Yes, I surprised myself with this update too. 😂

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          After we had escaped Dimo's facility, Luca had raced down the streets wildly, making sure no one trailed us and transported us to a lone cottage deep in the woods. It felt a lot like the beginning of a slasher movie, but I remained alert to the best of my abilities. Now, I couldn't let a Bulgarian Michael Myers get the best of me.

          We spent the night at the cottage. The old man who lived there extracted the bullets from Dimo's thighs in his makeshift operating room and removed the grenade from his ass during his nonstop argument with Luca which indicated he wasn't just anyone. He was definitely Luca's confidante in a way considering his fatherly scolding. Also, it was all in Italian which strengthened my theory about them being acquainted for a very long time, perhaps since Luca was much younger, but I didn't confirm my suspicions with any questions.

          Instead, I offered my abilities as a medical professional to stitch Luca's wounds myself. He had a stab wound in his calf, thigh, and palm. I was certain he hadn't gotten those during the showdown with Dimo's men. Perhaps it happened before that, specifically during his meeting earlier, which would explain why he was late to the show. Again, I had quietly patched him up without any questions while his eyes never left my face during it all, no matter the pain of the stitches. I wasn't going to waste my breath on him after everything that had happened.

          Athena hadn't spoken a single word since we escaped. She found solace within a locked room immediately and no one dared to enter or even knock. Even though my body screamed from the lack of rest and unbearable pain, I sat outside her room all night and remained guard. It was the least I could do after she was forced into taking my place as the Bonferroni whore to suffer at the hands of monsters. I vowed to protect her as she protected me, so I clutched the guns to my chest and kept my eyes open for both her and Robyn who slept on the couch in the tiny living room.

           I wasn't sure if it was the overexertion of my mind or if I had lost it completely when I heard pants from the other side of the door where Athena had isolated herself. I turned my head and pressed my ear against the door to confirm I wasn't hallucinating. Difficult breathing filtered my ear along with soft mewls as if Athena was forcing herself to quiet down. A panic attack?

          I tore my ear away from the door and let the back of my head fall against it once again. A desperate breath forced its way out my mouth shakily, tears stinging the corner of my eyes. I fought against everything in me that wanted to go in there and comfort her, but I knew better than to invade her space while she was vulnerable. She'd have my head, I was sure. But my heart tore at the edges for the pain she was in. What the fuck had they done to her? This was far from the Athena I was accustomed to.

          I squeezed my eyes shut to lock the tears behind my lids. This entire situation left me overwhelmed, but I couldn't cry. Not here. Not now.

          I need him. I need my Leo.

He was covered in blood the last I saw him before he had no choice but to let me go to protect me. I was so wrapped up in my own destruction that I hadn't stopped myself to think about what happened to him after that. The dreadful pit in my stomach knew he was severely injured. I wanted to do nothing more than to run to him and nurse him back to full health and his royal glory myself. Being separated from him was physically sickening. The taste of food was bland, appetite was long lost with him. I felt so shallow without him and my kids. A void grew within my chest that could only be filled by them, so I had to get back soon before I completely lost my mind.

          My mind drifted to a beach where the sun kissed the horizon tentatively, almost shy to dip further below. Orange hues danced upon the ocean water, the sky supporting shades of pink and purple. The grains of sand were rose petals, so soft and velvety that I could almost feel them pressing against the soles of my bare feet. My heart swayed in glee. My body felt as light as a feather that threatened to whisk away in the soft breeze, and I'd happily welcome it. Then I heard his voice, so deep, gravelly, and powerful yet it was a soothing melody to my depraved ears.

"My love," he called.

My stomach lurched with joy at once. There he was. My love. My heart. My king. My everything. My Leo. I turned around to see him standing in the magnificent suit he always wore. So elegant and handsome. The smile on his face could melt the coldest of hearts, and those dimples of his could drown me in their fiery depths. His lively eyes carried the oceans themselves and shined so bright against the glorious sunset, yet his eyes were the ones I wanted to solely admire and surrender to.

His opened arms waited to embrace me as he called for me again. "Mia Regina," he cooed, melting me with those two words. I began running toward the love of my life, sick of the obstacles and distance that separated us, but it still seemed as though he was miles away. My feet were moving in the same spot which quickened the shallow beats of my heart. The soft breeze had gotten lethally stronger as it began ripping me further away from Leo. I screamed and cried, but the ominous tornado brewing blew me away from him forever, leaving me in a spiraling destruction by myself.

