Fillip's POV:
She absolutely hates me now; there's no coming back from that. The look on her face, her voice, and most importantly, her eyes, back as they were, dead. It used to bring me comfort that the blue lit up because of me; now it only floats in a frenzy I caused. She had barely held on since last week, and I pulled her lifeline and drowned her just as I was drowning, and I don't think I am capable of reversing it after today.
"Fillip I don't know how she got out of there yesterday."
"I know how. Because you weren't watching her like you were supposed to be." I shut Nina up the moment I walked into the study. Then I turn to look at Leo. "Was that how you swore to protect her, Leo? Can't even keep a 7-year-old in her room?"
"Tell me something, were you actually watching her?" They both didn't talk back, and I had my answer. "Forgive me for trusting either of you; you can go now."
"Fillip-"
"NOW."
Then I sit in an angry silence, but to whom did it belong? Was it mine? there's? Fleur's? For me, that was impossible to answer. Instead, it played with me, as it always did—the silence—controlled my thoughts, and led me down a path that I despised walking down. It all came down on me in waves, subtly at first luring me in, then crashing down on me and pulling me back to the vast sea of endless pain.
"We might have a lead," Christian comes in saying, making me get up to walk after him, abandoning my thoughts, just as I always do. Instead of bringing out my anger on something or someone. This was perfect, the lead we have; at least it got my mind off stuff.
"Where? And are we sure of the lead?"
"One of his clubs. Given the fact that this is a report collected in one day, we can't be exactly sure. The report says that someone who looks like her and is around her age was spotted there two months ago."
"Good enough for a start,"
"We still might not find her there; you know he likes to rotate them. Also, If his men catch us there..."
"If. And then they will have to deal with us." I tell Christian, smirking, as we get into our car to go to one of Alberto's clubs.
*************************
Getting out of the car, I look around while wearing my sunglasses. In clubs like Alberto's, life is always sucked in in the afternoon, then blown back into it at night. People who frequented these places didn't want to be seen; rather, they fed on the feeling of the night. The way they snuck into clubs like these, they partied with all the power they held while the people they controlled slept.
Today was no different. Outside, it seemed like a normal club, but on the inside, only a few knew what happened underneath the creaking, wet floors of the club. Cars rushed outside on the streets, while a few stood on the pavement in front of the entrance.
I inspect the place some more; there are fewer people, fewer guards, and less suspicion. There was a better chance of us going unrecognised, although that was very unlikely. I asked my four other men to stay outside in the car, just in case something happened and to draw less suspicion. It was really simple what we needed to do. Make sure the person we came for is here. Easy in, easy out; no hustle. Alberto would love to catch me looking for women in his club. Everything that I've ever opposed him on, now I was doing in his territory, but it had to be done.
We enter, and my theory is confirmed. Music and lights are low, contrary to the blast of life at night. A few women are dancing on stage, and the smell of alcohol, sex, and piss always present seems relatively lighter, and no big clients are present. A few guards overlook the room, but none pay that much attention, not even when me and Christian walk through the doors.
At the bar, a single lady with dull blonde hair from the lighting is drying cups with the most tedious look on her face. She looks up at us, and her brown eyes seem to lighten when they spot us. She smiles. It's not hard to understand that she is truly one of Alberto's whores—the ones who did this for joy, unlike the ones right under the floor I'm standing on.
"I'm looking for someone," I simply state. She takes a look at me and then at Christian, her eyes glowing even more.
"Wouldn't you like two instead?" She questioned, cup and towel long forgotten in her hand, as she winked at Christian.
It was getting hotter, and I was growing irritated. I don't need this woman flirting with my men. I simply demand an answer, but I don't dare show my irritation. I count the guards in the room from the corner of my eye. two fully loaded for sure, not counting the men scattered around the tables, some of whom undoubtedly work for Alberto. Instead, I pass on an easy smile, one I've practised since I was 12, because that's when men are made. That's when they are forced into clubs like this in our world.
