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She might deleted her traces, but I might restore them back.
Raphael's pov
I was in my office. Calina was putting our daughter to bed. Zia, I hated her name. But she was a sweet girl, and I could use her well to build strong connections if her brother took over my empire.
And I really liked that she was attached to me. I hoped her attachment would last a long time for me. Then, she would be easier to control.
But if she was like her mother I had to go the hard way to tame her and make her obedient. I knew, however, that Calina would not make it easy for me to turn our daughter into what I wanted her to be, an obedient little girl who could obey orders.
Therefore, I knew I had to tame my wife first before I could tame my daughter. I sighed. It would be a long way to go before they were what I wanted them to be.
I looked towards the door as someone knocked on the door.
"Entra!" I called the person even though I knew it had to be Denise. I had messaged him this morning, telling him to come here as soon as his flight landed in the US.
The door opened and Denise came in as I expected. "Good morning sir," he greeted me, I huffed, cocking my head.
"I really don't know if my morning is good or bad, not after I found out last night that my wife has cancer. Why didn't you inform me about my wife's condition when you told me in Italy that her and my daughter's lives are in danger? "I asked him irritated.
"The last time I checked, I recruited you and pay you a fortune to keep up with the things I want to know."
"I know, Sir, and I am truly sorry for my weak work, but the fact that you didn't know you had a daughter surprised me, as I thought you knew about her all the years, and after the miscommunication between us was cleared, I was shocked, and couldn't think straight for the moment, and forgot to inform you about your wife's condition," he told me apologetically, looking at his shoes, not being able to look me in the eye as I glared at him madly.
"Miscommunication?" I asked him with a chuckle, shaking my head. "Was it really miscommunication? Or just a sloppy work?"
"I am sorry, Sir," he apologized again, not daring to talk back to me.
"You're lucky that I've more important problems to deal with rather than showing you how to do your work right, lucky you," I sighed. "Thank you for your mercy," he said appreciatively, nodding his head, letting a sigh of relief.
I watched his demeanor, he looked tense. After all these years working for me, he still couldn't relax around me. Good, he should still fear me because fear brought not only obedience but loyalty and respect as well, the more he feared me, the less he would think about betraying me.
"You can show me your gratitude by telling me about my wife's actions here," I said, leaning back in my chair, playing with a pen in my had.
"I gave you a file--"
"I know," I interrupted him, "but I don't want to read it, I want to hear it from your sweet mouth." And compare what you tell me to what I heard from my lovely wife.
"Just give me a short sum up with all the relevant details I need to know."
Listening to a story from two different mouths was better than from one. Then, you could also see if the story was the same, or different, and see which parts of the story you had to investigate more.
"Your daughter is sick, or was sick, Mr. Morelli. She had a whole in her heart, and needed surgery to get it closed. Calina didn't have any saving as she loves to spend money and spoil her child. Therefore, she borrowed the money from Cortez, and paid him back in time, but after Cortez found out she was a doctor, he didn't want the money anymore, instead he wanted Calina to work for him, he even went to the extremes and kidnapped her daughter to blackmail her after she refused to work for him after Zia's surgery, but Calina being Calina, she killed Mr. Cortez by playing some dirty games with him. And on my flight to the US I found out how," he told me, and the story was similar to what I heard from my wife, it seems like once in her lifetime she told me the truth.
"You need to be careful while you're around her, capo. She likes to inject people. She injects people with something that paralyze their whole bodies and leave them defenseless. That's how she managed to escape Cortez and her attackers in the hotel room, she also paralyzed one of our men by her car as he approached her to pick her up and bring her here."
"I know that she likes to inject," I said, taking the vaccine she had tried to inject me with out of the drawer, showing it to him, "she attacked me with it yesterday. What's in there? Do you know it?"
"It sure isn't legal. And I think she mixed this stuff herself, but I am not sure, I took some blood samples from her attackers to find out what the ingredients are. But now we have one," he claimed, nodding his head to the vaccine in my hand, "we could send the vaccine to Dr. Hanny so that she could inspect it for us more, and find out about the ingredients."
I nodded in agreement, giving him the vaccine, saying, "Do that."
"And I would suggest locking the door of the operating room, if there is one in the villa, to prevent her from going in and mixing another one," he pointed to the vaccine, "and maybe we should go through her stuff as well to make sure she doesn't have more of it, too."
"No need, she got a fever yesterday and I got rid of her clothes myself and her bag is here," I claimed, taking her bag from the drawer under my desk, placing it on my desk. My men were smart enough to take her bag from her after they brought her here.
"May I look in her bag?" he asked me. I tossed him the bag and he caught before starting to look inside.
"What are you looking for?" I asked him curiously. "These," he muttered, taking two wallets out of her bag. "Who do these belong to?" I asked him, frowning. I haven't had time to look in her bag, as I had my hands full of her, she was a lot to handle.
"I think these are her attackers' wallets. They refuse to talk and tell us their IDs, not matter how much pressure we put on them. It was strange that they had no cash, let alone guns with them while attempting to kidnap her," he mumbled, pulling two guns from her bag.
Sighing, I massaged the bridge of my nose. "Shall I ask what else she has in her bag?" I asked him with a snort.
"Nothing, I think she needed some money so she took the wallets," he claimed, taking her purse and opened it, where was no cash, "and I guessed right."
"I'm not even surprised that she stole from them. She had also robbed me with her friend before running away from me, fucking trouble," I huffed.
"Speaking of trouble, could you fix the problems she created here or do you need more time? After all, she screwed up a lot in less than a month."
