Hot Set

by Ivy Blake

  “Where did you get that?” I jumped towards him. He looked over at me with his brow furrowed.

  “From my father,” he replied, and our eyes met. I fumbled for the matching pendant that was hanging from my neck. I hadn’t taken it off since that day I found it in the house in Naples amongst Mama’s things. I pulled it outwards, so he could see it. Gino saw, but made no comment and looked away from me.

  “Why do you have the same one? What does this mean?” I asked and I could feel a confused rush of emotions gushing to my brain. I couldn’t make sense of why Mama and Gino would have matching pendants. Gino was keeping silent and I glared at him in the rearview mirror. Leo was silent, too; he didn’t want to interfere, this was between Gino and me and I could sense it in my bones that there was some connection.

  Gino breathed in deeply and finally spoke.

  “My father gave it to your mama and one to me,” he replied and I gasped, falling back in the car seat. I could sense Sofia looking up at me with her eyes wide. She knew I was distressed.

  “Why would he do that? Why would Mama keep it?” My voice was low, almost a hiss, and I caught Gino staring at me in the rearview mirror.

  “They were in love, Isabella,” he said finally and I snapped my face away from him, my eyes welling up with tears.

  “They fell in love soon after your papa and she got married…but what could she do? She was married to the ruthless Marco Aducci. She couldn’t tell him that she had fallen in love with another man,” Gino continued and I gritted my teeth. He didn’t have to tell me anymore, I had already figured out the rest of the story. I knew my father too well by now.

  “But Papa did find out, didn’t he?” I asked and Gino nodded his head lightly. I felt the blood drain from my face.

  “And he had Mama murdered, along with your father. To pay for their love behind his back,” I snapped, clenching my fists.

  “Mama, what is wrong?” Sofia cried out, looking up at me with worry. I leaned forward and kissed her sweet small forehead and stroked her hair.

  “Nothing, baby, nothing is wrong. Everything is all right,” I said.

  Leo turned in his seat and looked at me. He was worried, too…and I realized that Sofia looked so much like him when she had that worried expression on her face.

  “Are you all right, beautiful?” he asked and reached for my hand. I nodded my head. It was a shocking revelation…but I shouldn’t have been shocked. I knew exactly how unhappy Mama had been in her marriage. I should have known that she’d found love with someone else; in fact, I was happy to know that.

  And Papa…I should have figured it out. He killed Mama out of anger, killed Andrei Cavallini too, and then blamed Mama’s death on him. And now Gino wanted revenge, and rightly so. Papa didn’t deserve anything less than what was coming for him.

  “Yes, I’m all right now, Leo, with you,” I told him and we smiled weakly at each other. With him looking after me, I knew there was nothing I needed to worry about.

  Chapter 21

  Leo

  Gino and I were standing close together in the dark. There were binoculars pressed to Gino’s eyes as he peered to see into the shopping mall, through one of the large open windows. We’d been staking out the place for over an hour now, watching for any signs of Marco and his men. Gino had arranged for a dozen paid men to help us with this attack and they were all in position as well.

  “This is it,” Gino said and I clenched my jaw.

  Somewhere inside the mall, there were a group of children and women who had been imprisoned by Marco and his men, and tonight was the night that they were going to be traded off to another party for money. The plan was to intercept the deal and hopefully capture Marco. What we were going to do with him after we captured him was a discussion that Gino and I hadn’t had yet. I knew what Gino wanted to do—he wanted payback for his own father’s death.

  We heard the sound of cars approaching and we watched quietly.

  There were three cars, one of which I recognized as Marco’s. Matteo and Francis got out of it, followed by Marco. Even though it was dark and we couldn’t see very clearly, there was no mistaking it was him. From the other two cars, more men poured out who we didn’t recognize. Some of them were the men from the buying party, undoubtedly.

  All of them started walking into the abandoned dark building, in all probability to go check on the people who were going to be trafficked.

