--------two weeks later-------
"This is the sick son of a bitch murdered our mother on front of me. He took our sister by force to marry his son and then brainwashed her into believing all his lies. He was the one who took Rosa from me at sixteen. He took Anna from you when you were sixteen. He has taken someone from all of us. I absolutely will not stand by as he attempts to do whatever he is planning to do to Mia. She will not be the latest of Vazclav's victims because she bares my name." Turning to Alex I sighed. "You need to get Cassie and yourself set-up at the safe house, you too dad. You'll need to take Teodoro and Alessia with you. I cant know which one you go to. Ill stay here and handle business as I always would. Stay where you all are until you either hear that Vazclav is dead or that I am dead. You know what to do is the latter is the news."
"If you go down, I'm going with you brother, when you go to bring Mia home, I'm going to be standing beside you both. I cant let you take all the glory."
Myself, my father and my brother all sat behind my desk in chairs discussing how to proceed from here, when I heard an email come through on my computer. Except this email had not been sent my business address, but to my personal address that was only used by my family and close friends. I didn't recognize the sending address, but something told me that I needed to open this urgently.
I opened the email to see a video link there.
Mr. Lombardi,
I'm sure you have exhausted all your experts trying to find your dear wife, possibly even called in every favor you had to call in. But as I have yet to see you at my door or storming my gates, I'm going to assume that you haven't had any success. Shameful really, but I expect nothing less from a boy who wasn't ready to wear the crown to begin with.
If you would be ever so kind as to click the video link above, I can assure you that you will be able to see and talk to your wife, or at least whatever my men have left in one piece that is able to talk. Seems only fair that after taking so many people from you, you should get to say goodbye to one of them properly. That is if your darling Mia hasn't had the same change of heart your sister had about you and your family. Wouldn't that be a shame?
Although I can't be sure that you will be happy with the sight of her. She has been a pain in the ass since that day. Her mind focused in on what questions we haven't answered or then again it could be the requests we've made in order for her to continue to live. We may never know for sure, since she has become so depressingly withdrawn and silent.
I can say that she was quite a fighter day and night for almost a week and a half, that was until she started to lose faith in you altogether. When she realized that you weren't going to show up guns blazing to take her home, she started to give up a little more each day. Only asking in between her varied states of lucidity if her precious babies are okay. I have to be honest with you, it has brought back some very fond memories. She almost sounded like your own mother begging for the lives of her children when we came for her. I haven't had the luxury of meeting her personally, but Im truly hoping that that will change soon. I would take great pleasure in being the one to extinguish the last amount of hope or life in her eyes and heart. Whichever would bring you closer to your knees would be better for me.
If you have any hope of ever seeing her alive, smiling and holding those beautiful babies you cursed her with. Then I sincerely suggest that you take into consideration this offer. After all, you and I both know it will be the only chance you have.
I will graciously allow you to come and gather your wife yourself at least what we leave for you on the condition that you give me full control over every single aspect of your empire. You will dissolve your Omerta, of course that means that all of you will have to spend the rest of your lives in hiding, since we both know what renouncing such as sacred oath means. Then again, you'd at least have your precious wife back in your arms for whatever short amount of time you'd be granted on this earth.
If I were you, I would consider your choices carefully. I am giving you the choice to continue forward with your life as you knew it before and forget about the path that led to your weakened state at hand. On the other hand, you can move forward with your frivolous attempts of finding your wife with your meager means and minds.
Your choice simply put is 'Your Empire for Her Life'. I would weigh the two options carefully since each one will bring a devastatingly drastic change to your life and the lives around you. Choose carefully.
"What is he playing at with this?" I asked aloud, waiting for an answer.
"Whatever it is, it isn't going to be anything like he has portrayed there. You can be assured of that." My father answered. "I can say with certainty that whatever you are going to see on that link good or bad is all going lead to the same place. So regardless of what you see or hear, it is imperative that you keep yourself composed."
With my fathers warning repeating in my head, I clicked the link and we braced ourselves for what was to come. The one and only thing I was praying for was that this bastard wasn't waiting on the other side of this set up to have me watch him execute Mia. I've been lucky enough to be able to come out of a lot of situations that should have broken me, but without a doubt to be made to watch that without the opportunity of being there to try and save her I wouldn't come through that okay.
Mia and I had already been thrust to hell and back. From the time that wed met something or someone has been trying to force us apart. Even so we've managed to find our strength in one another. When damn near every one of my men doubted her, she proved that she could be better than them. When my own sister turned on our family Mia fought to bring her back to us. After her voice was taken away from her, she worked with Alex so that she would be able to say I do so I could hear her. Despite the scene my sister raised saying she wasn't worth bearing our name she stood proud. That's when she learned she didn't need her approval, when my father stood up after an intense rant my sister made, making sure that Mia knew the only approval that had been needed had already been given.
Unknown POV
"He either truly loves you or he just misses having your easy and warm pussy lying next to him in bed." The unknown man laughed as he roughly patted Mia cheek, as another man basically drug her into the room since she was almost too weak to walk now. "Bring her over here. Line her up with the camera. Good. Now get on your knees."
"Fuck you!" She hissed at him. "I may have begged for my children, but I bow down to no one. Especially not to you. Apparently, you have forgotten who I am. There is only one man who I would willingly kneel before and he would never ask me to."
