In Your Arms.

Chapter four.

Eduardo’s POV:

Seven and a half weeks earlier.

It has been six hours since the attack on my brother and his wife’s home. Pretty pathetic if you ask me, one minute Alessia is holding a celebratory dinner for them both and the next, they’re both taking bullets from my gun. I have been watching their every move over the last year, I fell back into their routine, made them vulnerable. Easier to ambush. They survived long enough to be stabilized. That was enough. I stood over my brother’s unconscious body, patiently listening to the heart monitor by his side. Because of our family’s reputation, my father always thought it best to be attended to from home while hiring the best doctors which is how Marcel came to be a part of our family. That way, no word of our weaknesses reaches our enemies and we are able to come back stronger. Alessia isn't an ordinary woman, and so it doesn’t surprise me that she is still conscious, even though she succumbed to a heavy bleeding, she cannot say much yet but I don’t miss the rage in her eyes and I wonder if she and I had met before. If she wasn’t Leon’s wife I'd praise her, but she is, and so I despise her. I have seen enough now as it is, I take one last glance at them both before leaving the room to talk to Marcel who shifts uncomfortably as he watches me approach him. The irony is in the fact that he is our long term family doctor and I am consulting him on their recovery yet I'm the very reason they’re in this state to start with. I don’t ask because I care, I need a timeline to work with, to come back much stronger and take back what’s mine from Leon. “He may be down for about a month or so, the injuries were fatal. It's a miracle they survived, as for Alessia, she miscarried due to the fatal wounds she succumbed to, did you know that she was four months along with twins? That may take some time to heal from”. At his last statement, I turned away from Marcel to hide my surprise. No, I didn't know that, did Leon know? That is none of my concern though, I could care less about their recovery. I now have more than enough time to prepare.

Present day.

I haven’t been in their room since the night of the attack, but word got to me that Leon finally awoke. I helped myself to their bathroom, I needed him to know I was here, and so I removed the cufflinks and left them at the sink in hope that it would send a message. I am standing over him now watching him stir in his sleep. He was always so careless and trusting, just like Father was, it was only easy for my men and I to get in here because there were no guards in sight. “So what’s the plan now Don?”-one of my two men asked me in russian. “You're here now and he doesn’t know it, why not finish what you started?” Silly men, do they not understand the satisfaction in having your enemy plead for their life rather than just taking it from them? I signal for them to leave the room and I'm following suit but I hear the distant click of a gun, following the direction of the sound in the dark I get on my knees and approach Alessia’s bed from behind. I thought she knew better by now, this wasn’t the first time I crept into their room, nor was it the first time she attempted to kill me. The last time she did, I had to teach her a lesson, hence the stabbing where her gunshot wound was bandaged at the time. The thrill I got from hearing the sickening tear of flesh as she tried to silently mask her pain when I knew she wanted to scream was everything. I concluded that she only didn’t make a sound so as to not wake Leon up. Pathetic. Covering her mouth I whisper to her “I am tired of counting the days until he will come looking for me, tell him I am waiting, doesn’t he know yet about the pregnancy you lost that night?” She flinched at the last statement and I smirk in the darkness knowing I hit home, before she could respond, I'm out of the window. She would have come after me. She always wanted to, but Leon suddenly wakes up. I watch from the corner of their window as he walks up to it, closes it, and after what felt like several minutes, I see him walk to their bathroom. It is dark but I see his shadow clenching it’s fists and I assume that he got my message. With that, I'm pleased and immediately out of sight.