by Lylah James
Alessio bellowed something. I saw Viktor running out of the room. Nikolay jumped out of the window.
I stared back at Alessio, this time my body shaking with how heavy my sobbing was. Placing my hand over my stomach, right over where the bullet went through, I closed my eyes.
“My…baby…”
My heart had shattered the moment I realized I would never see my baby. I only found out the day before. But now, I had lost him before I even had a chance to see him.
I didn’t even know if I was having a girl or a boy. It was too early.
Opening my eyes again, I saw Alessio staring at me with a horrified expression. “Baby…my…baby…” I cried in his arms.
Behind his back, I saw Phoenix running into the room, followed by my mother. His face was a mask of horror as he ran to me, falling down to his knees next to Alessio.
He pulled me out of Alessio’s arm, who stayed frozen, his eyes empty and soulless. He was in shock.
I looked away from Alessio and up at Phoenix. When I saw tears in his eyes, my already bruised heart broke a little more.
I had never seen Phoenix cry. Ever. But right there in front of my eyes, I saw him break.
“Maddie,” he choked, pulling me to his chest. “Where’s Sam?” he bellowed.
“Maddie, hang in there. Okay? I’m right here,” he said against my cheek.
My fingers tightened around my stomach as the pain intensified until I found it harder and harder to breathe.
Phoenix placed kisses over my face, and I cried silently.
I was stupid…so so stupid.
“Don’t leave me, Maddie,” Phoenix whispered, kissing my lips gently.
Why did I stay away from him for so long? Why did we break each other?
My heart continued to ache as blackness slowly surrounded me, pulling me further under.
I brought my hand up and cupped his cheek. I tried to smile.
I wanted to give him my smile. He loved my smile.
But my lips felt stiff. I tried to speak, to tell him the truth.
Staring into his eyes, I pressed my palm against his cheek, willing him to understand what I couldn’t say.
I love—
My hand fell away, too weak to hold it up any longer. I lost sight of Phoenix and everything else as I was thrown into pitch blackness.
I went numb. All feelings were gone. Nothing hurt…I felt nothing.
As I succumbed to oblivion, I wished I had a chance to say those words to the man I truly loved.
I love you.
Chapter 41
Alessio
The sound of a gunshot was a shock through my body. Everything was silent, cold, as I stared at the piano thinking about Ayla.
And then the silence was gone. Replaced with the sound of a gunshot. I heard a scream. Then another gunshot.
Everything else happened in a blur. My feet acted of their own accord, and I was running out of the piano room without a second thought.
Another painful scream. Maddie’s voice. It was Maddie’s voice.
I followed the scream toward the end of the hall, my heart racing wildly in my chest. I heard footsteps behind me, and without looking, I knew it was Viktor and Nikolay. They were a few rooms away from mine. Without a doubt, they must have heard the gunshot too.
My feet slightly faltered to a stop when I realized the scream was coming from Artur’s room. I felt my eyes widen in panic and picked up my pace. Was the estate under attack?
Fuck no! Not again!
My hands tightened in fists as my body went tight with alarm. I rushed to open the door, my eyes wildly searching around the room, looking for the threat.
The first thing I saw was the broken window, and just for a brief moment, my mother’s face flashed in front of my eyes.
This moment. The gunshot. The screams. It felt so familiar.
My eyes snapped to the floor when I heard a pained whimper. My muscles locked tight as my body went rigid at the sight in front of me.
I almost stumbled back in shock but stopped myself in time as I stared at Maddie in complete horror. My eyes followed the pool of blood surrounding her, and my stomach rolled.
Blood wasn’t something new to me. I was accustomed to blood and the horror that came with it. I made people bleed. I laughed when they bled. Hell, I took pleasure in seeing them begging for their lives as they bled to death.
No, I wasn’t scared of blood. It wasn’t why my stomach rolled and my knees felt weak.
It was this moment, this feeling of déjà vu that made me sick. I saw this when I was seven, when my mother took her last breath.
And now I was seeing it again.
I rushed to Maddie’s side and knelt down beside her before pulling her into my arms. “Maddie?” I choked.
Her next words were filled with pain, but I heard them. Clear as day. They brought another type of pain in my chest. Pain and then anger. So much anger.
“Artur…” she gasped through the pain. “He…is…the…the…traitor…spy…”
Maddie winced as her body convulsed. She stared at me with frightened eyes, begging me. I didn’t have to see my face to know my expression thundered with fury. I felt it vibrating through my bones.
Maddie kept talking even through her labored breathing.
“He…knows,” she broke off and her face twisted, sweat breaking out on the skin of her forehead. Blood dribbled in the corner of her lips.
Tears slid down her cheeks as she tried to speak. “He…knows…where…Ayla…is…”
Ayla. At the sound of her name, my heart picked up a beat. My arms tightened around Maddie.
The numbness was gone. My mind was clear once again. Instead of the coldness seeping through my body, all I felt was burning anger.
“Get him!” I bellowed. I saw Viktor running out of the room. Nikolay jumped out of the window.
I felt hot, my skin itching with the need to kill. To make him bleed.