  We had decided to give them a few minutes, allow them to build up a false sense of security and get engrossed in the trade-off. Gino’s binoculars were still fixed to his eyes, looking to see when the perfect opportunity would be.

  A few minutes went by, and I had my gun tightly clutched in my hand. I already knew that we outnumbered those men. We would take them by surprise and these guys would not stand a chance.

  Gino raised up his hand and pointed at the mall, which was the signal for attack and we rushed in with our guns pointed forward. Shots rang out from either side, but inside the mall, the men were outnumbered. My first targets were Matteo and Francis and I shot each of them in the leg and they fell to the ground.

  Men on both sides were putting up a good fight, but we had taken them by surprise and we were more in number. Within just a few minutes, most of the opposition was already on the ground while the others stood with their hands up in the air, including Marco.

  In the dark, I could only see his eyes. They were narrowed and angry as they glared at me but he hadn’t said a word yet. Three years later and I was still haunting him.

  “We’ve got it covered here, you should go check on the kids. Go!” Gino shouted. I bit back a response, but I knew he was right. I needed to get the women and children out of here.

  With my gun still clutched in my hand, I ran up the steps of the building, looking behind each locked door till I finally found the room where the prisoners were being held. When I burst through the door, they all cowered together, pressing themselves into a corner of the room.

  In the moonlight streaming in through the broken window in the room, I could see their unwashed, scared faces. Most of them were children, some of them adult women, and they were all bundled up together, afraid of what was to come next.

  “It’s okay, we’ve come here to set you free. Don’t worry, don’t be scared,” I said to them, lowering my gun. Most of them didn’t speak English. I could sense that they were mostly refugees and poor immigrants who had been kidnapped off the streets.

  “We will find your families, you’ll be free to go back home, don’t be scared,” I crouched down in front of a small girl and reached for her shoulder. She flinched and then started crying, throwing her arms around me. I didn’t know if she’d understood my words, but she could sense that we had come to bring her to safety. As I held her in my arms, I thought about Sofia and what I would have done if my daughter was in this situation. All I felt was anger. Marco didn’t deserve to live.

  “Leo!” I heard Gino’s voice. He was running up the steps, coming to look for me.

  I stood back up and went out of the room.

  “They’re in here, I’ve found them!” I exclaimed as he ran towards me. He was out of breath and immediately, I could sense that there was something wrong.

  “It’s not him, it’s not Marco!” he shouted, shaking his head with his nostrils flared.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I growled, rushing past him, back towards where the others were being held by our men. Gino followed me.

  “It’s an imposter, Marco’s body double. I realized it when I shone a flashlight to his face,” Gino was shouting behind me as I ran.

  “No! It’s not possible! I saw him with my own eyes!” I growled, running back into the room. The man who I thought was Marco was standing with his hands up in the air. Gino shone a flashlight on him and I felt my body stiffen. Gino was right, this wasn’t him.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I growled, turning to him.

  “I got it out of Francis. Marco found o
ut about us, that we were planning something, and he sent an imposter in his place to fool us,” Gino said.

  “Why would he do that? Why would he want to fucking fool us when he knew we would win?” I asked, clenching my jaw. Gino shook his head and the answer came to me like a rock falling on my head.

  “He wanted to keep us busy,” I said, answering my own question.

  ***

  I didn’t stop to hear what Gino had to say or what he was going to do with the imposter. I knew I had to get to Isabella and Sofia. I drove at break-neck speed, running every traffic light and swerving through traffic until I got to the apartment which was supposed to be a safe house. The one that Marco was never supposed to find.

  I ran up the stairs until I got to the door. We had assigned one armed man to stand guard at the door, but he was lying on the ground now in his own pool of blood.

