances up—just once—and froze,

His reflection stares back—The man who looked back was stone—older and harder. But his eyes—red-rimmed, glassy with tears—were still that boy, still trapped beneath that bed.

His shoulders quake in fury as he saw his scarred brow—the parting gift his mother gave him in her last breath, or rather—a child’s fear trapped in a man’s face.

Unable to tolerate his reflection, He punched the mirror and the glass explodes.

Shards rain into the sink while blood trickles from his knuckles, like the blood that night.

Exhausted, he slides down the tiled wall, burying his face in his bloody palms.

His stony facade cracked—and for the first time in decades, a sound broke from him, cracked and raw.

“Mama…not again… no.” His voice cracked like a boy—he was a human after all.

Seeing Breanna after years, has resurfaced all those dark memories.

At the thought of Breanna, his jaw locks and the storm in his soul reignites.

He wipes his eyes furiously. As if tears are betrayal or a sign of weakness.

Rising to his feet, He turns from the bathroom, a grim shadow of the child he was—back to the room, where the man vengeance built, strategizes.

He walked barefoot across the cold tiled floor, and stopped by his balcony.

Shirtless, the cold wind caressed him like tears he can’t cry anymore.

"Lo van a pagar. Todos y cada uno de ustedes {You’ll pay. Every last one of you}." His voice comes out raw, low, broken—but venomous.

From the next room, Grinch had arrived moments earlier.

Drawn by the sound of shattering glass, he rushed in, but stopped short at the bathroom doorway.

His gaze dragged over the mess—the shattered mirror, the blood on the tile.

It told him more than words ever could, and then followed by the echo of grief. Something Antonio hadn’t shown in years.

His instincts told him to leave—this wasn’t something Antonio would want seen.

But he stayed.

He pressed his back into the shadow, hidden just out of sight.

And he listened—listened to the sobs, the vow, the anguish only a close friend could understand.

Antonio hadn’t cried in front of anyone since they were kids. Since that night. Since the blood.

Grinch clenched his jaw. He remembered it all,

Antonio along with him, seeked for justice, despite being six—refusing to let go even when no one supported them.

The transformation that followed after the Police system failed Antonio, and his parents {Grinch's parents} relocated from New Mexico.

The once innocent child vanished under Lucas' care, replaced by a calculating, cold boy who never looked back till now.

But seeing him now—swearing vengeance again, breaking after so many years of silence—Grinch couldn’t keep pretending this was just business.

When Antonio whispered—“Lo van a pagar. Todos y cada uno de ustedes.”—it wasn’t just a threat. It was a vow.

A cry from a wounded child wearing a man’s skin.

With the faintest creak of his legs on the floorboard.

Grinch stepped around the wall, slow and careful through the open balcony doors.

Antonio didn’t turn. Didn’t flinch. He knew who it was.

In Grinch's hand was a bottle of whiskey, neat—sharp, like everything Antonio had become.

With a muted clink, he placed it on the ledge beside Antonio, not sparing him a glance.

Antonio{Blade} didn’t look up immediately. He just stood rigidly—face hidden, blood from his knuckles smearing the white tiles.

Grinch pulled a cigar from his cigarette packet. Lit it, and just held it out to Antonio

Antonio took it, casting his gaze at the skyline—but he forgot to smoke it.

Grinch leaned on the railing beside him. Shoulder to shoulder, but not touching. His eyes on the skyline, like Antonio’s.

The cold air wrapped around them, but it couldn’t numb what simmered beneath the surface.

Then, finally—Grinch's voice, low and rough. “Didn’t think I’d be hearing that tone ever again—Brainbox! You held it in longer than any kid would’ve.”

“I had to,” Antonio rasped. “But she’s back, and they mares resurfaced”

Grinch didn’t react. Didn’t ask who. He already knew.

“I remember that night too—and also the pledge,” he said quietly. “Therefore I didn’t come to pull you back,”

Antonio’s rasp breathing slowed, cold and guttural.

Grinch faced him, though not a full approach—just enough.

Then, without ceremony, he raised his hand and clapped it once, hard, on Antonio’s shoulder. The sound cracked the quiet.

Antonio’s body went rigid—but he didn’t shake it off.

Grinch leaned slightly, his voice a growl by his ear. “I came to make sure you don’t go under alone"

The storm inside Antonio boiled over—the best part was that he wasn’t facing it alone.

“You want to burn them all—Brother?” Grinch asked. “Start the match—I’ll hold the gasoline.”

Antonio’s jaw clenched.

He picked up the whiskey bottle, stared into it, like it was a booster, then downed it in one harsh pull.

Grinch didn’t leave. They stood there—two men carved from trauma, bound by promise and memory—watching the night for signs of war.

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Nevena’s Room – 6:41 AM

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The night had slowly blended into the morning, shadows stretching along the peeling walls of the guest house.

Nevena, still in her pajamas, sat still in front of her laptop, the screen’s glow of an ongoing video call, illuminated the quiet guilt in her eyes.

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Stefan’s voice shot through the speaker.

