My right hand flew to the back in an attempt to attack whoever dragged me that way all of a sudden. The person was also skilled in martial arts because they kept blocking all my attacks. I used all the skills Martins taught me but they were a bit faster than me. That got me mad and persistent, I wanted to see their face so badly. “Who are you?” I hissed, twisting myself to face him and he resisted for a split second before leaving my shoulders and I got to turn and see Rocco standing behind me. I suspected that he was the one but since I wasn’t sure, I needed to be careful and fight back. I didn’t want to die in the hands of a stranger. “Why are you here?” my chest heaving as I tried to control my breath "Ssshhh,” his hand rose to his lips and several bullets rained at the other side of the room, in the hallway We both lied down with immediate effect, my chest thumping against the floor as I tried to figure out what was happening. He crawled to my side and fished out his gun by t
|Rocco|I knew the annual mafia meeting would be a bloody one no matter the preparation, it had always been like that. I had so many meetings with the other families before the general meeting so we could settle disputes, underlying grudges, and also discuss other needed things for a smooth meeting.I was so uncomfortable with the fact that Irena would be going with me but I needed her by my side. Bojana had something urgent to fix, our goods arrived and some defects were detected so she had to sort them out.I also fired my lawyer because I found out some shady dealings he was carrying out underground. Hiring a lawyer out of the blues when the meeting is just the next day would be over dangerous and since she was an aspiring law student, I decided to borrow her for the moment.“Are you sure she can handle this? I can find a way to postpone the goods sorting,” the concern was obvious in Bojana’s voiceIt wasn’t even laced with jealousy this time, she was genuinely concerned about her
Our unplanned romance was short-lived. A glance at the chandelier gave out one of the bastards who was trying to shoot into the room. Quickly, my hand shifted her to the other side, against the wall. Her face was flushed with disappointment but I didn’t have any time to explain before the window came crashing down. A loud yelp escaped her throat as her hands threw themselves over her head. She crouched down immediately, using the bed as a cover because the bullet rain wouldn’t stop.A soft “that was close” played on my dry lips as I crawled to her side to check if she was okay. Although she nodded her head, it was obvious that she wasn’t. Her eyes were wide opened in shock and she rarely blinked. She must have gone into a shock beyond her control because it didn’t seem like she could hear anything or open her mouth where she sat down, trembling.Martins came to the rescue at that moment to inform us that he had cleared a path for us to leave. We couldn’t bear staying in the hotel any
|Irena| Everything about us changed that night. He became gentlier and more loving. I never knew someone as rough, cold, and fierce as him could have such a tender and sweet side. He was always considerate about my own feelings and firm about his. “I know I want you. I want you to be mine. I am not a complete or perfect man so I cannot guarantee you a hundred percent happiness, but I will do my best to make your smile stay forever,” he had promised that evening. I kept blushing in his hold. His huge palms rested on my waist, slightly touching my ass as he pulled me closer to him. Never for once did he break the stare; it felt like I had enchanted him with my eyes. “If you say this, how am I supposed to turn you down?” a small giggle danced in my throat He wouldn't have that. Immediately he countered my statement. “You can't even turn me down because I will stick to you like gum does to the sole of a shoe. You already gave me permission to own you and I will never let you retrac
Martins was silent throughout the ride, and I was so grateful for that. His face wore a worrisome expression, but he restrained himself from asking anything. He must have wanted to ask a lot of questions because of the panic mode I was in, but he held himself back in respect.“The park beside the police station, right?” he asked, snapping me out of my thoughtsI couldn’t pinpoint what exactly the update could be because I had looked for several pieces of information and hints all my life, throughout the five years of the case. Nothing seemed to be out of the blues no matter how I searched. Everything was perfect. It got to a point where I started to doubt if my mom was indeed innocent, like I thought.All the evidence pointed to her. Nothing seemed to be helping in clearing her name, and that dead ends have been the main cause of the problem I was facing. The case was not moving forward, and it felt like my mother would die behind bars."Yes, please, the smart park, right behind the hu
|Rocco|The Mafia’s association has been much tensed for the past few days because of the incident. Everyone kept their cool and laid low. No one wanted to be a waste to the bloodthirsty revenge that the deceased’s families would put up.All businesses were put on hold, and every activities and meetings were suspended for the time being. I didn’t even go to work because I had to put so many things in place.“I just got an update from the other side. There are some people lurking around Palermo to see if they will catch a glimpse of you,” Martins notified meI couldn’t stay sane without burying my head in books, and I didn’t just want to pass time with Irena because she had been working on how to help me as a true consigliere when I resumed work.“That’s not strange. Just try to find out their identity and the group they belong to. If they are a threat, we will know what to do with them, but if they are just here for other businesses, leave them alone. You still have to keep them under
