Solace

58 | mikhailov

Alessia

"You realize it is my daughter they kidnapped, my daughter!" Vincent yelled.

I could not help but roll my eyes. Playing the worried father did not suit him. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, to believe that he was just worried about his daughter and I did not say that he was not, but I did not find his act convincing.

"We are well aware of this and are working on finding her," Ricardo replied calmly and I knew he for one did not believe Vincent's act.

I looked at Antonio, who was fortunately still here. Today had not gone as we had planned so we would just have to wait for another right moment.

"Then what is your plan to get my daughter back?" Vincent questioned Ricardo.

"Negotiations."

"That is not enough," he contradicted him.

"What do you propose then?" It was Alessandro who asked him this question.

"How about you send these three to Warsaw to look for her?"

By these three he was referring to Pietro, Leandro and Antonio. Pietro and Leandro still made some sense, they were her cousins and she no longer had an older brother. But without accusing him of having bad intentions, I was almost certain he only included Antonio to provoke me.

"Give me one good reason why I should go look for that girl," Antonio challenged him. After I had told Antonio about Vincent, I managed to stop him from hurting him physically, but the threatening undertone in his voice did not go unnoticed.

"I'm with him," Leandro added, "I wouldn't even enter that cold climate to look for one of Katarina's shoes."

"That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard in my whole life," Rafael stated.

Ricardo sighed, probably over their choice of words. "What they intend to say is that it is irresponsible and risky to send them alone into the terrarium of the enemy."

Vincent would not stop pushing. "Every minute we lose here, she could get hurt."

For a millisecond, I did feel sorry for him. At the end of the day, he was her father the fact that they were both evil to the core did not prevent them from feeling emotions.

"I don't think they will hurt her." That came out of me to reassure him, but he did not appreciate the kind gesture.

"What do you know?" he spat.

Antonio, who stood left of him and Leandro, who stood right from him, both took a step towards him, about to attack from both sides, but Pietro held Antonio back before questions would arise.

"Careful," Alessandro warned him before turning to me. "Do you really believe that?"

I nodded. "Mikhailov does what Henry tells him to do, right? And Henry won't hurt Katarina, because he won't get anything from it." I shrugged my shoulders. "They are just doing this to send a sign."

Even though it could be hard to believe, just as I knew Alessandro or anyone in this room would never assault a woman in their captivity, Henry would not either.

I did not know whether it was a good or bad sign that they trusted my judgement blindly when it came to this subject, but I was grateful that I could be of some help.

"You heard her," Ricardo said. "There is no need to play our triumphs now when there is nothing at stake. We will negotiate."

Vincent shook his head, knowing that was Ricardo's final word, and I hoped with all my heart that he would lose his fragile control and reveal his true colours to everyone, but unfortunately, that did not happen. Instead, my phone vibrated and I received a message from an unknown number.