*******There's a time jump between the last chapter and this chapter.******
Deacons POV
My head has been pounding constantly for the last two weeks, while thoughts flood my mind constantly. The two never giving me a moment of peace. I haven't slept for more than two hours a night, because every time I manage to fall asleep all I dream of is the security footage of Mia fighting to protect herself, but failing and being taken by Russian thugs. Between those dreams, trying to keep everyone focused on the task at hand and attempting to take care of our four-month-old twins I'm failing miserably at all three it seems.
Mia made balancing everything seem so effortless. While adding other chores here and there, saying that she had needed to find something to do to kill sometime because she had gotten tired of just sitting around every day. Yet here I am trying to figure out how to make time enough for everything that needed done and everyone I needed to talk as well. I had basically started to sleep in the twins room when I slept at all, since I couldn't stand lying in our bed without her being there with me. Everything felt just wrong without Mia here. I felt like I was doing everything wrong or if not completely wrong then missing important steps.
We have tried tracing her cellphone that she had on her with no success. Even the necklace she wore everyday had, had a tracker in it as well and even that one we can't find. I had taken every theory into account and every tracking measure was used, but they all ended the same way. They all led to nothing except more hope being lost of possibly finding Mia quickly or learning that our best I.T. men were nowhere near as useful as they used to be before Mia. She had taught herself how to use most of the programs that my best men used, finding the flaws in all of them.
The irony in this whole situation right now to my men is that they all knew without a doubt that Mia would take the same programs they were using and find herself. I had heard many of them asking each other how they thought that she would change it in order to get it to work. None of them had much if any luck. We had been receiving signal from her necklace until some point on the second day.
Then everything went silent. Which scared me even more. Her phone I understood, battery operated fucking piece of shit. But knowing that she would have had at the least one or up to at least four different trackers on her that day alone.
When she stayed home by herself for more than a couple hours that was the deal. Her necklace was visible from the video as being on her. She has been wearing both her wedding band and her engagement ring as well, her wedding band having a chip in it just in case she was in an accident. The chip would send us her vitals and location keeping us updated until either ourselves or another group of my men could get to her. Mias engagement ring should have started to ping as soon as she left the property since she hadnt put in her security code or had been ushered out by security at the gate. Last but not least the one that should have been the easiest one to use was also the one I had had to fight her tooth and nail about getting. This one was right above her hairline behind her left ear. How could that many trackers fail all at once? My men and every single person I reached out to said the same thing. Either they had used something to overload every circuit on them at once or they had traveled the entire length of their trip, and had somehow managed to keep the trackers from pinging by keeping them shielded in something. Though the first idea was the most likely.
I can unfortunately still hear her screaming and begging them not to take her and let our babies alone. The obscenely hard strike that landed on her left cheek, that knocked her to the ground echoed my head repeatedly like an alarm that couldn't be turned off. The way her face twisted with shock, as her hand grasped it as though she was checking to see if it had truly happened. Though she never once stopped trying to make them hear her or fighting to get away from them. Everything we had ever taught her, showed her, or even made mention of she tried. None of it making a difference or giving us enough time to get back to the house in time.
I've watched the footage more times than I care to admit not only to myself but to anyone who asked. I searched the footage for any hint that may have been left by her, anything anyone have accidentally said, dropped or touched to give us a shred of useful information. Most of what I heard was spoken in Russian, even after being translated it was of no use to us. It had been mostly cursing or repeating of their orders, keeping them from straying from their overall objective. Which oddly enough was actually to take Mia, why we still aren't quite sure about. Yes, Mia was privy to all important information, but we all knew that she would never willingly give it up, not even for her own life. They never threatened anyone else, not even the twins. They had a single mark, and once they had gotten their target in their sights, relentless was not the word to describe it.
From the moment I met Mia, while she waiting tables in my club she never cowered before anyone for anything. That day I watched her fall to her knees after enduring a hit that would have made an average person stay down and beg the men to let them be. Not my Mia, she had gotten back to her feet and had started to fight again. Knowing that physically she could have had a chance at an unarmed fight, I would have put my money on her even at these odds. When the first man pulled his gun, aiming it directly at her head it didn't seem to phase her in the least. I knew the same thing that she did, one gun didn't mean a definite hit. It wasn't until I saw the other four men draw their guns cocking them as they pointed them at her that my breath caught in my throat, she must've realized that it wasn't the men who had her outnumbered but the guns. That's when it happened, she slowly raised her hands in surrender as she kneeled down first to one knee and then on both.
As they gathered into a tighter circle around her, she bowed her head facing the floor. All but one of the men homed their weapons back in their holsters. One moved in behind her pulling her arms roughly behind her back, cuffing them there. She didn't put up an ounce of fight. The man who hadn't put away his gun had it pressed tightly against her forehead ensuring a hit if she decided to try and struggle against them. Although she had stopped fighting for herself, she begged and pleaded with them to at least allow her call someone to come and be there with our babies, then she'd leave with them willingly. I watched her beg them on her knees, restrained and helpless to somehow protect our two beautiful twin babies from being left alone, hungry and neglected until someone arrived at our home. It was barely ten in the morning when they started to pull her up to a standing position, pushing her towards the front door. I knew she wouldn't be expecting me to call for another two hours, Alex wasn't planning on himself or Cassie being home until late that evening, and since it was the weekend all of our household workers weren't due in until one o'clock if they even worked that day.
"Please, please, please, they're too little to be here alone. They're just babies, literally babies. One of you have to be a father, you know they cant do anything, they won't understand why their mama isn't there with them. They are just innocent little babies, punish me, do what you will to me, but I'm begging you don't punish them." Her pleas fell on deaf ears as they pushed her out the front door, into the awaiting black van that sat there.
