Fatalé (18+)

Chapter fifty three

Nico

Time was of the essence.

Time is all I wanted right now but didn't have. The last time I've felt this was the day Santos was born, the same day Alessia went. I wanted time. All of it if I had known that she would go right after giving me my son. Alessia gave birth to Santos and died six minutes after. She had six minutes with Santos and in those six minutes, I told her I loved her. But had I known she was going in six minutes, I would've said something entirely different.

This time, I had the time to speak to Ilaria more than just six minutes. My baby wasn't dead, she was somewhere in Russia, waiting for me. As I think of her, my chest constricts. I've never felt like this before, when Alessia died, I was in pain but right now, I'm in fucking agony. I can't sleep, I can't talk, I can't fucking think straight as all my informants are watching me, relying on me but I did it, no matter because I was determined to get Ilaria back to where she belongs.

To me, with me, by me.

It's been sixteen hours since I've known where Ilaria is and things were moving slow. For a reason.

"What's the plan?"

If papà was here, he'd be the one telling the plan because he was good at it. Every time he did, he'd always make sure I was listening because he wanted me to be like him. But I never thought to be in that position sooner than I did, not until he died anyway. Sometimes I think he died of a heartbreak due to the loss of Santos, but my father was old and we all knew it was his time.

"We reach Moscow but each jet lands in different areas. Then, we meet up." I inform, most of my informants nod their heads. "The Lombardi's have already reached there as they were there. We do not meet them until we return, with Ilaria."

"Why can't we just land in one location and spread out from there?"

One of the informants asked, and instantaneously, I decided his fate. He was going to die for asking such an absurd question in the midst of this chaos. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, when my father taught me, he taught these informants too. I thought my informants are supposed to be intelligent and cunning? I might have to kill every one of them now and find the Torricelli's new informants. My glare pans over to wherever the fuck this mothefucker was stood as I wondered why he was in my circle. Gio seemed uncomfortable as he glanced at me before his glance landed on the fucker that ask the question. As I reach for my gun, a voice interrupts us. Immediately, I release the handle of my gun.

"Bratva is everywhere, we are entering their territorial grounds." The third voice joins us. I turn my head slightly and watch as Stefano enters the room, followed by his wife. I glance at Stella and she smiles weakly at me, an indication to me that she took my advice and made up with her husband. "If we all enter at once, Bratva will know instantly and that's our chances gone."

I've never hated anything more than liars, until I tasted what betrayal felt like. It was bitter, so bitter I couldn't taste anything else. What makes it worse is when it's the people you've trusted your whole life that betray you without a thought. That very person for me was Stefano, the man I grew up with. The man who made sure I had a life with his sister. The man I thought would never do this to me.

The entire five months Ilaria was gone, I've refused to acknowledge the presence of Stefano. I couldn't look at him without having that urge to kill him. He had done so well to keep away from me all these months until today, I don't know what was so different about today but he wasn't going to mess this up for me. The day Ilaria was taken, Stefano was beaten so badly that I really thought I had killed him, until I saw him two weeks later, up on his feet when he should've been six feet under.