"Oh, you'll be on your knees soon enough." He laughed. He pointed to the large screen under a camera that was set up right in front of us. "I can't wait to see your face when the video comes on, on the other end. Then we'll see how long you stay off your knees."
Deacon's POV
We all three waited on the edge of our seats as a live video feed started. "Mia!!" I called as I saw her face for the first time in two weeks. It gave me some minor amount of hope knowing that she was not only alive, but also that it didn't look like she had been physically hurt either, although she had lost a substantial amount of weight. My queen had worked hard to get back into shape after having the twins, she had no reason to lose any more weight. Now she looked sickly. Her eyes seemed duller than I had ever seen them before. They spoke volumes of what she was feeling emotionally. I could see it in her eyes, she was so close to completely losing her hope and faith in being brought home and it tore me apart.
Though from the perspective I have right now, that may truly be the least of my concerns. Mia's hope and faith would be restored shortly, I would see to that. It was what I couldn't see to rebuild is what bothered me the most, her body language spoke of someone who had lost their will, someone who was so close to accepting whatever fate they had planned for her. If we weren't able to get to her soon, I wouldn't be bringing home my wife. While who would come back would look like Mia, it wouldn't be her mentally anymore. She would be gone, withdrawn, not even a fraction of the woman we all know and love. We had all three witnessed first-hand, what happens at the hand of these men. I wanted my wife back more than anything in this world, but I want all of her back, not just her body.
"Either she's not being given food or she's not eating at all." Alex whispered from beside me. "It's been fourteen days, if my memory serves me, we have seven more before she's too far gone to help. She needs to eat Deacon or else were not going to be on a rescue mission, it will be strictly a recovery.
"Mia baby, can you hear me? Can you see me?" I asked feeling my voice ready to break at any moment. "Mia? Is that really you?"
She turned her head slowly and looked like she was staring right at me. Her feet tried to rush forward closer to whatever was allowing us to see each other, as though it was going to somehow bring us back together. "Both, I can see you and hear you. Are Teodoro and Alessia okay?" She questioned in her attempt to move forward. Tell me they're okay. I have to know that they were okay, that they didn't know what had happened, that they didn't know that they were left alone.
"Oh no you don't." The man said as he grabbed her from behind latching his hand into the beautiful long red hair that I've been aching to run my fingers through. "You're close enough already. It's not like getting closer to the camera is going to help you."
Her body was brought to an abrupt halt as he yanked her backwards by her hair, as a loud yelp of pain escaped her lips. "Deacon, please are they...."
"Shut the fuck up!" The man bellowed in her face. "I'm so sick of hearing you crying and begging for someone to tell you that your little screaming brats are okay."
She looked at him with fury flickering in her eyes. "They are my children and I'm fucking lucky to even have them at all because of pathetic excuses of men like you." Her gaze never leaving his. "And that should make you fear for your life in the coming years. If you live that long." Mia sneered. "You know exactly what the Lombardi family is capable of now. What do you think is going to happen when they are old enough to take over? What do you think that they will want to do or what they will do to you if you take away their mother? They will want your head and I pray that if that day comes that I am able to watch from wherever I end up."
Mia's POV
I felt the sting of his hand across my face before I was even able to register that his hand had reared back. My hand clutched my cheek as a small whimper escaped as I tried to purse my lips tight enough to let no sound out. It stung like hell. I had become so accustomed to the respect that Deacon, his family and his men treated me with, each time one of these men struck me I felt it for days. This one wasn't going to be any different, that one had actually made my ears ring. If I hadn't known any better, I would have sworn it hadn't been a slap I had received, but a right hook that had found its mark.
The man laughed in my face and then turned to face towards the camera. "Now I get it. She's a mouthy little harpy, isn't she? That has to help keep your weaker minded men in place. But I can only imagine the wonders she'd capable to performing with these lips wrapped around my dick." He grinned, looking down at me. "Am I right Lombardi? Why don't you give me a description of how good it is? Because honestly, I've been aching to find out what it would feel like to shove myself down her throat, watching her gag and beg for air around me."
I took a cautious step away from him. Her eyes widened as her entire body trembled under his gaze, but fear never showed in her eyes. "You'll have to keep fucking dreaming, since it's never going to happen as long as I breathe."
The man looked at me with an evil smirk taking a step closer to me. He reached his hand out to touch my face, but before he could touch me, I jerked away from him. "Don't you dare put your filthy hands on me! I'll happily take every strike you feel that I deserve, but you will not touch me as though you care any amount for me."
"Don't you fucking forget that we are still capable of going back into your home and ending your entire family. I'm sure the boss would be more than happy to bring your husband here ensuring you get a front row seat for the end of the Lombardi family when he pulls the trigger on your pathetic husband. Especially when he finds out how we got all the information on how to get to you in the first place, and since he owes his dear Irena a favor, he may even be willing to allow her to be the one that pulls the trigger to end her brother." He whispered into my ear. "Now I suggest you be a dear and just hang on for the ride."
It was almost as though the rug had been pulled out from under me. My knees buckled and I collapsed I to a heap on the cement floor next to this vile man. As my knees crashed into the floor, I allowed a muffled whine of no to fall from my lips as well as the pain from collapsing the way I had.