An unsettling silence fell over our entire home as I watched and waited for the sound of two crying infants to take over the security footage, but that sound never came.
Mia had been moves ahead of them, before they had breached the front door, she had managed to rush the sleeping infants into the safe room hidden in our room, which triggered a silent alarm, along with a security warning message to be sent to myself and my closest men.
-------morning of attack--------
We were at one of our storage buildings, having a meeting with one of our closest allies, who had informed me of an uptick in Russian activity. He had told us that with the intel he had been able to secure, it seemed as though they were preparing to either move on one of our personal motor transports or against a building with all of us together in hopes one strike would get us all. Not a single one of us in that room, that day envisioned we would be dealing with an attack on my personal residence. Especially since the security measures at our home had been intensified with more than triple the amount of people, and those who had been with me the longest had their c training reinforced. I had wanted to make sure that my family was safe when I was not there.
Everyone in that meeting that day leapt into action immediately. I have been harboring such an agonizing amount of blame over that morning it is extraordinary. Instead of leaving upon receiving the alert, I sat unassumingly peaceful in my chair waiting for a phone call from Mia telling me it was a false alarm. I shouldn't have waited, I should've left, I should have sent my men ahead of me. If I had we wouldn't be going through this now, because those sadistic monsters never would have made it off the property. But no, my pride, and ego overpowered all my rational thought. I waited ten minutes for a phone call that never was coming, then I called home to get no answer, that's when I knew all too late that this wasn't a false alarm.
From the breach of our front gate, to the moment that they slammed the van door shut behind Mia's back was fifteen minutes. Myself, my brother, father and my men were a mere ten minutes away at normal road speeds. In an emergency depending on who was driving the trip could be made in less than half of that. But that day no matter how fast we pushed the vehicles, we would've been too late. By the time that we arrived our home had been poisoned with fear, that stained every surface here.
I rushed through the door without the thought of anyone still being there to ambush us, I had a single mission to complete. Make sure my family was safe. When I had searched everywhere for Mia, that's when reality hit me in the face. We had been here searching for almost an entire hour and I had yet to hear a sound come from the twins room.
My heart fell to the floor, I shot a glance over my shoulder towards my brother and my father. Without a word uttered between us, I bolted from where I stood up the stairs towards their room. When I reached their door and still heard nothing my stomach wanted to shrivel up while reaching for the doorknob. Its too quiet in there. They should be crying.
"Son, let me go in first." My father said sternly.
"No, if they're all in there it should be me they see first. Even if I'm the last person they see, it needs to be me." I said quietly, "What I need is someone to check the security cameras."
"On it." Alex stated as he took off down the hallway towards the camera room.
I pushed open the door to find the room empty no sign of anyone, or anything out of place. Had they taken them all somewhere? Had Mia managed to get them out of the house, but if she had why hasn't she called yet? Were they all someplace together alive or not?
"Deacon!!!" Alex called loudly coming to a stop in front of myself and Mia's bedroom door. The twins are in the safe room. She was able to get them in there before the sons of bitches even made it through the front door. They're asleep, peacefully asleep. None the wiser to what was going on in the house.
"What I want to know right now is who fucking did this?" I questioned pushing into our bedroom, pinning the entry code into the keypad opening the heavy metal door. There they were sleeping like angels while only feet away the people who may have meant them harm wouldn't have known how to get to them. "Could you tell who this was?"
Alex nodded silently, "It seems as though Bellamy's information was correct. But that's not the worst of the situation."
"You're telling me that those sons of bitches got into my home while my wife and my children were here? That and with all the added security they managed to basically stroll right up to my fucking front door?!"
"The security details were of little resistance to them. There were six men in total, they were able to annihilate all of the guards inside and out leaving no one to help Mia within minutes. Honestly Deacon, she probably only had enough time to get the twins in there and purposefully gain their attention before any of us had even heard our alerts going off." Alex explained calmly. "Deacon, they didn't even bother to look for the twins, they didn't want to talk to you, they were here for one reason and one reason only, they were after Mia."
"Where is she?" I asked angrily.
"They left with what they came for brother." He said barely above a whisper. "But that's not the worst of the situation."
"What?! Six men decimated upwards of twenty-five military strike force trained guards, broke through my front door, my children were left locked in this room for over an hour alone, my wife has been taken against her will and your going to stand here and tell me that's not the worst of it? Then please by all means Alex, tell me exactly what is the worst part of this situation."
Alex closed his eyes, "They weren't sent by the Russian we were all thinking of, not even Bellamy could have gotten information this deep. He doesn't have enough influence to receive anything more information than he gave us. He looked past me to lock eyes with our father then with me. With all due respect to you Deacon, not just as my elder brother but also as the leader of the Lombardi mafia family. This may be over-stepping my place in this organization, but not as your blood family. Under the circumstances and knowledge of who orchestrated this attack, my recommendation as both your brother and your brother in arms is to step back and allow our father to handle this one. Deacon, neither one of us are anywhere near prepared to go toe to toe with this man. Brother, Mia is in more danger than we could have even began to imagine."
"Who is it?" I questioned intently. In my entire life I had never heard my brother tell me to hand anything over for anyone else to handle. He knew better than to ever suggest it. So, if he was saying it now, then it was more than serious. "Alexander, who the fuck sent those fuckers into my home after my wife, your sister!?"
"Gregory Vazclav." He whispered.
"Gregory Vazclav." I repeated. That name had instilled nightmares in my mind as a child that lasted until my late teenage years over our first meeting. After our second meeting his became a name and a face I would never forget.