My eyes suddenly shot open to realize it had all been a marvelous dream that turned into a nightmare; a nightmare I wasn't very fond of. I squinted at the rays of the sun that kissed my skin. However, when my eyes landed on the man whose hand rested on my knee, my heart eased and a smile found my face.

"Leo," I whispered mindlessly until I realized how foolish I was.

"Try again, Dolore," he sneered.

"Get your hands off me, asshole!" I swatted away Luca's uninjured hand and tightened my grip on my guns.

"You see, I'd never hire you as a guard. You were snoring on the job."

I offered him nothing more than a glare, fighting a yawn that traveled up my chest.

"You need to rest now to replenish your energy from the nonsense you got yourself into last night."

"I don't trust you one bit," I snapped.

"Sweetheart, if I wanted to harm you, I would've done so while you were crying in your quick slumber, instead of trying to bring you back to reality."

My hand immediately wiped the moisture from my cheeks that I hadn't realized accumulated there. "If you want me to trust you at all, tell me who stabbed you."

He smirked like a cocky asshole, instead of an angry asshole that he was last night. "Is that concern I sense in your tone?"

An overly fake smile pulled my lips at the corners. "Don't flatter yourself. I'm glad someone got the best of you. I wonder why they didn't stab your neck, so tell me who did this to you so I can teach them how to properly stab someone and kill."

He snorted, almost amused by my words before a scowl slowly slithered onto his features. "Take a guess, Dolore."

His eyes bored into mine menacingly as my thoughts ran wild, but only one name pranced on my tongue.

"Leo. You met with Leo?"

My heart clenched when Luca's sardonic expression gave away the truth. My stomach flipped at the thought of Leo being so close. It was definite that our constant movement was delaying his efforts to reach us. Perhaps if we stayed in one place, he'd find me like a moth lured to a flame. But I doubted we could stay here considering Dimo's men were going to hunt us down.

"Yeah, that cunt did this to me," Luca seethed, venom lacing his words fiercely when it came to his twin brother.

I shrugged. "You probably did something to deserve it."

"I told him the truth," he hissed, trying to keep his voice low for the people that were sleeping. "I told him what I told you. I told him my truth. I told him the truth about our bastard father and he chose to show his love for me by stabbing me multiple times."

I scoffed. "I don't believe you. Leo isn't fucking stupid or completely incapable of seeing things in a different light. Either you're lying or he believed you were lying."

"He's just like our father. A bastard hungry for power who will kill his own family in the process."

Again, I couldn't help but snort at his words that held terrible anger. "You don't know Leo anymore. Family is the most important thing to him, especially his siblings. I've seen how fiercely protective he is of Arabelle and Evelina. Even Gus."

"You don't think I was?" His brows arched painfully together. The hurt in his blue irises didn't go unnoticed. "I didn't have much time with Evelina, but Belle was my baby sister. Even as a child I would've brought the world to its knees for her and Gus, even Leo. I'd do anything to please Belle and get her everything she ever wanted. I loved her and Evelina before she was even born. Do you realize the pain of knowing that a sister of yours doesn't even know you ever existed? That your family doesn't even speak of you? That the traces of your existence were erased from the history of the bloodline? Do you know the agony when your own father sent the orders to execute you?"

I was left mute against the thin layer of moisture in his eyes that held unbearable pain. I had lost my own parents at the age of eleven, but I wasn't ordered to be eliminated by them. I found all the love I ever needed in Aunt Wendy who cherished both me and Ashton like her most prized possessions even when she didn't owe us a second look as a twenty-one-year-old when she took the responsibility of our guardian. But Luca was still hurting. How could you not after having lost your life and family in a single day? I wanted to believe him—a part of me truly did—but then it'd implicate his father and others in Leo's family as traitors who tried to kill the heir. It'd devastate Leo.

Would Leo truly try to kill Luca after he told him his side of the story? No. I refused to believe Leo was so blinded by rage to kill his own twin without a second thought after meeting him decades later. Leo's fury was brutally lethal, but he was a sane man and would see reason. That's the Leo I loved, so I refused to believe he tried to kill Luca after the sad tale of his life. Luca had to be lying.

"Prima la famiglia," he muttered softly. "We always promised each other that, always vowed and swore by it, but promises are no longer sacred to Leo."