Artur, one of my most trusted men. How did I not see it? I trusted him, yet he betrayed me. For how long?
He was dying, cold, homeless, starving. But I picked him up, gave him a home. A family. Even when his father was a traitor, I believed in him.
Stupid. So fucking stupid. I didn’t trust people easily, but trusting Artur had been a mistake. A big fucking one.
Shaking my head, I looked down at Maddie. She had to pay the price. Ayla had to pay the price of my stupidity.
Maddie cried in my arms, her entire body shaking with how heavy her sobbing was. She placed her hand over her stomach, right over where the bullet went through.
Closing her eyes, she whispered. Her voice was low, her words so softly spoken. “My…baby…”
What—?
I stared at her, completely horrified.
I heard her wrong. My mind was playing tricks on me. I wanted to ask her, try to clear this confusion, but my tongue felt heavy.
She opened her eyes again. “Baby…my…baby…” she cried in my arms.
There was no mistake. No confusion. My mind wasn’t playing a trick on me. I heard it clearly, and it hurt. The words hurt, and I couldn’t imagine how badly it was hurting Maddie.
My lips didn’t move. I just stared. Even when Maddie was taken from my arms, Phoenix screaming, crying, begging her not to leave him, I didn’t move.
My eyes slowly made their way to Maddie’s stomach, where she was bleeding profusely. There was no way the baby would make it. It was impossible.
Would Maddie even make it?
I didn’t fucking know anything.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when Sam came running into the room. Phoenix carried Maddie to the bed, and I quickly got to my feet.
My blood roared at the unfairness. No, it roared with anger, with the need for answers. I was raging, my body shaking with the force of my fury.
My eyes moved around the room, making contact with Viktor as he rushed into the room again.
I saw the fury, impatience, and worry in h
is expression. I also knew he was wrestling for control. I was too. We all were.
Artur wasn’t going to make it out alive.
Viktor stared at me and gave me a single nod before walking out again. One nod was all it took to drive me to the point of insanity.
Artur had been captured, and my control had snapped.
Giving Maddie a final glance, I walked out of the room. I didn’t call Phoenix. There was no point. He wasn’t going to leave Maddie’s side now.
Making my way to the basement, I let the fury boil. I let myself feel the anger, knowing it would serve me well later.
Only the anger would keep me going. There was no time for weakness. I pushed the image of Ayla frightened and hurt, Maddie bleeding and close to death, to the back of my mind.
Viktor was waiting for me in front of the door, his expression fierce. He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. One of our own betrayed us. Someone we trusted and treated as a brother.
But we couldn’t dwell on that betrayal now. There was no time for it. Our only purpose was to get answers and find Ayla.
Viktor opened the door, and I walked inside, my stride confident and purposely. Slow even through my anger.
Artur was tied to a chair, facing me. His head was cast down, but I knew he heard me come in. The way his body tightened gave him away.
Nikolay was standing behind him, a murderous look on his face.
I walked forward, stopping just two feet away from Artur. The room was filled with silence. No words were uttered, but the air was heavy and tensed. Almost suffocating.
I let the silence drag for a few more minutes. Artur grew more tense. It was all a game, a game of dominance, and in that moment, I held the power and Artur was just a pawn.
When I felt myself barely hanging on the thin thread of control, I moved forward. I’d give him credit. He didn’t move or flinch.
Grabbing his chin, I raised his head. He stared at me blankly, completely void of emotion. Fueled by deep hatred and anger, I pulled back and punched him. I heard his nose crunch under the force of my knuckles.
I craved his scream, his blood. When he didn’t make a sound, I punched him again, harder than before. There was a very satisfying sound. Another broken bone. This time he winced, his eyes shutting tight in pain.
I grabbed his throat and squeezed, watching him fight for his breath. His face turned a shade of red and then purple. The cells broke across his skin, tiny red dots as his wide eyes stared at me in panic.
The whites of his eyes turned red as he suffocated under my grasp. His pupils enlarged, and I smiled, watching him struggle for his life, for another gasp of air.
The corner of his mouth was swelling, and there was a laceration over his cheekbone. His nose was already swelling, turning an ugly shade of green.
I pressed my fingers just a little harder, feeling his windpipe. He choked against the pressure building in his throat as it traveled up into his face.
I fought against the urge to laugh at his suffering.
Ayla was suffering because of him. She was innocent, yet paying for something she didn’t deserve. All because of this man in front of me. Whatever was going to be handed to him would never be enough. I would never be satisfied.
When I saw Artur’s eyes rolling back into his head, I pressed one more time before releasing him. His head fell forward, and he coughed dangerously, desperately gasping for his next breath.
His whole body shook with the effort to take in as much air as he could.
When I noticed him getting in control of his labored breathing, I grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. I held his neck against the back of the chair and glared.
“Why?” I simply asked.
One word. One question. Artur was one of my men. He understood how I worked. He understood what I wanted without even asking.
I thought the betrayal would hurt. It did hurt, but I was mostly consumed by anger. The fury clouded my vision and every other emotion.
I had to find Ayla, and Artur was my only hope. The thought of her being in danger and hurt because of someone I trusted sent a wave of pain through my body.
