Chapter 56
M“You did explain everything, but what did he mean by it?” This is vital information right now, and I’m impatient.
The muscles in my face are ticking as they fight to stay calm, but the edge of panic is tightening all of my features.
I have a hungry, frantic focus, and I need answers more than my next inhale.
“I’m sorry, M,” Lana starts. I don’t like where this is going.
“I didn’t tell you how my mother died.” I fucking knew she was holding something back.
She always told me her mother died or alluded to the fact that she was sick.
But all of it falls apart when I look deep into her eyes. Lana is holding back.
“My mother died on her way to the airport to come to my graduation.”
“And your father is blaming you for her death now,” I finish for her.
Silence drops over us, the kind that feels heavy.
My team goes still, and I don’t blink. The weight of her words pulled the air out of this open space.
Oliver and Josh swear under their breaths, and Sara and Adam look away, the truth settling like a stone in our guts.
“It’s fucked up, I know, but he is grieving. He was with my mother all the time.” Lana breaks the silence with an explanation that doesn’t make sense to us. But it does for her father.
“Did you go to the funeral?” I ask her. Lana becomes visibly uncomfortable, and tears are welling in her eyes. I pull her into my chest, and she lays her head on me.
“I didn’t even know my mother died until I came home. My father had a bullshit excuse that she was going on a job with him at the last minute. I should have been more vigilant, because my mother would have never done that to me.”
“Your father is a piece of shit.” Oliver’s brutal honesty cuts through the air and lands squarely on Lana. Instead of crying, she nods.
“He is. And he needs to be taken down.” She wipes the tears away from her eyes and sits up straight. Determined to wash away the stink from the planet—her father.
“And I might be able to help you all,” Lana says, looking at me. “For this, I am going to need a cigarette.” I’m taken aback because Lana seldom smokes. She only lights one up when nerves are eating her alive, or for a social event, like this one.
I take a cigarette from my pack and give it to her. Lana takes the cigarette and puts it between her right middle and index fingers, and I light it up for her.
“Lana.” My little hummingbird doesn’t get a chance to explain herself, because Sara interjects.
“I thought that you were left-handed?” Lana’s eyes widen, and for a split second, there is something behind her eyes I can’t quite decipher. Fear?
Lana quickly regains her composure by smiling and switching hands. “Sometimes I confuse myself, probably because of the adrenaline.”
“Oh, don’t sweat it, I get that sometimes as well. Continue,” Sara says whilst waving her hand.
“My father’s offices in Italy and Switzerland aren’t only offices, he keeps his most prized possessions there.”
“Money? Jewelry? Art?” I ask her. She looks at me with a sinister smile while taking a drag. Fuck, I love her like this.
“Information about his clients, employees, and dirt on everyone. He kept some of the files at home, but the main stuff was there.”
Fucking bingo.
A sharp breath leaves my body, something resembling a laugh, my whole body going tight with electric satisfaction.
Lana isn't stopping sharing valuable information, that’s why nobody dares to interrupt her. “I didn’t tell you all of this before because thinking about him made me physically ill. And I didn’t know if I could trust any of you.”
“You know what?” Adam begins. “I respect that. For all you know, we could have been working for your father.”
“Exactly! But I do trust every single person on this patio, and Hana, of course.” Lana blends in and fits into this team like a glove. She is not only incredibly smart, but they all love her. We all thank her for that vital piece of information, but her expression turns sour.
“What is it?” My hopefulness evaporated the second I looked at Lana. She relaxes her face, trying to appear fearless, but I know her. Lana is fucking afraid.
We all sit back down again, and our ears are perked up. “My father retaliates, as I said, but he won’t come to Sarajevo to kill everybody right here. He is going to operate from one of his offices.”
“Why?” I ask her.
“He lost his turf, Sarajevo. You all have home-ground advantage—contacts, safe houses, allies. He knows he’d walk straight into enemy territory.
Look, he already lost the restaurant.” The way she explains it makes it all click into place.
Bosnia’s legal and security systems are unpredictable for foreign criminals like him.
One wrong move and he risks being detained or monitored.
Italy has easy access to ports and European transport routes, and Switzerland is a financial haven, offering offshore accounts, clean money-laundering routes, and discreet banking.
He won’t come to Sarajevo because that’s the one place where he’s not the predator anymore—he’s prey.
Lana’s presence here, under my team’s protection, neutralizes his power.