“Do you even care if you die, Nevena? Do you?” Stefan’s voice hit like a wave—raw, angry and scared. “I almost went insane”

“Stefan, I—” Nevena tried again but He wasn't done.

“No,” he snapped.

“Don’t ‘Stefan’ me. I told you to see the world before your body gives out, not to disappear off the grid and gamble your lungs away”.

“I don’t know how to say it,” Nevena murmured calmly. “Everything just… spiraled—like in a blink of an eye.”

Seeing how calmly she uttered those words, Stefan lost it

"Really?" He growled in frustration.

"For Goddamn's sake—You were detained illegally, Nevena. Locked in some f*cking cell for two days—and you never thought to call me, not even a damn text?”

Nevena's lips parted, a whisper slipping out. "I lost my phone the night that I was abducted...that's why I couldn't call."

Stefan sighed sharply, then his voice dropped—still angry, but laced now with something deeper. Ache—of how his friend was mishandled.

"Okay...I understand, but hope you lodged a complaint against that detective".

The silence on Nevena's end was thunderous—an evidence that she didn't do anything.

“This is exactly why I don't trust you to finish anything, Nevena. You keep forgiving every treatment melted on you."

"She already apologized, Mrs.Stewart tightened security around my guest house" Nevena mumbled meekly.

"Moreover—there won't be any difference between us, if I should retaliate".

"Yeah—you're right" his voice softened "You know what?". Stefan added, his hands hovering over his keyboard.

"What ?" Nevena quirked her eyebrow

“Send me the address of your guesthouse."

“Why?—Stef, you don't need to get me a private bodyguard, she already highlighted security here"

"Who says I'm getting you a bodyguard?" He exhaled shakily, folding his hands. "Check your email, I sent you something".

"Okay...I will just see—” She paused mid sentence. "It's a flight ticket—?"

"Yeah—it's all booked for the first flight to New Mexico, I’m coming to get you. I’m bringing you back from that godforsaken place. I can't keep begging you all the time to retaliate".

Nevena blinked, his words barely sinking in. Her hand hovered near the keyboard, motionless, her mind already drifting.

“Nevena?” Stefan called after speaking for a while. But she wasn’t with him anymore.

Her voice had gone quiet on the other end, leaving only the low buzz of the laptop fan, and the muted city noise bleeding through the cracked window.

Threading through his fury, like he knew he’d gone too far.

“Hey… hey. I didn’t mean to scold you, I was just terrified" he explained, his voice almost a whisper now.

Nevena still didn’t answer.

“I just—God, Nevena, You’re sick....you know you are, and yet you act like you’ve got nine lives. Do you even know how scared I was, when I couldn't get a hold of you for a whole week?”

“Nevena Bachvarov! Are you even listening?” Stefan's tone barked through the speaker.

She jerked back to reality at the hoarse tone, “I’m listening,” she murmured into the mic.

"You’re dying, Nevena," Stefan paused for a while, reading her countenance. “I know I told you to see the world before your body gives out—but I never meant disappearing off the Earth's map?”

Her lips parted again in a promise. "I promise to be careful henceforth"

Stefan shook his head in response, that promise wasn’t a real defense.

She had been reckless—with her health, with her silence on every inhumane treatment melted on her.

"According to the Maverick hospital's report you sent me—the smoke altered your filtration rate—Nev!" Stefan paused.

"Your kidney's filtration rate is dipping now, and as a nephrologist, I would like to keep you under close observation"

"I need to start your dialysis," Stefan's voice cracked.

„Предполагам, че никога не се подготвих за възможността един ден туристически агент да се обади и да каже, че не си се върнал{I guess I never prepared myself for the possibility that one day, a tour agent might call and say you never made it back}"

She blinked at the vulnerability in his tone. The glow from the laptop swiftly caught the glassiness in her eyes.

Not wanting Stefan to see them, she looked away from the screen—deliberately.

Her fingers curled around the edge of the table as she tried to restrain her tears.

“I know I asked you to be strong,” he continued. “But as a Nephrologist and maybe also as a friend, I need you to come back—I care too damn much.”

Her throat bobbed. Words sat heavy on her tongue, but her instinct was scared to voice it.

"The filtration rate dipping, does it mean—I will die sooner than expected ?" The words rolled out of Nevena's tongue.

"We only need to start dialysis," Stefan said gently. "Just come back to Bulgaria or maybe—I come and take you"

"Just tell me the truth already". Nevena cried out in desperation. „Стефан, спри да строиш въздушни замъци {Stefan, stop building castles in the sky}.“

"Shut it Nevena," Stefan snapped. "How do you cope with the news that your last kidney has completely collapsed inside you?”

Nevena's hands dropped to her lap at Stefan's revelation—uncontrollable tears flowing down her face.

Stefan stayed quiet, waiting as she cried it out. After a while, she got a hold of it—wiping her face in one single motion.

“I'm coming back to Bulgaria” she finally whispered.

"Now we're talking" Stefan threw his fist up in triumph. "I will quickly book your flight".