  I jumped over him, crashing through the door and when I stumbled in, I saw that neither Isabella or Sofia were in there. The place had been ransacked, their bag was missing, the sheets on the bed were jumbled up and on the ground. There had clearly been a struggle.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” I growled and I picked up a coffee table and crashed it to the floor where it broke into smithereens. Where was I even supposed to begin looking for them? It was obvious now that Marco had kept a watch on Isabella; he had followed us to the safe house and waited until the coast was clear.

  In order to keep Gino and me busy, he had followed through with the trade off at the shopping mall but sent an imposter instead. While over here, he had kidnapped Isabella once again, and this time, with Sofia in tow.

  Where was he going to take them this time? Feeling frustrated, I sat down on the edge of the bed. We had come so close to happiness, to getting away from him, to destroying Marco once and for all. But it was just an illusion; it felt like Isabella and I were never going to be able to have that happy family we were dreaming about.

  My cellphone rang in my pocket and I answered the call, hoping it was Gino with some new positive developments.

  “Leo, it is so good to hear your voice again, son.” It was Marco.

  I jumped up from the bed, clenching my fists into balls.

  “Where have you taken them? Where is Isabella? Where is my daughter?” I growled, spittle flying out of my mouth. Marco laughed, a quiet calm laugh, like he knew that he had won.

  “You don’t have to worry about them, Leo. I’ll take care of them. You better give up now, boy, because you will never see your girls ever again,” he hissed and before I had a chance to say anything else, he had already ended the call.

  I growled with anger, flinging the phone away from me. I should have known better—Marco was always two steps ahead of me.

  Chapter 22

  Isabella

  I woke up in darkness, on a bed, with a throbbing ache at the back of my head. There was a low rhythmic humming sound all around me and I sat up with a start. It was like a bad dream from three years ago, like that time when we had run away from Naples. I blinked my eyes, forcing my gaze to adjust to the dark. It was true. I was in the same room on my father’s private jet again. This time, I remembered everything that happened. I wasn’t fooled.

  Sofia and I had been waiting in the apartment where Gino and Leo had left us, thinking that we would be safe there. Instead, Papa appeared with two armed men. I knew he was there when I heard the shots being fired outside our door.

  Sofia screamed and I pulled her tightly into my arms. We had nowhere to go, how was I going to run with Sofia? Papa was at the door and in the next instance, he had burst through with his bodyguards.

  He had laughed at me while Sofia and I cried, trying to stay as far away from him as possible. I had tried to shield Sofia with my body, but one of the men had overpowered me and pulled my daughter away. I screamed and scratched and tried to get to her again, but the other man held me back. Sofia was screaming, her face red, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  “Calm her down,” Papa had growled, his laughter fading as he watched me put up a fight. The man who was holding me back rammed the barrel of his gun across my head and I was knocked unconscious. This time, he hadn’t even bothered to drug me with a drink, he’d just used brute force to keep me under his control.

  “Sofia!” I screamed her name, jumping out of bed. I’d just realized, in my foggy state of mind, that she wasn’t in the room with me. My heart was racing in my chest, I was shaking with fear, and the door to the room opened.

  Papa stepped in with Sofia in his arms, who had a big stuffed bear in her arms and seemed happy.

  “Baby!” I shrieked and rushed to her, pulling her forcibly out of her grandfather’s arms. This time, Papa didn’t try and fight me; he knew that we had nowhere to go.

  “Are you okay, baby? Are you hurt?” I asked her, checking the back of her head and her body for scratches or wounds. She seemed to be fine. I looked up at Papa with tears welling up in my eyes.

  “Once again, Leo has failed you, hasn’t he? You should have come to expect it by now,” Papa said in a low somber voice. He slowly walked to a chair and sat down on it.

  I sat back down on the bed with Sofia on my lap. She didn’t seem to realize that something dark was going on, and I was glad of that. I wanted to do everything I could to shield her from the craziness of Papa. He was watching me rock my daughter on my lap now and his eyes were dark, staring, glaring.

  “Baby, why don’t you go play?” I said to my daughter, who looked up at me excitedly.

