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  He began pacing back and forth at the bottom of that stairwell like a caged animal. He was indecisive at the moment, but I didn’t know what would win out. Bianca kept tugging at my shirt, but I didn’t dare look away from Jonas. I wasn’t going to miss whatever move he decided to make next. My instincts came over me. I would watch and assess, doing whatever I could to make sure both Bianca and I were safe in whatever this situation was. His gaze was terrifying in a way he had never been before. I was afraid of being tortured, of being raped when I got here, but I had never been utterly frightened this way before.

  One of his men tugged at his sleeve. “You need to make your decision and go. I am getting the cars ready. The estimate is 20 men he is bringing with him. Many cars. He will obliterate us,” the man whispered into Jonas’ ear. Who was coming with so many men? Was someone finally coming for me? I never imagined Jonas would be so good at keeping a secret with all the messes he made previously. Maybe for the last eight years, just maybe, he had. If we were going to make it out of there, I had to be strong and protect Bianca. It was the only shot we had. This was the first opening I had seen since I had been taken.

  Jonas stared at me, harder than he had before. It was like he had a laser focused right on me. I saw something click; a decision had been made. “Bianca, I need you to come to your father, please,” he said in the calmest voice I had heard him use in this eight years I had been his sick little doll. What the hell was he thinking, calling Bianca to him like that? He had never had any interest in her before, and though she was four, she was very bright. She had obviously picked up on his hatred and disinterest in her. I could feel her cling to my arm tighter, instead of following his order.

  I had to be dreaming. I had half a mind to pinch myself really hard so that I would wake up in that dingy room where I had spent the last four years with Bianca and chalk it all up to a stressful nightmare. But it was all too real. I understood at that moment what Jonas wanted. He was never going to kill her, even if he wanted to so badly. She was another link to the Vasile blood line. She was a child he could use in just the same way he had wanted to use me. She was a pawn in his game of chess.

  Did he plan to take Bianca and kill me? The thought left a sour feeling in my stomach. I was not so afraid of death, but I was afraid of what would happen to my precious daughter if I left her alone in the world with no one but Jonas to care for her. Even if someone was coming for me, no one would know Bianca existed. Jonas had clearly told no one. She would be lost until Jonas decided she was old enough to make arrangements for her; arrangements that would put him or someone else he trusted in power over the clans.

  Jonas would surely draw up a marriage contract just the way my father had done for me. Only, I knew my father had done it for my security as well as the security of the stability of the mafia clans. I could remember the family of the man I was supposed to marry. I remembered meeting the man when I was very young. They were not abusive people. They were people my father trusted to care for the clans and for me.

  If Jonas set up such an arrangement for Bianca, it would have nothing to do with her. It would be for his own personal gain. She would be another pawn in the game he was playing in order to gain more power in the organized crime world. Over my damn dead body would I let my daughter, the most important person in the world to me, become a chess piece for Jonas to play. Even then, I would find a way to come back and haunt his every waking nightmare until he let Bianca go.

  Raising his voice this time, Jonas attempted to get Bianca to comply once more. “Bianca, I said come here!” His voice scared her, and Bianca turned her back to him with a loud wail and tugged at my shirt again, looking up at me with her tearful eyes. She wanted me to tell her it was all going to be alright, that she didn’t have to do what Jonas told her to.

  I wanted more than anything to tell her it was going to be okay, but I couldn’t lie to her. I had no clue if everything was going to be okay.

  I ran my fingers through her hair and tried to remain strong as I turned her body towards me, she was hugging onto me as tightly as she could. If anyone came near me, they’d have to tear my arms away from my little girl. Jonas’ man came back in with another desperate plea that they needed to leave now before it was too late. I hoped the delay would mean he would just take us both with him and save my punishment for later. In another venue, with his gun put away, I knew I could save us both from the ultimate harm.

  “Get out of the way,” Jonas ordered. His nostrils flaring and spit showering my direction. I wasn’t going to budge. He wasn’t getting his grubby hands on her unless he got through me first. Regardless of my past weaknesses with him and my lack of a weapon, I would fight to the death to keep Bianca away from him.

  “I will not let you use Bianca the way you have used me. You’ll have to rip her from my arms!” I snapped, my feet planted firmly at the bottom of the stairwell.

  Jonas took a deep breath in what I had hoped was a sign of him giving in for now. His gun lowered with the sigh, and I dared to relax. That was when he picked it back up lightning fast, aimed, and shot. I felt the pinch of the bullet landing on my left side and the blood that instantly began to run down my shirt. I fell helplessly to the floor as my breathing was restricted. Bianca let go of me as I fell back to the floor, she knelt down next to me, tugging at my shirt, crying. I couldn’t be sure what he had hit, but I expected it had affected my lung or diaphragm in some way. My body was rendered useless by that one shot. It wasn’t a kill shot. It was something he had done on purpose; allowing it to take time as I bled out all over the white floor.

  Bianca was crying endlessly; she knew I had been hurt. A panicked, “Momma!” rang from her lips over and over as I struggled to catch a good breath and find a way to get through this. I grabbed her hand, trying to use my other arm to support myself up but it was no use – I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Grab Bianca!” Jonas’ order to his men sounded far away.