"Perhaps, only if I find what I'm looking for."
"Got a picture?"
"No, just that she was here a few months ago."
"Oh, so you've heard, never slept."
"Excuse me?"
"I meant that you've never slept with her; tell me what she looks like."
I start trying to remember the single picture we got of Fleur's sister when she was 16, which was six years ago. She has surely changed now. Even if I do find the person with the same description, it might not even be her.
"Black hair, blue eyes-"
"You're talking about Fleur?" The woman asks chucklingly, and the question took me by surprise. "You must like the trouble she gave men, probably seeking a night of domination. Unfortunately, she's gone. Alberto got rid of her a while ago, and I can tell you business died a little. There are plenty of other options to choose from, though."
My blood seethed under my skin from the way this woman spoke of Fleur. I feel Christian closing in on me, both in warning that we might look suspicious and in a plea to not start a fight.
"Not the one I'm looking for." This time the woman looks at me surprised. "Her name is Emma, and she's in her 20s." If this woman looked shocked a couple of seconds ago, she is mortified right now. She looks between the guards around the room, and suddenly all of them start leaving their posts and start closing in around us.
Christian raises his gun out of instinct, but I put my hand on his arm, trying to stop a disaster from taking place. This should not have happened. This should have been simple. And yet I was the idiot here. I should have known Alberto sensed I'd come after that party in LA. I underestimated him, and now we might pay a price.
In response, the two guards are now closer, slides are pulled, and hands are getting tighter around the triggers. Shaking hands. As if restraining themselves with all their might to not shoot.
"Alberto knew you would come eventually." A voice makes me and Christian turn rapidly. "Ever since that party in LA."
"We do not wish to start a war here, Rafael."
"The war you started in LA Fillip, and you know that quite well. You also know what you're asking for; Alberto would like to keep a member of the family with him." He shifts his gaze to Christian and says, "We do meet again, friend."
"You're a traitor, Rafael; this right now is the biggest indicator."
"Over the bar!" I shout as I elbow the bartender in the face. Her gun that was aimed at Christian's back falls, and he catches it as we roll over the bar and land with a thud. Bullets start firing everywhere, and the wood we are using as protection will soon wear out.
"You don't have to do this, Rafael."
"But I do; it's my job, Fillip; you should know this."
Me and Christian both jump up, getting the man shooting beside Rafael in the arms and legs, then instantly drop back down behind the bar. "You don't think you will get out of here on your own two feet, do you, Fillip?"
He asks, and there's no time for talking, nor is there time for caution. My men should be here in a minute. I will get out of here on my own two feet. Christian doesn't anticipate me getting up again. We were supposed to wait for the men outside; this was our plan in case they heard guns firing.
"Son of a bitch." Rafael falls, holding his shoulder, but not before shooting one last bullet at me, and it hit. I fall back down with a groan holding my right side, and guns firing get louder than ever before, finally stopping. All that is left are the cars speeding outside, and people continued with their normal days while people died here in the remote bars of many that Alberto owns.
"Fillip, stay down. They will take you to the car."
"You know I won't do this, Christian." I get up, letting out a loud, pained grunt as I continue to clutch my beating side.
"You both down to that basement, Chris quick with me, let's get this over with. Mark and Alex stay here; make sure no one gets out the door." My men nod, and Christian follows behind me hesitantly down the stairs to the basement. She has to be here; she better be. "Fillip, get to the car; I will search for her."
"No," and that was final, so he only wrapped his arms around my waist and helped me down the stairs. We go around room by room, but she isn't there. Instead, I am met with tens of faces, all different but so familiar. In their fear, in their pain, and in their shattered hope of us getting them out of there. We can't now. We have to get out of here quickly. I am already feeling dizzy, and we are way past our welcome.
"She is not there; I already told them," Rafael says from the floor, sweat-drenched clothes sticking to his body as blood seeped through his suit jacket.
