-"Death too, must be earned."-
_______________________________
Starr disabled all the cameras and Ida, Thea, and Oscar tranquilized all the guards. They stood before the metal doors and without a second thought, Blade and Antonio broke it open.
When the dust cleared they were met with a vivid scene of Dimitri and his wife, Mila Ivanov sitting around a glass table.
The Italians couldn't look away from Mila.
She looked just like her.
Leia.
The same golden-blonde hair and electrifying blue eyes. The difference was just the matured face and graying hair.
They tore their eyes away from her and glared daggers into Dimitri.
He gulped as he opened his mouth to say an alibi but he was cut off by Luca's deep and threatening voice.
"We're not here for you. We're here for your daughter," he scowled as they all stepped into the lavish room.
Dimitri and Mila's faces visibly paled.
"How'd you find out?" Dimitri hesitated.
"You don't get to ask questions, only we do," Antonio sneered as he waved his gun in the air.
They didn't get to say anything more when they were all cut off by slow and tempting heel clicks from a distance, making their way towards them.
Their heads snapped towards the sound when an hourglass figure came into their vision.
(Play song now)
Her hair had bright tones of the Tuscan sun, with highlights of honey. Flaxen and gold. Feathery and voluminous with lazy curls.
Her eyes were so azure and deep. Aegean and cobalt spark deep within the oceans. Her skin was tanned and sun-kissed yet freckled. Her heart-shaped face with high and defined points suited her athletic and tall figure.
She was just how they remembered...
The color visibly drained from the Italian's faces.
It was like they were seeing a ghost.
She walked up, directly in front of them, not sparing a glance at her so-called 'parents.'
"It's been a while," she spoke. Even her voice was the same.
Modulated with a small rasp to it.
Luca looked at her forehead. All those years ago, he saw the bullet go in her head. He held her dead body. He buried her casket and carried it to the cemetery. She was supposed to be dead.
He was angry. At her and himself.
How was she still alive? And why did he go through that pain if it were for nothing?
"You are supposed to be dead," Luca spoke with not a hint of emotion. It was like he was dreaming like they were all dreaming.
It didn't feel real.
"Aren't we all?" she smirked with her eyes narrowing and eyes flickering with playfulness.
Her eyes turned sincere when she pulled all of the Italians into a bone-crushing embrace. They returned it almost too fast, with tears wetting her velvet jacket.
Ten years too long...
They'd never thought that they would ever see her again because where she was going in the afterlife was somewhere they would never see.
She was a saint...a person who valued family above all else. Yet she was a free bird that could never be caged. She was someone everyone aspired to be.
She was the sister everyone wanted.
The sister that they had lost...
But, at last...she had been found again...
She pulled away from the hug reluctantly as tears threatened to spill over, and looked them over one last time before taking a deep breath.
"I'm guessing you all want an explanation," she murmured.
"That'd be nice," Antonio sniffled as Starr comfortingly rubbed his back. Matteo clutched onto Ida's hand like a lifeline, not easing his grip for a second as more tears blurred his vision.
Thea stood by Oscar's side like a magnet, not moving an inch, too afraid that if she did, she'd burst into tears yet again.
It had been ten years since he had lost her. He was well over moved on. It had been ten days since Midnight passed. He was very much not moved on. At all. He wasn't sure if he could ever recover from that. Just as he thought he couldn't cry anymore, he did.
She backed away and motioned them to follow her as she chuckled slightly.
As they walked throughout the halls, everyone bowed their head in respect towards their Pakhan and opened the doors to a warm office with a crackling fireplace.
She sat behind the white leather chair while everyone else sat in front of her.
"I'll start from the beginning.
Viktor was born first. Then it was Alexei. I was born eight years after Alexei.
When they found out that I was a girl, they had sent me away to Sweden and put me up for adoption. They had told everyone that I was a stillborn boy and I didn't survive the birth.
I didn't know my real name or who I was. All I knew was that my real parents didn't want me and I was tossed around from foster home to foster home.
Ever since I was given away, I lived in Sweden until I was 15.
When I was five, I befriended this girl.
This girl was abused at home. Her father was an alcoholic and her mom was a drug addict. You could only imagine how that would turn out for her.
Every day at school she'd turn up with bruises and cuts and an empty stomach. Her parents forced her to go to school so none of the teachers would report them. They were already on thin ice with the law.
People at school bullied her because she didn't have the best clothes, didn't have a new backpack, and didn't have any friends. She worked three jobs on top of going to school. She worked her ass off just so she could provide for her little brothers and supply her parents with alcohol and drugs.
I helped her all I could. Patched up some of the minor wounds and helped babysit her brothers whenever she worked. But it was never enough. No matter what I did, her parents always abused her ten times worse.
We were too scared to call the police because she knew what kind of situation I was in and didn't want to be separated from her brothers.