"They are," I whispered. "They always have been. He had to let some go when I forced him to by breaking his heart, but our destinies are intertwined forever, so those promises were just delayed."

"Don't prop him on a pedestal, Dolore. The fall from up there will leave you shattered, and it's only time before you snap out of your wonderland and fall."

"Is that a threat?"

"A fair warning from a well-wisher one might say." Luca stood from the floor, his face twisting at the pain he probably felt from his recent wounds. "There's only pain around that family and Leo. Save yourself while you can. I can provide you with that. You can run with me."

I almost laughed at his offer. "That's generous of you, but I'll kindly decline. You see, I've already fallen too far to ever get up now. I've befriended the monsters around me, and it turns out, the worst ones aren't even down here. They're above ground and they walk without any consequences, but I'll seek justice that I and many others deserve."

          Maybe you were meant to fall down the ladder of life to find something down there... to find Leo down there. Aunt Wendy's words from years ago still echoed in my head. Everyday I wished she'd wake from her coma because she always knew what to say or do, always composed and always right. I needed her to give me strength in times like this where the world around me was progressively crumbling.

"I can see that you're a good woman. I don't wish to see you destroyed in the fire that Leo possesses like all the other women around him."

"His fire consumes me in more ways than one and I savor every bit of it. It's exhilarating."

"You won't survive him."

"I won't survive without him."

Luca shook his head. "This is your perfect opportunity to leave his world behind. I can help you secure a life where he doesn't exist. You can disappear."

"Do you know what love is? What it feels like to be loved or to be in love so madly that nothing else matters?" I questioned the man who had no answers for me. "Leo let me go once because he loved me too much. He did it even though it broke him because I was in pain and wanted out. In love, it's the other person's happiness you wish for even if it's not with you. It's selfless in every regard, not selfish. That's the true essence of love that you don't know."

"Love shouldn't bring misery."

"Love doesn't. It's the pain that follows love after it's forsaken. Love is beautiful in and of itself. I lived a life without him and it was a misery I plunged myself into. I'm not doing that again. Him and I, we're meant to be. We were always meant to be. Maybe it wasn't our time back then, but it is now, and I will not leave this opportunity stranded."

Luca scoffed and turned to walk away.

"And Luca," I halted his steps, "you can steal everything from Leo if you get lucky enough, but you can't steal me from him. You may look like him, even sound and act like him, but you're not my Leo and never will be. I belong to him."

"We'll see about that now, won't we, Dolore?" He flashed me a smug smirk over his shoulder and disappeared around the corridor.

***

The sun bathed the living room prominently by the time Athena opened the door behind me. I almost fell back before I composed myself. She was still wearing Dimo's shirt with dry blood staining it and her face. Even I hadn't washed the blood off my face from last night. I had forgotten about it altogether.

"Go ahead and sleep inside. I'll keep an eye out," she ordered.

My entire body galloped internally at the prospect of sleep. I rose from the floor and sauntered into the dark room that was shielded from the sun peeking slightly through the black curtains. I dropped the guns to the floor along with every other weapon on me. After flinging my shoes off, I hit the bed and immediately slipped into a slumber I desperately craved.

I don't know how long it had been before I peeled my eyes open to soft laughter. I turned around in the bed with a groan to find Robyn laying next to me with her head resting in Athena's lap who sat against the headboard with the softest of smiles on her face. She gently stroked Robyn's head like a mother. I thought I was dreaming because this side of Athena was too wild to imagine. This caring, motherly aspect of hers. Given I didn't know her well, I couldn't exactly put it past her, but she was the most ruthless woman I'd ever met in my life, after all. Right now, she was far from the beast that tore through those men last night.

          "If you're done sleeping, freshen up in the bathroom. We have a lot to discuss," Athena ordered sternly.

          I stretched out in the bed and took my sweet time getting up. I was still tired and severely sore, but it was better than before. I quickly rinsed the blood off me and slipped into the same clothes I had been wearing. I doubted they were any clothes for women here when I had only seen an old Italian man living here.

          I slipped back into the room where I finally noticed Athena had changed into a man's clothing. A loose shirt and pants too big for her waist.

          I stifled a laugh. "You look ridiculous."

          "Desperate times, sweetheart." She flashed me a menacing smile that didn't bode well for me. "Robyn, stay in the room."

          "Okay, but I'm hungry."