  “Go to the cockpit, sweetheart, the pilot man will look after you for a bit while your mama and granddad talk, yes?” Papa spoke to her soothingly. He was never this nice to her, and suddenly, he had turned into the model grandfather. Sofia jumped off my lap and ran out of the room, making make-believe conversation with her brand new teddy.

  Papa looked at me after she had left and a sharp smile spread on his face.

  “How are you feeling, Bella?” he asked and I flared my nostrils angrily at him.

  “How do you think I’m feeling? I am a prisoner to my own father, who hit me with a gun!” I exclaimed and Papa laughed like I had said something funny to him.

  “I didn’t do it myself. I wouldn’t do something like that to you, Bella,” he said, the laughter still in his voice. A shiver ran down my spine at the thought that Papa would excuse any behavior of his as long as he was just giving the command for it, as long as he wasn’t doing it himself. What kind of a man was he? Why had I been foolish enough to believe that my father was intrinsically a strong moralistic man who had experienced many hardships in life?

  “Why, Papa? Can you please just tell me why you are doing all this? Why don’t you just want me to be happy? Why can’t you allow Sofia to just have a happy normal life?” My voice was cracking as I spoke. I knew I was going to break into tears again but I just couldn’t hold them back…as much as I tried to not show weakness.

  “It’s very simple, Isabella. You should have chosen a different man,” he replied, narrowing his eyes at me again.

  “So, this is all about Leo?” I asked, lifting my chin up proudly.

  “Yes, and also, I will not have one of my women manipulated and thrown against me. I will make him pay for all the shit that he’s fed you!” Papa was growling now and I clenched my jaw.

  “I know the truth, Papa, I know that you are the one who has been lying to me. You have been involved in human trafficking. I’ve seen the ledger, I’ve seen the proof. Nothing you tell me will convince me otherwise. You can hold me a prisoner here, you can keep me locked up in your house all my life, but you will not change my mind, I will always know the truth!” I exclaimed with tears pouring down my cheeks.

  Papa was watching me with his lips pressed tightly together. There was a growing rage in his eyes and I could see that his fists were clenched. He didn’t know that I knew what he was involved in.

  “What I do…what I have done all my life, is what has provided for you. It is why you had a luxurious c
ushioned life all through your childhood, why we live in mansions everywhere, and why you can afford your beautiful dresses and shoes and private jets!” Papa spat and I snapped my face away from him.

  “I don’t care about those things. I don’t want it, I didn’t ask for any of that. You are the one who forced all that on me!” I snapped and Papa stood up from his chair. He was walking towards me now and I kept my face firmly turned from him.

  The mattress sagged on the bed as he sat down beside me. He reached for my cheek, slowly rubbing away the tears that were rolling down my cheeks.

  “You don’t understand, Bella. Your mama brought you up to be a delicate stupid creature. In this world, we have to do all kinds of things to survive. Survival of the fittest, remember? I have survived all these years because I never flinched from playing dirty, because I have proven myself to be the strongest in the litter,” Papa continued and I yanked my face away from him. I didn’t want him touching me, being close to me.

  “Now that you have a daughter, you will start to realize that you are willing to do anything to make her happy, to give her a luxurious comfortable life. That is all I ever want for you, Bella.” Papa was speaking convincingly in a soft voice. It was exactly this kind of talk that he had used to manipulate me three years ago. This was why I had always given my father the benefit of the doubt.

  I jerked my face around to look at him again.

  No more. I wasn’t going to fall for it anymore!

  “What I want for my daughter is a happy family life with both her parents. The last thing I want is for her to eat the food and wear the clothes and live in a house that is paid for by blood money!” I shrieked.

  Papa let out a deep breath and shook his head.

  “You have always been a weak soul, Isabella. You would have been a very different person if I was responsible for your upbringing instead of your equally weak mama. That woman ruined you!” Papa hissed and I narrowed my eyes at him.