One day, a scout from the U.S came to our little old high school and offered her an abroad scholarship to Columbia for her academic scores. She was over the moon and took it as her chance to take her brothers and leave the country and never see her parents ever again.
I didn't get to see her after that day.
I was kidnapped.
One day I was in Sweden and the next I was in Italy.
My kidnapper was a member of a wiped-out mafia and told me who I really was. His name was Adrian, and he worked for someone who wanted to see me succeed. He said I needed to train to take the Russian throne and make a better life for myself.
Back then, no one knew who the King was so you could imagine my hesitation. Adrian said that the King was someone who was going to make the world a better place. I was desperate, so desperate, for a happy life. So I believed Adrian.
I knew that if I succeeded then I would have the power to back to Sweden and take the girl and her brothers so we could all have a better life.
It just so happened that your mafia was the best candidate to train without revealing my true identity.
So I joined your mafia with the intentions of training and becoming familiar with the mafia life and eventually working my way up to take my rightful position as the Pakhan and going back for my best friend and her brothers. So for two years, that's all I did. I trained.
Adrian had found out a rival cartel planning to terminate you and Thea. I never expected to get close to all of you but I did, and I knew I had to do something. Adrian advised that I get out of Italy but I refused.
I knew it was Fabio that was playing you so I pretended to get close to him. My plan worked when he "kidnapped" me and held me at gunpoint.
You all know the rest.
But what you didn't know is that Adrian gave me a pill before I "died." When the bullet went through my heart, I felt all the pain of death but didn't actually die.
The pill that Adrian gave me gave the illusion to all the doctors that I had actually died but it only shut down my heart and brain temporarily.
This pill was a medical miracle and it repaired damaged or dead cells in the human body and made new and stronger ones. It was derived from a plant in India and was medically engineered to work as a way to bring someone back from the dead. But when the scientists tested it on a dead human, the pill didn't work and the project was shut down.
It could've made millions. It could've cured cancer sooner. But it had failed. However, Adrian found out about this shutdown project and hired a new team of scientists to retest it and it worked. It turns out, you can't use it after the person is already dead, you have to use it before.
Only a handful was made in case it fell into the wrong hands. We didn't need the pill anymore because all major diseases had been cured already. It had no use except for things like these.
When I woke back up, I was alive and on a plane back to Sweden to find my best friend.
When I got there, she wasn't there. I asked everyone I knew but it turns out that she had been dead for the last year.
I was in shock and didn't believe them. But then they said she killed herself...and I believed them.
But it didn't make it hurt any less.
I found that she had a boyfriend and that he was the last one to see her before she killed herself.
After a long interrogation, he said that her parents sold her to a sex trafficker and that she stabbed them in self-defense and her brothers went missing shortly after.
I spent a long two years looking for her brothers but I couldn't find them. I knew that the only way that I could have more resources to find her brothers was if I went back into the mafia life.
So I went to Russia.
I spied on my biological family for three years and earned their trust as one of their assassins. I wore a disguise, the same disguise I wore as Tate.
I learned that even though everyone thought that Alexei and Viktor were enemies, they had been working together to kill the King's right hand.
So they sent me to be a mole in the Kings Mafia.
I was with the King for seven years and became a trusted member. Trusted enough, to see the right hand.
You could imagine my surprise when I saw that it was a woman. But not just any woman.
It was someone that I knew back in Sweden.
So I played along and gave them all the details to shoot Midnight in the heart and kill her. Viktor and Alexei hired the Ricci Cartel to take care of it so nothing would point back to them.
But as I said, I knew she would survive.
She also caught me as the mole, but she recognized me.
I knew she wouldn't kill me, and when she took me out of the chains, she sent me on a plane to Russia to ease my way into the mafia with another disguise.
I didn't even have to tell her Alexei and Viktor's plan. She figured it all out by herself.
We both knew that her death was inevitable and had to happen but that didn't make it any easier. I still did what she asked of me, and that was to go back to Russia.
When Alexei went to the Gala, I revealed my true identity to my parents. I didn't expect Alexei to kidnap Thea and take her hostage but I still didn't intervene per Midnight's orders.
When news of both of their deaths came to Russia, I took my position and have resumed my hunt for my best friend's brothers," Katrina explained.
The room was dead silent.
No one spoke, to let all the information digest and be comprehended. The new information about Midnight being from Sweden and the truth about Katrina was a lot to take down and process.
Most of their answers were answered but one major question still lingered.
"What was the girl's name?" Luca asked, taking pity on the girl who Thea and Katrina had spoken about.
Why was this girl so relevant?
And why did Midnight want them to know about her?
Who was she?
"Her name was Aria Haven King," Katrina whispered, coming close to tears.
