Chapter Twenty-Four
Mikhail’s POV
I had dreamt about the carnage of the Italian attack.
Dead bodies lay on the floor, and the building was covered in gore.
The atmosphere was thick with smoke, and I was happy.
I thought I had won the fight. Then I saw Isabella in Caruso's arms. She looked terrified, frightened, and pitiful. Her brown eyes reflected in my mind, and I watched her cry in Caruso’s embrace.
She told me that she was sorry, and she never meant for this to happen.
My heart shredded into pieces. This was the ultimate defeat, and in a rage, I aimed my gun at Caruso's head.
That was when I heard the car door slam loudly.
Its engine revved, and I heard a pop from the exhaust.
It was the shouts from the soldiers that patrolled the mansion that woke me up from the terrible nightmare. I sat up to a reporter on the screen in front of me. Someone gave marching orders outside, and I stretched my arms wide and yawned. I heard the subtle hum of one of the maids who walked by.
My eyes were glazed, the sun hid in the sky, and all I saw were white clouds that gently passed by.
I tried not to worry about the dream. Yet, when I turned to kiss Isabella, she wasn't there.
The sheets were deflated, and it made my heart jump.
I looked around and observed that her coat was gone.
I got out of bed and opened the drawer where she kept some of her jewelry, and I didn't see the gun I gave her.
“Shit!” I spat out, trying to recall if the dream was real or not.
I couldn't help but think of the possibility of Caruso and his men coming over during the night and kidnapping her while I slept.
But that would not have been possible, right?
Yuri would have been the first person to break the news to me if anything had happened.
Yet, everything felt normal, and the morning seemed peaceful.
“They took her,” I heard a gentle voice say in my head. “They took her, and you couldn't protect her.”
My heart began to pound while the tension within me intensified.
As I moved along the hallway, a few guards greeted me, but I didn't respond. My focus was on finding Isabella. I made my way to the rooftop, my eyes darted from the horizon to the soldiers that stood there, passing around a joint.
“Boss!” said someone in the group. “Good Morning.”
I walked to them and asked if they had seen Isabella.
“No. We didn't see Isabella,” they answered, and my mind began to run wild. What if they followed the balcony and carried her away? But only an insider would lead Caruso's men to my mansion. And what if, maybe. Just maybe, Caruso's men have already infiltrated my soldiers?
I ran back to my room and checked around the rails on the balcony for any sign, palm or thumb print, scratch, a loose thread from a fabric, yet I found none.
Every door I opened all around the mansion was void of her.
I hurried downstairs, cutting through my soldiers.
The atmosphere felt heavy, my chest heaved, and I felt the heat of the sun on the top of my head.
And that was when I met with Yuri, standing behind the benches in the pool area.
My rage increased; I was certain that this was a bigger nightmare than the one I’d had earlier. Whatever the case may be, I was in the mood to shed blood to get the truth of where she was.
Yuri greeted me, and I looked at his stoic face.
“Where's Isabella?”
He looked to the left and back at me. “She went to confront Marco.” I was tempted to throw a slap across Yuri's cheek. The idea of my one and only trusted guard taking sides with a foolish decision didn't resonate with me.
“How could you, Yuri? You're meant to protect her, not to let her run to her doom.”
“I apologize. It's just how things are with family. You can never come between a daughter and her father. That's a relationship that sticks. Besides, there are debts that one has to settle without the intervention of anyone. And in Isabella's case, I thought it was personal.”
“This is crazy,” I said while I walked out, trying to figure out what the hell they were thinking.
I’d promised to keep her safe, and she decided to go straight into the enemy's camp.
It was almost like she was testing my ability, provoking my strength to see how far I would go for her.
Well, I wasn't going to let her go to Marco without protection.
“Did she go alone?”
“No. She went with quite a number of our soldiers.”
“Okay, good. Gather the rest of them,” I said to Yuri. “We're going to bring her back home.”
“But, boss-”
“It's not in your place to speak after you let my wife go into the enemy's camp.
You were meant to be her protector. Things like this make me think the worst. So before you persuade me or try to talk some sense, this is an order.
Gather the troops. Let's go save my wife and kill those bloody Italians properly.”
**********
We drove for a while and stopped at a distance. A few Italians walked around the main entrance wearing white vests with a rifle hung across their body.
There was a small garage beside, and no trace of Caruso's cars. Quite a number of them drank beer, raising their bottles in the air, slapping some ladies on their butt, and smoking their cigarettes.
“Do we have a clear shot?” I asked one of the soldiers, and he said, “Affirmative, Sir.”
One by one, the guards who stood at the entrance fell at the shot of the sniper. Then we rushed and stood at the edges of the door. In stealth.
“Hey!” One of the Italians shouted, and this was going to break our formation. I turned and immediately, without thinking, gave the unarmed guy a headshot.
Those around the premises stood on alert, and then I knew we were sighted. The ladies screamed loudly, and the Italians fell back.
“I take left, you take right.” I signaled to Yuri, and he nodded in agreement.
Luckily, the door opened, and the man who opened it was my first shot. I watched the bullet crack through his skull, and the blood covered my face. He fell flat, the house went silent, and that was when we stormed in.
I thought I'd see Isabella the moment I walked in, but she was nowhere around.
