Anton
Rage, anger, betrayal, hatred.
That was all I had been feeling for the last eighteen days.
I didn't even know that Artemisia had been taken when I was in New York, but clearly the security guard that was no longer didn't either.
His cluelessness made me so insanely rabid with rage that I used him as target practice, but with knives, and then I severed limbs before he bled out, and then I slit his throat.
I had been doing a lot of killing recently, getting my own hands very dirty even by my standards, and I was aware that I couldn't keep on going in the way I was because officials wouldn't be able to stop turning their heads for much longer.
But the anger was so strong, so fucking strong, I barely slept given the pulsing energy running through my veins at all times, and nothing was enough to get rid of it.
The only antidote I had was her, but she had caused this in the first place.
Artemisia had fucking run from me, and for some reason I had told myself that she wouldn't. I knew that Leandro had sent guys to get her, but I'd also heard that she'd run from them too. She'd run from both of us, and I wanted to hunt her down and ask her why.
I knew why I thought she wouldn't run, and it was because I was feeling emotions and they made me lose my edge and my clarity, but this emotion did that most of all.
Love.
Artemisia was the first woman I had ever loved, and probably the last. This feeling, the pain that my constant anger was masking, it felt like it was never going to leave. I never wanted a life without her, and I thought about how my actions had caused her to go.
It wasn't all me, the Italian had done eighty percent of the damage, I just couldn't bare the sight of her leaving, so I basically chained her to a wall.
Yeah, keeping her in my home wasn't a wall, but people go stir-crazy, especially when there was no one else to talk to but me and I was working most of the time.
In a way I hated her, but I hated myself much more for two reasons. The first being that I had done this to her and to myself, my actions caused this need for her to flee. The second being that I was only falling more in love with her, and it was ruining me.
I wanted to find her, I knew that I could, when I felt anger like this I could do anything. But, I had a war going on, one that I wanted to win, and needed to win if I wanted to get her back, because I knew that one of us was going to die, and it had to be Leandro.
So now here I was, back in New York, having just blown up two warehouses with some of Leandro's men inside. I knew the chaos was coming, a storm had been brewing for weeks and now the hurricanes were about to commence.
I was going to bring this city to it's fucking knees if I had to, and I didn't care about the consequences, not if it meant I saw Artemisia one last time.
-
Artemisia
I was hurting, but I was healing in a way as well.
I was feeling guilt, anger, shame, regret and then I was feeling nothing at all.
There were only two things which brought a smile to my face. The first being where I was now living, on a small island off the Greek mainland. It had tourists but mainly people on boat holidays, but there was nightlife and the town was beautiful and it was a community.
The second was the fact that I was finally back with Alvaro and Jacob, finally safe, or as safe as we could be.
I remember seeing them again, being crushed in a hug by Alvaro and then by Jacob, beginning to cry at the sheer relief of being with the people who I considered to be home. For me, home was never a place, only a set of presences.
One of the three presences was no longer with us.
That brought on a whole new set of emotions.
David was no longer with us, and every time I looked at my two best friends I felt this horrible guilt strike me, as if it was all my fault.
It wasn't, it was Leandro's fucking fault, Leandro and his insanity once again were to blame. I hated him so fiercely, but as I've said before that feeling of love never diminished, only grew.
"Arté," Alavaro mumbled, rubbing his face as he stood by the entrance to the ensuite of my room.
I spun my head to look at him, my eyes wide, and I got off my knees and flushed the toilet before walking over to the sink and washing my face, acting as if he hadn't just caught me throwing up randomly during the day.
"What's up?" I muttered after splashing water on my face
He stayed silent, his expression faltering briefly. "I didn't want to say anything,"
"Say what?" I shot back, feeling myself grow slightly defensive, but we were interrupted by Jacob who walked in with a smile on his face.
"What are we talking about?" he grinned, clearly not registering either of our expressions
Alvaro and I stayed silent, staring each other down, and Jacob let out a hum of understanding, "Is this a conversation where I should leave? Or--"
"Stay," Alvaro said, "Artemisia needs to tell us something."