          "I'll get you something," I said. It was mid-afternoon—assuming the clock on the wall was correct—which meant I'd gotten a good few hours of sleep.

          We closed the door behind us when we stepped into the living area. The men must've heard us when all three—Luca, Rex, and the old man—graced us with their presence in the small area.

          Athena's eyes immediately settled on Luca, dissecting the man piece by piece. Her expression was blank for a moment before a shred of pain etched onto her furrowed brows, something that was a rare sighting from her.

          "Why?" she asked Luca softly, her voice almost brittle with emotions.

          "Athe—"

          She raised her hand without looking at me, telling me silently to shut it and I did. She didn't know that the man who sent her away into Dimo's talons wasn't Leo but his imposter twin. However, I sealed my mouth shut and let her come to that conclusion herself as I had.

"You saved her, but sent me away?" She tilted her head in question as she slowly neared him with every word that left her mouth. I was now behind her so her expressions were unknown, but the pain in her voice was chilling. "You know what they did to me? Do you want to see all my new scars from their whips that tried to tame me? Want to see the burn marks from his cigarettes? Or should I just tell you how Yardanov and his men took turns violating my body? Every. Little. Vivid. Detail."

My heart shriveled in my chest as those words pierced through my body, cutting too deep to be healed. It shouldn't have been her, but she took my brutal fate upon herself. The men winced at her confession of the events they were responsible for. Blurred by sudden tears, I quickly blinked them away, trying to keep my composure.

Athena's hands reached for her face, swiping on her cheeks to wipe away something I guessed were tears. Tears? Athena and tears were things that didn't fit. Tears weren't meant for someone whose strength I had come to admire exponentially which only pointed to the grave reality of what had been done. The broken pieces inside her were surfacing painfully, her agony so tangible that it clawed into me.

"Was I worth not saving, Leo?" Her voice finally broke with a sob that deafened everything around us. I cupped my mouth, trying to swallow the cry that threatened to spill, tears that stung cruelly and were on the verge of dripping profusely. The disgust inside me for this ordeal rose with bile that was difficult to keep down, but I tried to hold it all back. Leo would never abandon her and drag her to those monsters, Athena knew that. No matter their differences, Leo would never wish that hell upon any woman. She was his sister and he cherished his sisters dearly.

          "Listen. I'm—" Luca opened his mouth, and that's when it all went sideways.

          Athena's hands reached behind her and under the oversized shirt she wore to unsheathe two knives that were a part of my weaponry from last night. Training one blade against Luca's neck, she stabbed the other in Rex's shoulder and forced him to his knees while she simultaneously kicked the older man in his throat and dropped him to the wooden floor with ease. Within a second, she had all three men look like amateurs who didn't know how to even slap.

          She was an assassin—a highly trained and skilled one at that. Manipulation was a key and she twisted that key to her benefit. She disarmed them with emotions and then caged them beneath her.

          The old man wheezed and coughed on the floor, trying to regain the lost air while Rex grimaced and groaned from the pain, a look of pure disdain on his face. And Luca, he was torn between anger and amusement if his face was any indication of that.

          "Stay on the floor, old man, or else I'll be slicing your throat next, not kicking it. And you,"—Athena spared Rex the briefest of glances—"I'll twist the knife if you even dare to breathe the wrong way." She finally faced ahead, giving Luca her full attention as I walked toward them to see a cynical smirk stretch Athena's bruised lips. "And I'll be bloody damned!" she exclaimed amusedly. "Shouldn't you be dead, Luciano?"

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Yay or nay?

I know it was a shorter chapter compared to the others. Nothing very exciting happened, I know. I had much more planned, some good action, but I thought I'd cut it off here and save the rest for the next chapter which will be a continuation of this.

What do you think Luca is trying to do by lying to Arie about what actually happened between him and Leo?

Do you think Luca is trying to steal Arie away from Leo?

If yes to the above question, do you think he'll successfully steal her away?

Who is the old man in the cottage?

How do you think Athena knows about Luciano?

Do you think the things Athena said Dimo and his men did to her were true or part of an act?

And are you enjoying the growing bond between Athena and Arie?

I promise the next chapter will be a little more exciting!

Thoughts on Leo?

Or Arie?

Luca?

Further comments and questions are always welcome ❤️

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Come join the fun and the family on Instagram @alleira_elleon.

Be kind to one another and yourself.

Stay safe and much love to everyone ❤️
~Reet