"King? Aria King?" Blade repeated. Katrina got up from the chair and pulled out an envelope.
The same black envelope that Midnight gave to her.
"That's why I need to find her brothers. They may have some answers," she responded.
"It makes sense since they did go missing and there isn't any proof of death," Starr added.
"Exactly. Aria was dead long before the King even existed so the triplets could know something," Katrina spoke.
"This is the only serious lead we have to the King's identity. No one has gotten this close before," Ida spoke.
It was true.
No one had a clue as to who the King was, and they were the only ones who had an actual idea.
"It's because there is no one who is guarding his identity. His right hand is dead so there is nothing stopping people from finding him," Katrina considered.
Luca's eyes flashed with an unknown emotion as he looked down.
Hearing that Midnight was dead was still painful and he thought that the pain would never go away.
"Even if Midnight saw the King, Aria's brothers, it makes sense for them to make her the right hand since she's from Sweden and they knew her before the King's mafia existed," Oscar acknowledged.
"All we need to do now is look at what Midnight left us," Blade commented.
"You think it's the King's identity?" Matteo asked.
Suddenly Thea jerked up with a massive realization.
"What if she's trying to send a message? What if she was working against the King all along and wants people to know who he is to take him down?" she rushed out.
"But why would she do that," Luca puzzled.
Blade stood up as well, understanding what Thea was trying to say with realization.
It made perfect sense.
"For you," Blade whispered.
"What do you mean?" Luca queried.
"Everyone saw that brand on her back. Maybe she was working for him unwillingly and worked against him to be free so she could be with you?" Blade revealed.
Luca felt a heavy feeling settling itself into his chest, weighing him down.
If this was true, she risked everything so they could be happy together...
And he let it happen...
He let her die...
"So you're saying that carving on her back was a sign of the King threatening her life and obliged to him for the rest of her life?" Katrina inquired.
"It makes perfect sense. There is no other explanation for that carving. It's a fucking brand!" Starr realized.
"And brands were meant to symbolize property on whoever it was on. It was a symbol that the King owned Midnight," Antonio recognized.
"And she was trying to get free because it was against her will," Ida added.
"Let's not jump to too many conclusions. Let's look in the envelope first," Oscar sighed, thinking that this was all getting a bit much.
Katrina nodded in agreement as she gently opened the black envelope. Everybody waited in anticipation of what she was going to take out.
They all surrounded her as the beating of their hearts drummed in their heads.
She slowly and painstakingly pulled out a piece of paper that had neat cursive writing on it as she unfolded it carefully.
They all could recognize that elegant handwriting in a heartbeat.
It was Midnight's handwriting.
"It looks like...a hitlist..." Blade speculated.
Names were written down in dark obsidian pen and crossed off horizontally in crimson-cherry ink.
But one thing remained uncrossed in black ink...
"What's that?" Antonio pointed out. Katrina examined the umber ink that had remained untouched by the ruby stain.
"It's an address," She stated.
"We're going to go to that address aren't we?" Matteo concluded, running a hand through his hair. Luca's eyes narrowed as he memorized the address.
"It says here that this address doesn't exist," Starr spoke as she typed furiously on her laptop. They all gathered around her device, investigating.
"Sure it does. It's in Sweden," Katrina stated. They all looked at her with puzzling glances and Starr with an uncertain expression.
"I recognize the street and city but not the exact address. It's a forest path," she explained.
"That makes sense, this says that the forest burned down from a wildfire and no one replanted it but someone bought the land and made it private property. No one has been near it in eleven years," Starr added.
Katrina's face visibly fell and paled as her eyes glossed over.
She took a deep breath before speaking again.
"Aria and I used to walk in that forest when we wanted to "escape." Not many people knew about it and that made it a perfect place to get away when we wanted to," Katrina whispered.
She swallowed down her sorrow and looked at the computer screen with determination in her eyes.
"Midnight wrote that address down for a reason we are going to find out why," Katrina spoke.
Luca's eyes grew just as firm as Katrina's with a settled goal in mind. He was going to uncover all the secrets of his Donna and won't rest until the questions were put to rest.
He wouldn't rest...until this was all over.
But something kept ringing in his mind.
Midnight was trafficked...and so was Aria King.
There is no record of Midnight ever existing. No social security. No birth certificate. No record from any Sweden hospital that he asked Starr to check.
But for Aria King, there were records. Records of her birth were July fifth, 1994.
The same birthday as Midnight.
Midnight had never told anyone except for Luca about when her birthday was so it wasn't on any records at all. No one knew except him.
And for records of Aria's death day, it read August tenth, 2010. And shortly after, the name "Midnight" popped up.
Luca knew.
He knew everything.
But what was the point of knowing this information if she was dead? Knowing all of this wouldn't bring her back.
There was no point.
She was still dead and nothing would change that.