Was it my fault? It was a constant thought in my mind, something that slowly killed me every day since she was taken from me.
“Why the fuck did you do it?” I snarled into his face. He didn’t flinch, but the way his eyes darted to the side betrayed his fear and pain. I knew my gaze promised violence and revenge. My voice shook with it.
When he didn’t answer, I punched him again, quickly losing my patience. “Answer me!”
There was a gash next to his eye, and he winced when my punch landed on it. It looked like Nikolay had already done a number on him.
I looked down at my hand and saw his blood. I wasn’t wearing my gloves, and in that moment, I didn’t want to. I wanted to see his blood on my hands, knowing that he was suffering and in pain.
At the thought of Ayla, I landed another furious punch on his face. I felt my jaw tighten and heard my teeth grinding together. If I could, I would string him up by his fucking intestines for what he had done.
Artur coughed and choked, spitting out the blood that accumulated in his mouth. He glanced up at me through swollen eyes. “You killed my father.”
Oh, I knew this was coming. There was only one reason why he would betray me.
His father betrayed my life, my father, and when I took over as Boss, I killed him. Without any remorse or even an ounce of guilt. I left him on the cold ground, bleeding to death. When I came back at night, his body was already gone and buried.
Artur had been kicked out of the house. He was seventeen. When I found him a few days later, he was starving. Homeless. And alone.
I brought him back into my house. We were friends, brothers not my blood, but still brothers.
I never thought it would come to this. But all this time, I was getting betrayed. For ten years, he betrayed me.
Shaking my head, I pulled away. With my hands behind my back, I glared down at Artur. He finally flinched under the weight of my murderous stare. I felt the corner of my lips twitch with satisfaction.
“You were the traitor all this time?” Viktor growled behind me.
Artur glanced at him and then chuckled. He broke off and whimpered in pain before replying. “Yeah. All this time…it…was me…but…you were too…blind…to see it.”
Nikolay’s face thundered, and he reached forward, punching Artur in the stomach. He doubled over in agony and wheezed through his broken nose.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
Rubbing my face in frustration, I took a deep breath. I couldn’t kill him. Not now. Not until I found Ayla. And I knew he wasn’t going to tell me easily.
My fingers itched with the need to kill him. But for now, I was going to hurt him until he would feel the weight of the pain he caused my Angel.
“Why Ayla? Your enmity was toward us…not her,” Viktor asked, coming to stand beside me.
Artur shook his head. “You are…right. My enmity was with you.” He broke off and gasped. Sucking in a deep breath, he continued in a low painful tone. “I didn’t even know who she was until the day we went to the beach. Alberto might have trusted me, but he was smart. I was never allowed into his house. Only his clubs. But that day, he called me to his house. I saw Ayla’s picture there. I put two and two together, and there you go. She was an Abandonato.”
“That doesn’t explain why you handed her over,” Viktor snapped. When I saw him moving forward in anger, I grabbed his arm, stopping him.
Artur continued speaking. “Alberto wanted her back, and I wanted to make you pay. It was easy. Two birds with one stone. The best way to bring you down was by hitting you with your weakness. And she was your only weakness.”
I stayed silent, forcing my anger into control. If I moved, I would kill him.
“For years I waited, planned. I looked for your weakness. You were a strong motherfucker. Your motto was kill or be killed. And
then Ayla came into your life. It was almost too easy,” Artur said through his harsh breathing.
I saw his lip twitch in a small smile as he chuckled dryly. “You only made two mistakes. The first one was to trust me.”
He took a deep breath before delivering the final blow. “The second was falling in love with Ayla. So, you see, in the end…it was your…fault. You let her…become your weakness.”
Viktor reached forward and pummeled Artur with three furious punches. “You fucking bastard!” he roared.
He reached back for another punch, but Nikolay was quicker. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. When I heard Nikolay’s voice, my eyes snapped open.
“Did Alberto know I wasn’t betraying Boss?” he hissed into Artur’s ears.
Artur laughed through his pain. “Fuck…yeah…he knew everything. It was our plan. We’d make you think he believed you, while I was behind your back, giving him the correct information. How did you think he always knew your moves when Nikolay was giving him false information?”
“So it was all for nothing?” Viktor snarled, pulling away in frustration.
Artur nodded. “It…was…obvious. Nikolay was…too…loyal. Even when he was…close to…death…he never spilled…anything.”
He paused, taking in desperate air through his compressed lungs. “He…knew you…would never betray Alessio.” Glancing back at Nikolay, he smiled through his broken lips. “You are…like…a…fucking loyal dog.”
Nikolay’s eyes glowed fiercely with fury. “You little shit,” he spat.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I finally spoke. “Where’s Ayla?”
Nothing mattered. Why Artur betrayed me or how…only Ayla mattered. I fucking hated that I depended on Artur to find her, but there was no other way.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Did you…really…think…it would be this…easy?”
This time, a smile crept his way across my lips. In no way was it a gentle smile. No, it promised only pain.
“No, I didn’t think it would be easy.” I shrugged a heavy shoulder, leaning forward until our faces were mere inches apart. “It’s not going to be easy for you. Not at all.”