  “Get her in the car!” he barked.

  I watched in horror as my sight faded, my breathing labored further, while my daughter was torn away from me by these disgusting criminals. She put up a fight, but a four-year old’s kicks were not going to harm such large men. They ignored it, and she disappeared to the other side of the door that led out of that stairwell. I felt the tears pouring out of the corners of my eyes, wanting my daughter, wanting to know that I was going to be okay, that she was going to be okay. I couldn’t know that though, and with her being in Jonas’ care I knew that she wouldn’t be.

  “You made me do that, Mariana. I didn’t want to hurt you, but you left me no choice.” Jonas’ voice sounded like a serpent, and I wanted to wretch, or perhaps that was the pain in my side. He came up close to me, squatting over my bleeding body.

  “You know, for a Vasile, you have always seemed so weak and mediocre, and you aren’t even that beautiful. You look nothing like your mother did. Maybe I should have kept her for my pleasures instead.” He spat on my face, but I couldn’t reach up to wipe it away. I didn’t have the strength.

  His words were hurtful, though I never expected him to like me. I was a tool. I knew that, but he wasn’t usually one for sharing those feelings. He truly expected me to die right there on the bottom step. I probably would.

  “In a strange way, I’ll miss you Mariana.” He said that in an almost whisper.

  With my last bit of strength, I gritted my teeth through the blood and the pain, panting at him angrily. “I will find you, and I will kill you, Jonas Masterson. Nothing can keep me away from my daughter. Just wait and see.” His sickening laughter had echoed throughout the stairwell before he went for the door. I didn’t see whether he walked out or not. My vision went black, and there was just nothing.

  Chapter Five

  Ion

  We finally made it there and raided the building, scaring the shit out of all the seedy characters who called the place home. It was a pitiful place. Nowhere like I would expect to find my princess being held
or even a place where someone who prided themselves on being such a hustler would call home. Once I arrived at the floor where everyone directed me he lived, I found that he and his men had left in a hurry. They had taken a stairwell behind an armored door down to a secret escape. I followed but stopped when I reached the bottom of the steps finding them covered in blood. Not seeing a body, I headed back to meet my men and continue my search.

  With my gun pulled, I prayed that by some miracle they had left her behind or they hadn’t all made it out yet. We followed a trail of blood down the hall and busted down the door where it ended. What I saw made my heart stop. There, on the floor of the dingy apartment, was the body of a blonde woman, her body lying in a pool of blood which was clearly her own. I fell to her side in anguish with hatred burning through my veins. My fingers went straight for her neck, trying to find some kind of pulse.

  She can’t die.

  That was all I could think at that moment. Everything I wanted and needed completely depended on Mariana’s survival. Yet, here I was, trying to find a pulse on her lifeless body. The level of blood was more than I had ever seen from a person who had survived a gun shot. I could see where the wound was, still bleeding. There was a chance Jonas and his men had hit something vital from the looks of it, but a sliver of hope was on the horizon as I caught the feeling of her pulse. It was weak, but she was still alive. I just didn’t know for how long.

  “She is alive! One of you, get me something from in here to put over the wound to put pressure on it. We have to take her to the nearest hospital,” I ordered. One of my men went into the bedrooms, grabbing sheets. They would have to work even though they looked like they could have used some washing a long time ago. I took them and helped my men take her down to the SUV, positioning her in the backseat so that her head was on my lap and I could reach the wound.

  It was scary to see that there was no response from her. She was in enough pain or had lost enough blood to have passed out. I was thankful for that, for the fact she didn’t have to experience the tremendous pain that was going through her body. Her breathing was shallow; I could barely tell she was breathing at all. The bullet had affected her respiration, wherever it had planted itself inside of her. We took off, rushing to the nearest hospital on the GPS. I would have to be smart about this; pay off the doctors and the staff for silence, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

  I didn’t care if my men saw it as a moment of weakness while I put as much pressure as I could manage on that bleeding hole in her side and silently begged repeatedly for her not to die. My distress was plain on my face. As soon as I lost her, I would lose everything.

  In a way, I was incredibly selfish by wishing for her to live. She had been shot and left for dead by a monster who had been holding her for eight years. Her suffering deserved an ending, and death would at least accomplish that. My intentions for wanting her to live had much less to do with feelings for her or her pretty face. Though, those things only helped to serve my determination for this purpose to keep her alive.

  I needed her alive, so I could prove my claim to the Vasile throne. I was man enough to admit just what I needed her for. If she were awake right now, I would make that clear to her face. I had vowed the moment I saw her, half dead on that floor, that I would never lie to her. She’d experienced enough pain and disappointment through her entire life, especially over the past few years. I wasn’t going to give her a reason to be disappointed in me, but I would also not give her false hope of something more than what we were always meant to be. That wasn’t the way I wanted it to be. She was a great woman proven by her blood alone. And if she was anything like her parents, she deserved the best she could get from me, which was exactly why my family and I had been the ones trusted with the Vasile legacy to begin with. We were strong, and we were some of the most honest criminals in the business if there could be such a thing.