"I'm working on it, but capo, as you say, she's caused a lot of trouble. We have a lot to fix before we can get her to the UK. I've already taken care of the footage at the hotel where she shot her attackers, and also hacked into her email account and emailed the hospital where she worked at, telling them that she decided to quit because she was feeling a lot of pressure with everything that was going on. But we still have to make Zia's kidnapping look like a misunderstanding, or find an authority to cooperate with us and close the file for us," he told me.
"Let's do it by using an authority, that way it'll be less complicated and easier than making a fucking plan in order to make it look like a misunderstanding," I told him.
"That's not easy either," he sighed, "we can't manipulate the law. We don't have much power in the US."
"No, we don't," I agreed with him, "but I know someone who could resolve the matter in a short amount of time, and I think you know him too."
"Mr. Graham?" he asked me, and I nodded my head. "Well, that can work as his organization is quite big, and he owns half of the judiciary too," he said.
"It will, as it'll only take a phone call from him, and," I snapped with my fingers, "the police will stop looking for Zia and Calina, which means we can easily take them abroad."
"Considering that he is your business partner who you have done many businesses with in the past, I am sure that he will help you and solve your problem here."
"He'll," I told him firmly. "I'd be also better if you'd stay at his mansion until the problem is fixed here," he suggested. "Why?" I asked him, not really liking the idea of staying at someone else's place, "Don't we have enough security?"
"Cortez's brother, Hugo, he's still after Calina. The mule that we snuck into his home, he told Hugo that she is your wife, without making him suspicious of where he got the information from, but our plan backfired. This information we gave him didn't stop Hugo from chasing Calina, as we thought it would, no, he still thirsts for revenge and won't stop until killing her. He doesn't care that she is your wife or under your protection, all he wants is her blood," he said with a sigh.
"Then, let him come! And I'll show him what it means to hunt what's mine!" I gritted out, my hands balling into fists.
He looked at me hesitantly before saying, "I really don't want to overstep my boundaries, capo, but Hugo has already started rallying men and gangs in the US to work against you. Even though this mansion is guarded by many of your men, if Hugo decides to attack, you're not sticking close to a number of men to defeat him. You're strong in the UK, but the US is majorly Draven's territory, he has the power and the most trusted connections here. It is really advisable to ask him to accommodate us during our time here."
I looked at him blankly while thinking about what he just said, before nodding my head with a sigh, agreeing with him, "Alright, I'll call him and ask if he can host us until we fix my wife's mess here."
"And do you want me to bring Fernando here because your stay is taking longer than planned?" he asked me and I shook my head.
"No, let him continue his training in the UK, I don't want him to meet his mother. She's like a ticking bomb and I don't want her to manipulate my child against me. And that will be her punishment for her too. She won't meet her son until I change my mind. She will meet him when I decide she deserves to meet him," I said, my jaw clenched.
She didn't deserve to meet him. I knew she thought she only had one daughter, thinking her son was dead. However, she was selfish enough to separate me from my child. She wouldn't come back to me if she wasn't in deep shit.
And I had no doubt that after I solved all her problems, she would try to run away again. And if she tried, I couldn't risk that she took my heir with her this time.
"As you wish," he said, "and one more thing."
"What?" I asked him frustrated, as the problems he came to me with felt like had no end. "Adrian is trying to restore the footage I deleted, trying to find out about Calina's whereabouts," he informed me.
"And? Can he?" I asked him, raising a brow, cocking my head. "He probably could if he had the right equipment for it," he claimed, shaking his head, "but can't because he's missing the tools to take advantage of the system. Do you want me to find out about his whereabouts and bring him into your captivity?"
"No," I declined his suggestion, as I had better plans for him, he should feel how it was feeling to get fooled, "I want you to play with him."
"What exactly do you want me to do?" he asked me curiously. "Make him believe he can restore the footage, but instead of giving him the footage, give him videos from clowns, a few viruses, porn videos, make him feel like a fool."
"That's all you want me to do?" he asked me, and I nodded my head. The last time I got him into my captivity he broke free and escaped with Calina. And I wasn't stupid enough to repeat the same mistake again. I just wanted this clown to be far away from us.
"Yes, just keep him away from us, he's more a threat in our captivity near us, than away from us, and not knowing our whereabouts."
"Alright," he nodded his head, before the door to my office opened. My eyes wandered to the door and I saw Calina enter the office.
I smirked at her, asking, "Do you know what knocking means, piccola?"
"Yes, but I don't think it was necessary as you don't knock either when you go into rooms," she shrugged boldly.
"I'm not going to knock on doors in my own house!" I told her through clenched jaw.
"That," she pointed to her body, "is my body, and I didn't want you to touch it, but you did, so don't expect any respect from me if you've never shown me any!"
"Enough!" I hissed in madness, "I've had enough of your attitude! If I'm a monster, you are one too! If I'm selfish, so are you! You blame me with my past, but what about yours?"
"You killed two innocent people for your own selfish reasons! You killed an innocent orphan, I wouldn't even do that! You took over a life that wasn't yours! You killed Cortez! You injured your attackers in that hotel room! You did the same things as me, the only difference is that I hurt you and you others!"
"I--" she began, but I interrupted her.
"Uh-uh! Don't deny it love! You are a monster too!" I told her. "But you know what? There are worse people than me and you! And one of them will host us until I fix the shit you got yourself into!"
"What?" she muttered, frowning. "We will stay with Draven , one of my business partners who has the strongest connections in the US because the problems you have caused here are messy and chaotic!" I told her frustrated.
"Draven? You mean the mafia in US?" she asked me when the realization dawned on her face.
"Yes, and I expect you to behave there and keep yourself from stealing. If you rob him too," I pointed to the wallets on my desk, "you can say goodbye to your hands."
He hated thieves. And he was even worse than me.
I just hoped she wouldn't cause any problems during our stay with him.
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