Labyrinth of Desire

Prologue

Still Alive- Aaryan Shah

TW- blood, violence

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑

Third-person POV:

Seven years ago, little Angelina, a 12-year-old girl and the last-born child of the Costello family was abducted by the Bravata in her home city of Campania, Italy.

The Bravata is famously known as the Russian mafia-an enemy to the entire Italian underground world and Organized Crime families.

Lina was held captive, but oddly enough, not for ransom. The Bravata fled from Italy back to Russia with the girl and took her as their own.

Their goal was to mould her into the best assassin and spy the world had ever seen, hoping she would forget her family and eventually, when the time came, kill them one by one, or so she was told.

This plan was revealed to her by a man named Nikita Romanoff, the Russian mafia leader.

Her mother, Anita, left Italy in search of her three years after Lina was abducted by the Bravata. Why? Her husband had been unsuccessful in finding their child.

He was left with no better option, other than to assume his daughter had been killed by the Russians, he could not start a war as there was no physical proof that she was in fact dead.

But Anita was smart; she had a plan.

She convinced her husband to let her go look for Angelina alone, gaslighting and manipulating him into believing she had a lead on where Lina was, when she knew exactly where her daughter had been all these years, this was the only hope he had left of finding his precious Lina.

Anita didnt take her husband's private jet like she was told to, instead, managed to lose all the protective services her husband sent with her.

She took a first-class flight straight to Russia where she knew her daughter was, and stayed there, in secret.

Six months later, when she heard her daughter had escaped from the Russian headquarters, she made herself open to the public, hoping that Lina would be smart enough to find her, by decrypting the clues she left for her in the small apartment she had been squatting in with her friend Aurora.

Finally, when reunited with her at Sixteen, Lina's mother decided to take her back to Spain, her motherland, for the safety of her child.

After 6 months of no communication from Anita, the rest of Angelina's family believed that her mother had died during the search for the child and so they held a memorial service for both of them.

Those years spent in Russia became the best and worst of Angelina's life. Trained by the Russians, her father's biggest enemy, she was pushed to her limits, and trained day and night. On these days, she dreaded training but worked hard in every 9-hour day she had to complete.

Lina endured pain that a child should never experience, the kind of pain and torture, not even a human should feel.

She was educated with a small group of people around her age, always excelling and landing on top of every class, the group of teens were the people she considered her friends, although they had never been hurt the way she was hurt, she always kept a kind heart and positive attitude around them.

Her dedication was something many admired about her, she never half did anything she was told to do, she always worked to reach the finish line, she strived for that finish line in hopes she would one day reach the very last one, death, where she would be in paradise, where she didnt feel any pain and torment, where could be with her family again.