  I looked down Ana bleeding in my lap; I wonder if she even still went by that. It was interesting to see how she had aged. I had not seen her since we were both children, but I knew even then how beautiful she would be with her chocolate eyes and long blonde hair. She had this innocent air about her, and it hadn’t gone away from her youth. She was one of those that would make you pledge to do anything for her because she looked so delicate and sweet, but her name meant it was not so simple.

  I wondered as I looked at the lines creasing her face and her thin and hurt body, bruised from the abuse, if the girl I knew was still in there somewhere or if everything good about her had been ripped away by her captors.

  The last time I saw her I was nine years old; old enough to understand what a wife was and that she would be mine. Though, I had not yet had my first crush on a girl yet. We had actually been visiting her family in Romania, and our fathers were having dinner tougher. Her spirit was so strong; it radiated through everything she did or said. Even at seven years old, it was hard not to get a sense for who she would turn out to be; in an ideal world, that is.

  My memory of that day came back to me as if it was yesterday, a movie playing in my head. I had been watching her most of the day as she tried to show me around the house with her limited vocabulary. There was an excitement in her to see me. I got the feeling she didn’t have many playmates. So, I silently went along with her, letting her show me everything she had. Some of her most prized possessions were her toys that resembled weapons, and she even took me into her father’s trophy room of sorts, trying to tell me some of the stories behind the swords and other things he had on display, as if from memory. There was no doubt that she was a Vasile. She was sweet and beautiful. And spoiled rotten.

  At some point, we had gone running around outside, and Mariana had heard some desperate meowing. She followed it behind a bush to see a stray cat, its gray and black hair all mangled from a fight. It was injured pretty badly, including a broken leg. She was instantly concerned about it and started crying. I followed behind her as she ran inside, interrupting the dinner to get her mother and father to come and see if they could help it. I was surprised that they obliged her.

  She looked at it with concern and horror as they tried to get a good look at its injuries and wrap the leg. The cat was in such distress that it sent Mariana into a panic. I reached over and grabbed her hand and held it. She instantly squeezed back. It already felt, even at such a young age, that she was mine. I held that little hand for the rest of the night, and I felt like a really empty little boy when I had to let it go.

  What struck me so much about her was how she had empathized with everyone around her, even animals. As I got older and held that memory close to me, it made me think of how she would be with our children; the heirs we create together. The Vasile children, my children, would be in good hands.

  I hadn’t seen her in years, and as we pulled up to the hospital, I realized how much could change in two decades. My feelings for her and my strength in the clan had morphed into something I never thought possible, watching how strong and valiant my father was when he was leading it.

  The thought of that little girl, the one that had belonged to me since the day she was born, having to endure all these awful things from Jonas, made me furious.

  I watched the emergency nurses come out with a gurney and load her onto it. I flashed my cash at everyone that saw her. They were discrete, letting as few people as possible get a look at her as they wheeled her into the operating room. I sent one of my men to pay off the surgeon as well. There would be no discussion and no investigation. They would make up whatever story they needed as to not reveal her identity or mine. I pulled out my phone as I headed for the waiting room and let my men know they were to have her guarded around the clock before I decided to take care of much-needed business.

  Jonas was going to pay for holding onto my most prized possession, for trying to snuff the life out of the last remaining Vasile. My men would find Jonas, wherever he had slithered off to, and god help the devil when he was found.

  Everyone knew about the ar
rangement, even Jonas. Though he was not of the original thirteen clans, Jonas had come to some of the meetings over the years. In fact, I had seen him about a year ago. I felt like I should have noticed something in his behavior that let onto the fact that he was the one who took her. Maybe the shooting could have been prevented. Wasted years could have been prevented.

  Well, Mariana would be where she was supposed to now. With me. She would be in my house, in my bed as soon as she was able, making up for the time we had lost.

  I began to call everyone I had ever worked with as well as the clan leaders I believed I could trust to help me in this endeavor. Everyone was going to have their eyes peeled for Jonas Masterson. They were to deliver him alive.

  His death was mine.

  Revenge was mine.

  Mariana is mine.

  The next phone call I made was to my family, to let them know I had found Mariana and to have them begin the preparations for our wedding. It was going to be extravagant; fit for a king and queen. She was going to wake up from her surgery to a whole new life by my side, and it was going, beginning with, a bang.

  Chapter Six

  Mariana

  I woke up and blinked my eyes open, instantly knowing that I wasn't dead. How could I be so sure? My side, where the bullet had gone in, hurt like hell, and I could hear the incessant beeping of machines.

  It took me a moment to realize, but I was in the hospital.

  For a split second, I wondered who had found me and brought me to the hospital on time. Then, I saw, to my surprise, that I wasn't alone in the room. There was a man in the room, sitting across from the bed. Our eyes locked, and I assumed, by the look of him, he was one of Jonas' men that I hadn’t met yet. My brain started moving, though slow, as I thought of how I might get out of this. Maybe I could just confide in one of the nurses before Jonas came back. But then my thoughts went to Bianca.