Irena finally rounded up her courses and read about all she wanted to learn and had time to sleep in for a very long time in ages. The bags under her eyes were so heavy that she could barely see properly on the day she was done.Rocco once told her to take it easy and learn it bits by bits since he was still at home and wouldn’t resume any meetings with the Mafia family or business for the time being, but she ignored and insisted on taking it till the end.“She’s so persistent. I really do not understand her,” he had sighed after talking to her but no availSliding into her bed that morning, she slept off after turning off her phone. For more than eight hours, she comfortably slept her stress off before waking up refreshed. As soon as she was done with food, she turned her phone on to get some things done and Paul’s message came in.“The result of the footprint is out, and the only thing they could get was the shoe sole’s design. This means I have to narrow down the designs to brands t
|Rocco| I was uncomfortable with the fact that Paul was doing his best to help her and her mother out, but I didn’t do anything concerning the case. I wouldn’t have bothered if it were to be the past but now that she was my girl, I had to step in. I put a call through to Martins and told him to look for everything he could lay his hands on concerning the case. He investigated the murder scene and the surroundings, the people that were around that time and place, and everything he could look into, but he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. She had gone out to meet her Auntie that very day, and I was patiently waiting for her to come back because of the flight, but I didn’t see her by evening. Immediately, I put a call through to her, and she confirmed that she was still with her at the restaurant. “As long as she’s not with him,” my mind calmed a bit and I got dressed. “Tell some of the men that they will be rendering some service at a diner this night. You should give t
I just realized that we haven’t really discussed Auntie and who exactly she was. She got introduced to me by my mother, and I grew up relying on her when we moved to the town. She helped me so much and brought me to stay with her when my mother got arrested for murder.We didn’t have any situation or opportunity to talk deeper about her, and I had always felt too comfortable to be bothered by all that. All Auntie did in her entire life was cook. She would cook even on days when she was sick to the bones.There was a time she collapsed while cooking because she was doing it nonstop. The funniest thing was that there was no customer to eat all that she had cooked because it was midnight. I came out to have a glass of water and saw her cooking aggressively before she passed out.“You should have just taken it slow. Why were you cooking this hard?” I scolded her as I attended to her in her room“I have to prepare it for them. If not, they might stay hungry the entire year,” she groaned in
The stare of horror on their faces showed how scary my screams and dripping palms were. We all stood there looking at each other, my body trembling with hatred and disbelief. I couldn’t comprehend all that I had just watched. A head banging headache swept me off my feet as my chest rose and fell.Before I knew it, I was on the floor with dim eyes. My body couldn’t bear the weight of oppression from my emotions. I had broken down once again.“Let’s help her up! Irena!” Auntie’s scream barely kept me awake before I passed out finally.I woke up to the fluid being passed in my body and saw the same doctor that treated Rocco during the first gunshot standing close to the door and discussing with the men. I couldn’t hear what they were discussing, and I wasn’t even in the right frame of mind to eavesdrop.“We will talk more about it when she wakes up,” was another line I heard before I slept off again.I woke up to see everyone having dinner, and they all rushed to my side when they saw me
|Irena|I realized they were trying to distract us as I cried in the morgue. My mother’s body was filled with several marks that had come from bullying and torturing. It was then it dawned on me that all those bruises I saw when I last visited her were from the maltreatment she had been facing in the correctional center.“What a foolish daughter I am. I didn’t even think deeply into what the bruises could mean. How did I end up believing that she only tripped and wounded herself?” several thoughts filled my mind as we headed to the center to get the rest of her thingRocco held me in his arms as Paul drove the car silently to the location. His soft but huge arms were rubbing my shoulder to keep me calm, but I had so much going on in my head even though my mouth was not moving.The guards at the center were taking longer than usual to attend to my request until Rocco stepped in. I had previously told him to wait for me in the car while I go alone to get her things but when I saw that t