My mouth dropped open but Alvaro remained unfazed whilst Jacob looked between us. I knew that I owed it to them to be honest, but being pregnant was something I had successfully ignored; yes, I'd been throwing up, but I usually thought about the other difficulties to pass the time whilst I was hurling into a toilet bowl.
"Let's go outside," Jacob sighed and Alvaro turned on his heel before walking out of the room. Jacob gave me that knowing smile, the one that calmed me down, and placed a hand on the small of my back leading me onto the terrace.
I met my best friend's gaze, he looked absent, like he had tuned out, and I was nervous to tell him the truth. What if they judged me for having Leandro's child? What if they hated me for it?
"Arté, please." Alvaro breathed
I looked over to Jacob who was sat next to me on the couch, his eyes were kind but I dreaded how they would change.
"I'm pregnant," I said suddenly.
The air was thick with tension and I kept my eyes on the view of the bay, watching the glow of the sun illuminate the cliff face opposite us. My mind was slowly losing it's will to think about everything else, and in a way I felt a weight being lifted from my shoulders by finally telling them the truth.
"Who's is it?" Jacob rasped. I looked over at him to see his eyes were also focused on the view in front of us, and I looked over at Alvaro who had his head in his hands.
"Leandro's," I whispered and I felt the tears start to come to my eyes as I sat with the reality of things for the first time in a while.
By telling Jacob and Alvaro, it became real. The entire fucking situation became so real, I didn't get to pretend that it was just some thing that I would be ready for, because I wasn't.
I wasn't ready for this, but I couldn't let this child go. I wouldn't have an abortion, this child had been with me when the chaos really began, but in a way this child was going to be a memory of what could've been.
I also wanted this child for myself, to have my own family, even if it was just me and them, and Jacob and Alvaro.
The tears were in full force now, and everything was blurred as I allowed myself to cry properly for the first time in years. I didn't want to control it, I didn't want to get back into the headspace of who I once was, I didn't need to. I was with two people who always pushed me to detach from the person I had been trained to be for some moments.
To let myself feel.
To let myself be cared for.
I felt a pair of arms pull me down and I lay my head in Jacob's lap, lying on my side, looking out over the blurred view as I allowed my emotions to take over. He ran a hand through my hair, soothing me, letting me know that it was okay and that everything would be fine.
Alvaro crouched down in front of me and kissed my forehead, taking my hand in his, "It's okay Arté, do you want to keep it?"
"Yes," I said through tears, and I watched as Alvaro allowed a flicker of pain to run across his face before nodding and kissing my forehead again.
"Then we'll be here with you every step of the way Arté, you're not going through this alone." Alvaro soothed and Jacob hummed in agreement.
"I'm so sorry," I cried
"For what?" Jacob asked gently
I sat up and dropped my head into my hands as I spoke through the tears, "Leandro caused all of this shit to happen. If I hadn't of gotten involved with him then things would be so different. He killed David, and now I'm having his fucking kid but I can't...I can't let this child go,"
"No, no, hey," Alvaro rushed, tipping my chin up, "David knew what he was getting involved with, he was the one who pushed you to take the job, and he was very aware of the possible outcomes. He knew that dealing with Leandro directly was a risk, one he was willing to take. Arté, you have to understand that Leandro would've done this regardless, and in a way you spared our lives because he wasn't going to kill us as well, he knew it would drive you away forever."
I didn't know what to think, my heart hurt ridiculously and I felt this soaring pain in my body as I recalled the consequences of all of this. It was so painful, so fucking painful, and I didn't know how I had managed to ignore all of it on my own.
"What am I going to do?" I said weakly, "I'm not even 22 yet and I'm having the child of a married man who will use it against me to get me to stay, and he knows I will, that's the worst part."
"He will Arté, and I say this because I love you. You can't see him again, maybe in a couple of years, but not any time soon. He hurts you and breaks you, and I know you love him, but he isn't good for you and I you know this too." Jacob said firmly, I looked over at him to see the pleading in his eyes.
I knew he was right, and I knew that I had lost some of my self-worth in this relationship with Leandro. I knew that I didn't come second to him, but I was either the person he needed the most in his life or the person he would hurt the most in his life. I was just desperate for an in between.