He can’t control the environment, can’t pull strings, and can’t strike without exposing himself.
Now we are finally gaining on him.
Time to strike the beast and bring him back home.
“Team, I have a plan. Listen up.” They all do. “Adam and Sara, go to Italy. Josh, Oliver, go to Switzerland. He might be hiding out there, and whoever finds him first, brings him back here.”
“What will you do to him?” Lana asks me.
“I will finish him.” She sighs like she can’t believe what I’m telling her. Where is this hesitation coming from? Lana senses my confusion and gives me a tight smile.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“Nothing. It’s just all so surreal.” Deep down, I know that Lana still loves her father. She is tied to the memories she had with him, to the man she knew. Not the man he has become.
“We’ll get him, don’t worry. I’ll stay here with you.”
“Okay. When will everybody leave?” I look around and not at the four members of my team. They all stand up and grab their coats.
“We’ll leave now. Calabria is a fifteen-hour drive, and the same goes for Saint-Gingolph,” Sara tells her. Before they leave, they linger for a moment to talk to me so that we can iron out the details.
“If it’s not a problem for you all, I’m going to lie down. This has all been very exhausting for me.” My little hummingbird does look worn-out, and I don’t blame her. It doesn’t matter how much our parents hurt us, they remain our parents.
“Don’t worry. We’ll see you two in about three days. Get some rest,” Oliver tells her, and he hugs her. Lana goes upstairs, and I lay out the plan.
Time is of the essence now, we can’t have Leon striking again.
“We don’t know where he is, exactly, that’s why you need to investigate if he’s truly there. Once you establish him, make your move. I don’t give a fuck if it’s messy or silent, I want him here.”
“Copy that, M. Don’t worry, we will catch this bastard,” the team assures me. They are off to do whatever they need to, and I sit back down on a chair inside. I hold my head between my legs because all this quick planning could blow up in our faces. It also makes one demon surge back up in me.
I haven’t been honest with Lana or my team. I have a dark secret I have been holding on to for a couple of years now. I left one murder scene untouched—no cleanup, no call-off sign, nothing. My team knows that I killed a man before the eyes of a puppy, but I lied.
I killed a man in front of his daughter.
“M, what’s wrong? You have been down here for, like, twenty minutes,” Lana points out to me. Fuck, I have sat here for longer than I thought I would. I can’t bear to look at her; I might crack and tell her my secret.
“Hey, look at me.” Her gentle voice and gentle lift of my chin to look at her make my chest crack open. I need to be honest with her so that she can draw her own conclusions about me. So, I tell her everything. She doesn’t react for a minute, and when she starts talking, I feel relief.
Lana didn’t judge me.
“Did you know the daughter was there?” she asks me.
“No, I didn’t. I barely uttered my call-off sign.”
“Okay, what happened to the girl?”
“I don’t know, she vanished into thin air. And all of this brings back painful memories of that one faithful night in Sarajevo. Also, I feel like I’m lying to my entire team, and you?”
“Why?” Each question, no matter how heavy, makes me feel lighter. And it’s all because I’m offloading this burden on to someone else. While I might be truthful with Lana now, I’m going to keep one piece of information about the daughter to myself.
It’s too painful to talk about, and I see that young woman in Lana. She looks so much like her. What nobody knows is that I have been sending money to that girl. It’s the least I could do.
“I feel like I’m chasing a ghost, and I have the sickest feeling that your father is already dead.”
“Okay, why do you think that? It’s doubtful.” Her flat tone shows signs of complete denial. Lana is trying to compose herself by lying to herself.
“Your father conducted business with my father, as you know, and his last hit was a complete bust. Leon didn’t complete the hit, and my father offered a price for his head, but nobody ever cashed it in. Your old man made it seem like he died, yet he survived.”
“It’s not your fault you didn’t see this coming, M. It’s not like you were ordered by your father to kill my father.”
“No, of course not.” I’m not sounding that convincing, and I feel like she notices my hesitation. I know that my father wanted to hire Leon. And to this day, I don’t know who he needed to kill for Dario. I only know that the hit went haywire.
“Good, let’s get upstairs and get some sleep. I need you in bed right this second.” I oblige, with a massive grin on my face. We walk upstairs to our en-suite bathroom and get ready for bed. Once we are in bed, Lana is pressed against my front.
“Thank you for doing this, M. I love you.”
“I love you too.”