The pressure boiled in me, and the rage I had for being in Caruso's safe house gave me the audacity to kill ruthlessly and bring the heat.
A few armed Italians ran up the stairs, and I shot them all with precise aim.
Those who gathered around the dining room fired back, but all to no avail.
We outmatched them ten to one. Some of them tried to escape through the window.
Unluckily for them, we had a solid formation, and I promised to kill every Italian in the safe house.
There were some ladies at the barbecue spot.
They looked afraid as they screamed. Of course, they were beautiful, but they weren't my Isabella.
So I shot them all and observed someone playing dead on the kitchen floor, mingling with several dead bodies.
His back moved up and down as he breathed in and out.
So I walked to him and raised him by the collar.
His eyes were closed, but he blinked after I slapped him across his left cheek.
“You think you're smart enough to play dead?”
“No.” He said with a thick accent. Tears filled his eyes, and he found it hard to swallow his saliva. He managed to gulp it down, and his breath smelled of garlic.
“Please, I'm sorry. Don't kill me.”
“If you want to live, then tell me where she is…where's Isabella?”
“She's with you, at your place,” he said, and I slapped him again.
“Wrong answer,” I said. “Where is she?” My eyes were burning with rage, and I think he saw it. I moved him to the counter and punched him in the face until he had a bloody nose.
“I don't know, sir. I don't know where. I'm just a servant.”
I threw him to the ground and shot him in the head. I had hoped that he'd be the one to lead me to her, but he turned out to be useless.
I began to search every door in the safe house.
Each room had a distinct scent. The living room smelled of smoke and gunpowder.
The kitchen smelled of burnt food. Some rooms had the scent of hairspray, and the bathroom smelled of urine.
There was a door at the far corner on the top floor, and I walked in.
Two ladies sat in shock when I opened the door.
Fear plastered over their faces with tears trickling down their cheeks.
“Where is she?”
They both looked at each other, speaking Italian. I already knew where this was going, so I shot the lady on the left, and the lady on the right shouted like she'd seen a monster.
“It’s okay, stop crying. 'll let you go if you just tell me where she is.” She sobbed for a short while and shook her head to the side.
“Oh. You don't know?” She didn't reply. I sighed, raised the gun to her chest, and shot her twice before I walked out of the room.
The exchange of gunshots continued outside the safe house as everyone inside was dead, yet I couldn't help but think that I had started an unnecessary war if I didn't find Isabella.
Each bedroom was empty with dead people on the floor.
I heard a voice from one of the rooms I had already searched.
I walked back in and noticed there was a separate door.
The voice increased in crescendo the more I approached, and when I opened it, I was stunned to see Isabella standing and alive.
I knew it was her because of the coat and her hair.
Her back faced me, so I walked closer to get a better view.
She pointed the pistol at Marcos's head, and he sobbed helplessly like a child.
Her hands shook, and I thought she was both willing and unwilling to shoot him.
I knew this because her finger wasn't on the trigger.
“Please, Bella. Believe me.” He begged. His eyes were red and swollen with tears.
“Shut up. You're nothing but a coward,” she said, and I was impressed at her response.
If I were to get this over with, for every plea of mercy, I would shoot different parts of his body, from his feet to his hands, until he ran out of blood.
I felt her response gave him hope instead of fear, and that's why he kept pleading, trying to see if he could reason with her.
“I'm not a coward, Isabella, if I didn't tell Caruso that I'd hand you over to him, he’d kill me. It's them. They're the ones who made me become this person.”
“You're pathetic,” Isabella said in retort. “You watched Giovanni die when you could have saved him, yet you beg because you think your life is worth saving? Giovanni's blood is in your hands, and I would only be a bigger coward if I let you live.”
Isabella's hands shook. Her index finger finally touched the trigger, and Marco's eyes rained down tears while he kept pleading. Slowly, her finger pressed on the trigger, so I held her hand and brought it low.
“Hey, it's okay,” I said to her startled face.
“What are you doing here?” She asked, cleaning the tears from her eyes.
“I'm here to save you, Isabella. You don't need to get yourself dirty for him. That's my job, okay?” I kissed her temples and looked back at Marco.
Her body shook after she watched the first shot pass the center of his forehead. The second shot went through the same hole, and the third passed through his heart.
I was hoping for her to cry. Perhaps show some affection that Marco is now dead. But she stood, unflinching to the reality, like nothing in that moment mattered.
“Come on. Let's get you out of here.”
We walked outside the room and noticed how the safe house looked like a massive dump site. After we made our way down the staircase, Yuri walked up to us and broke the news.
“There's more Italians now, and I'm afraid we might be outnumbered.”
I walked out of the house and saw Caruso. The man I intended to kill and bend his men to my will. He stood rigid, shooting towards us, right before I had a flash of the dream and how I had Caruso at gunpoint.
“Stand back, Isabella,” I said. “Go back inside.”
“No. I want to fight back, with you.”
“This is not the right time to argue; just do as I say. Go take cover, escape if you can. Yuri and I will stand and face them. You have your gun, I trust that you can protect yourself.”
“I can,” she said. I kissed her head and told her to go.
Right after she ran back in, I saw the rage in Caruso's eyes. He had reinforcements, and they only grew larger by the minute.
“Tit for tat, Caruso,” I said. And then the shootout began to get intense.