I was desperate for some normality.
"This will be his child," I whispered
"I know," Jacob nodded, "but if you want any chance at feeling yourself again then for the first couple of years it's got to be you and this child, without the storm Leandro causes, otherwise the relationship won't be the same. You know that."
I nodded, looking at the rings on my hand, but then looking to my ring finger, tracing the skin where Leandro had my initials tattooed. My heart was aching at the thought of doing the right thing, but then I thought about the baby inside of me and how I wanted them to have a childhood that was loving and safe.
Leandro wouldn't be able to provide a child with a loving and safe childhood, everything that came with him was chaotic.
Maybe he would've been one of those ruthless Dons that put work down when he came back home to his Italian wife and kids. But then again, I wasn't purebred Italian and I was definitely not his wife.
My family was sat right in front of me, the two people closest to me in this life, and a child on the way.
How I would raise this child was going to be interesting, a learning process and an experience. But I knew that it would be the most meaningful and valuable life experience I would ever have, because it meant I finally got to let go of the hate I had towards my own childhood, and give my own child what I wished I had.
Mainly love, protection and a voice of their own.
I would give this child everything I didn't get, everything any child on this earth deserved, I would love it like I wanted to be loved, and I would never abandon them emotionally or physically.
In a way I saw this as a saving grace, a purpose, an opportunity to give love to an innocent being who was part of me, part of the man I loved, and partly its own person.
This child wouldn't turn out to be like me, or be like Leo, I wanted this child to be it's own person and choose it's path freely as a result of opportunities. I didn't want them to be forced down a road.
Leandro and I had been forced down our own paths, and look how fucked up we were.
-
Leandro
A human being's instinctive reaction to pain is to inadvertently cause more pain.
That's why people use drugs.
They take away the pain creeping up on them, a pain they know will being them to their knees, so addicts tend to use in order to not feel that pain until their using brings them to their knees instead.
I'd been drinking, day drinking, always slightly buzzed, and was doing coke as well.
I needed to get her out of my head, and it seemed to help. I could focus, approach the day with anger and ruthlessness and get shit done. Visions of her in my dreams, or in real life on the streets became less frequent, her voice wasn't in my head as much.
She was still there though. I was going to have a fucking breakdown if I let myself go through this sober.
The using didn't make me angrier, it made me bolder, I made harsh decisions but never rash ones.
I had Romulo beat up badly for letting Artemisia get away. That was a harsh decision, but not a rash one.
I didn't believe him. I didn't believe his story of Artemisia attacking him in the car, I had chosen that specific sedative because I recalled her telling me a story about the one thing that would knock her out: propofol.
It was actually a variant of it, one designed to induce a coma, but I'd only given him half of that dosage to use. Either way, I knew that she wouldn't of woken up, she said it herself.
So, I knew that Romulo had blatantly lied to me, and therefore he deserved the beating. But I also knew that he realised Artemisia and I were having an affair, whether he knew the backstory was a different question, but it wasn't something I needed the rest of my men knowing about right now.
It was hard not to fly over to Sicily and do it myself, but I had to stay in New York. Anton had to know who was going to win this, and his actions of blowing up warehouses and killing five of my men had struck my last cord.
I was going to raise hell, regardless of the outcome, but I knew he would too.
It was clear that I had been the one to take Artemisia, she wouldn't have just suddenly left, he clearly trusted her too much for her to go on her own. I knew he was in love, but he wasn't a total fool.
Now we were in a very dangerous place though, because I knew that this was starting to become more about her than it was about us and our empires. We were now two men being blinded by love, killing blindly, blowing things up blindly, destroying everything in our paths blindly.
But Anton was an idiot to think that I wouldn't fight ten times harder, because at the end of the day Artemisia had loved me. Not only that, but she'd been in my head since forever, even before she was taken I wanted to protect her. I'd already killed for her, I'd killed my own family, did he really think I wasn't going to respond with ten times the aggression in everything I did?
I would do it all for Artemisia and without hesitation.
But the worst part was, I didn't know when I would see her again, if I would see her again.