"Where is she then, Rafael?"
"That I would not know." If it weren't for the pain starting to take over my head right now, I would have stayed and waited for him to answer me, but he doesn't know. All Alberto's men are dead, he could tell, and no one would know, at least that he knows her place.
We leave Raffael waiting for his help and rush to our cars. Crimson is soaking not only my white shirt but also my hands. My men help me into one car, and two of them take the other as we get home as fast as possible.
"Fillip, how are you holding up?" Christian asks.
So I yell, "I got shot in my side, Christian. HOW DO YOU THINK I'M HOLDING UP?" Then I groan again, from the growing ache, from the spasms of pain shooting with every pump of blood from my heart that pushes through my wound and spills onto my hand, from the drowning pain that does not seem to be subsiding soon, despite mine and Christian's best efforts to stop the bleeding.
As the light continued to get sucked away from my tunnelled, watery vision and black started to overtake me, I saw beauty. I saw their beauty, sleeping together peacefully on her bed, and then I saw some more as the hallucinations took the darkness' place. Exploding with colours—the emerald green of the gardens and the electric blue of the sky—and then I saw them again. Fleur and Mia, illuminating this vision that might have been the last thing I would see, giggling, their bubbling laughter contagious. Even for the most hardened of hearts.
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Fleur's POV:
It was eerily quiet right now, like the calm before a storm. I didn't like it one bit. Leo and Nina were nowhere to be seen since this morning; it was almost 1 p.m. now. Fillip and Christian are out on some important errands. I look around the kitchen, which is perfectly clean. There was nothing to do for at least two more hours. In a situation where things between me and Nina were normal, I would go searching for her to do whatever together.
I linger in the kitchen for 10 more minutes, as if something will magically become unclean, or maybe Agnes will come in with a chore for me to do; at least it will take my mind off of everything. After those ten tedious minutes passed, I decided that I would just get up and take a walk. Better than staying here for hours with nothing to do.
Just after my first two steps on the stairs, I hear a familiar voice yelling. For help, for anyone, while going through every possible door in this house as if his sole purpose was to break it down. I run towards the yelling, and I see a slumped figure having their hands on two men, while Christian looks at me frantically.
My eyes widen as the realisation kicks in—it's Fillip. I stop in my place for a second as I panic. Every dream and every reality I've ever lived, I'm reliving. Just with Fillip this time, his head hanging down as the blood falls on the floor.
"TAKE HIM TO HIS ROOM." I suddenly yelled; the thought of him being in this kind of pain suddenly made me wake up; there was no time to panic anyway. His men listen to me quickly as Christian stands in front of me.
"Where the hell is Sebastian?"
"Not here. I don't know what to do; the bullet went through."
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I'm fucking not Fleur, and Sebastian is visiting family in Italy-"
"I don't care. Bring a first aid kit and whisky." He stared at me uncertainly, his eyes full of doubt.
"Just move, Christian," he does so, rushing to find the first kit he can find as I sprint up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I was never as certain about my way around the house as I was now as I bolted through the corridor, entering his room. One of his men had their hands on his side while the other watched his unconscious form warily.
"Remove his shirt quickly." He looks at me, the one standing, then moves to work before I yell at him as I did with Christian. Running to the bathroom, I wash my hands and then walk back to his bed, just as Christian was coming in with the first aid kit. I take a look at Fillip's strong-shaped body and how it's not doing anything to help him right now. Christian sets the whisky bottle beside me and opens it. I took a chug of the drink; its stinginess made me more alert.
"Hold him down." Christian gets on the bed and holds Fillip's shoulders. He's still passed out, which is better because what I'm about to do is going to hurt like a bitch. I edged the bottle down and almost spilled half of it on his wound. Immediately, his eyes shot open, and he started yelling in pain. He hits the bottle in my hand with his own, making it fly off the bed, but I couldn't care less. I signal to his men with my hand to hold his hand, and he does. Then I get on top of him carefully, then look at him in the eyes, and they are squeezed, shifting from pain to bewilderment in seconds. "Calm down, yeah?" I tell him, and his eyes squeeze even more at me.