“We have to move faster than their investigations. We have done a lot to keep this buried for years. They cannot just come to ruin all our hard work at this point,” one of the men sitting at a round table with sushi and several sashimi dishes glaring at them.“That’s why we have been taking them out one after the other. We cannot allow any loophole in this operation. One of our men is on the way to give us the report on the progress of the operation,” another responded, reaching for his cup for a drinkThe other men released a uniform groan as they released their ties, buttering their frustrations. They had all been unsettled ever since Irena found the files they had been searching for all year. They had turned the house upside down over and over but none of them could find where her mother kept it.“We already concluded that she didn’t have the file. I don’t understand how that bitch managed to hide the file till her daughter found it. We even had the inmates bully and beat her just
|Irena|I couldn’t believe all that I had just heard. My head tried to process it over and over but it felt like it would explode if I thought about it too much. What in the world happened to Rocco? How did he manage to stay calm in all of that? What was the reason behind him keeping quiet and holding back for so long? I had millions of questions running through my head but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him any.“You smart fool!” those were the only words that flew out of my mouth softly. I couldn’t begin to imagine the pain he had been enduringThe day I showed him the picture of my father, his father was also there. How did he not react? Why did he not explain to me and bore the hatred from me? I had hurt him with my words and actions but he never for once tried to bail himself out.“Why did you not tell me? Why did you not point it out that your father was also a victim of Bruno? How did you even manage to stay in that hell and pretend as if nothing was happening?” my tears flowed
It was around the fourth year of my stay in Italy. At that time, I had bonded with everyone in the villa and became a legal member of the family. My father had started taking me to meetings and made me handle some of his tasks because of how good I was.I couldn’t hide my extreme hatred and disgust at first. It was too hard to pretend. The person that killed my mother was the one I had been adoring, worshipping, and calling father all these while. No doubt, he was also the one that killed my father. He ruined me and my family and also had the nerve to play on my memory.“Is something wrong? You haven’t said anything much or even trained for days ever since you woke up. Are you mad at me for hitting your head on the pole?”Bojana couldn’t stop feeling bad because she thought my attitude changed due to the incident but after assuring her that the accident was not the issue and that I just needed some time to myself, she decided to let me be till I would come around by myself.It took me
Of course, he was happy at the proposal but he was also someone else’s slave so the uncertainty of his master releasing him was the biggest obstacle.“Thank you..” His eyes lit up with happiness; everyone could tell that the offer gladdened his heart so there was no way he could even turn down the offer or say he wasn’t pleased with it“Once again, thank you for the offer but.. I don’t know… I am” his stuttering got in the line of his statement as he hesitatedHe didn’t want to upset both his master and his new savior. Thankfully, the person he saved already knew what the problem was so he came to the rescue“What? Are you afraid of your master? Do you think he won’t let you go?” he asked and Kovac nodded immediatelyHe had just said what was bothering him and with the look of things, it seemed like the Savior already thought of it too and how he would handle it.The man’s huge hands brushed his hair slightly in adoration as his lips curled into a smile for the first time he had ever
He woke up to find the ship fighting for balance in the middle of the sea and after a slight interrogation from two people, he found out that the ship had been sailing for almost a full day and he had been out the whole time.Rushing to the other side of the ship, he tried checking everywhere to see if there would be any face he could recognize but no one seemed familiar until he ran into one of the men that came to Mateha’s house. If he had his memories intact, he would have bolted from the scene before the man saw him, but unfortunately, he got captured before he could even say a word and was locked in the storage for the rest of the day without any food or water.The second day, he was dragged out by one of the hefty men, with his face looking like an overgrown garden because of the multitude of beards attached to his chin. His head was long and high in the center, making everything about his visuals traumatizing.“You think you can go anywhere? We own you now! We are your boss!” h
They marched back into the town and were led by the boy in the hood who knew Marko’s house. Unknown to them, Andrej had told his wife that if he doesn’t come back within the hours of one and two in the morning, she should flee with her son, Kovac.“I think something must have happened; we need to escape right now,” she tapped Irena’s mom, who had dozed off while waiting with her.They didn’t waste any time and rushed up to pack after waking the kids. Thanks to Kovac’s mom, they were able to escape before Bruno’s men came to the house.“Find them! Don’t ever let them get away!” His voice trembled with every word that came out of them as he gulped down the alcohol from the bottle in his hand every minute.They searched for them but couldn’t find them until they had to withdraw at daybreak. Unknown to them, they were hiding at the grandma’s house till the coast was clear. Early at dawn, they rushed to the dock, Marko told them, and took the first boat to Kovac’s town, where they settled