I pat his shoulder and get back to his wound, opening the first aid kits. The bullet going through wasn't a good thing, but the fact that any of us would have tried to get it out might have made him worse.
"Do you know what the hell you're doing?" Christian asks, and Fillip looks at him, then at me, panting. Both in pain and fear of what I'm about to do to him.
Well, I'm not going to hurt him.
"We had a nurse in the neighbourhood, accidents like this happened all the time. I picked up a couple of things from her." I tell Christian as he keeps questioning.
"Like sewing a bullet wound, Fleur?"
"Yes. I'm just a bit rusty." I used to help her all the time when people would come from fights with other mafia gangs or other neighbourhoods, drug hits, and all of this shit that people shouldn't be doing, yet we helped them, just like I'm about to help Fillip right now.
"Rusty?"
"It's been six years."
"Y-you really sh-shouldn't be doing th-this." Fillip says through a daze as he's starting to pass out again.
"I agree," Christian says, adding his insight, that right now, while trying to get the goddamn thread into the needle, I couldn't care less about.
I slapped Fillip on the face, which brought him back, and his eyes widened. I smiled when I finally got the thread through and said, "I had to. We don't want to lose you do we?" He ignores me completely throwing his head back on the pillow groaning.
I say a small prayer to the god I haven't prayed to in 6 years, then start stitching up his wound. As fast as possible since there's another one because the bullet went through, in seldom stitches, just like I've always learned. For some reason, I felt my hand go smoother than I thought it would. Maybe it was the whisky or the fact that I actually don't want him to bleed to death right now.
Fillip wasn't making it any easier for me by wincing every time the needle touched him, then he passed out. In less than ten minutes, I was done, and then we got Fillip's exit wound. He was starting to wake up again from how many times we kept turning him around to cover his wounds. His men left, and me and Christian gave him painkillers.
Suddenly, while I was closing the first aid kit and getting ready to leave, I felt his hand on my face. I snap my head at him, and he has a soft smile. Despite all the pain he's probably still feeling right now, he's smiling at me. He's out of it.
I look at Christian, and he looks at me, and then we both look at Fillip. He's confused, almost bled to death, and is in pain. "You look so beautiful, do you know that?" Definitely confused. Certainly out of it.
"Fillip, maybe you should go to sleep. I'm not who you think I am."
His face crumpled like paper. "Fleur." That's when he seriously got my attention. Maybe he isn't that confused. I scan his face, which has returned to normal; his eyes are tender right now, something I'm rarely used to from him. He's looking at me with something, and I'm scared to think what it might be. His hand is rubbing my face, and I can tell from how strained it is how much the effort of keeping his arm up is hurting him.
Suddenly all the smell of blood that was lurking seemed to have cleared with his grey eyes, and so had the anger that had been building inside me since this morning. Something within me breaks, and I'm shaking to keep sitting straight. Something resolved that shouldn't have, and I'm annoyed, but I'm not.
How can he do this? Why can he? Who gave him that power that just made him impeccable? How can he, with one word, make me forget everything? It makes me want to yell at him for not trusting me, but I also want to make sure he's okay and not in pain. He has no right to make such unspeakable promises that aren't real. Nothing really is with him—a kiss, a night, a dance. All for a purpose, all calculated, but this wasn't calculated. The shot, the pain, the truth in his words.
"You're crying." He tells me, and I open my eyes that I had closed without even noticing, more tears cascading down my cheeks.
"Yeah, I am."
"Why?"
"You seriously don't know Fillip?"
"I do," he says, removing his hand, and I ache for it. I want it back. "But I want you to tell me."
"When you're better," I say, starting to get up.
"You would be yelling; I don't want you to yell." Sure, he doesn't; that's why he does every possible thing that would drive a woman mad. Then he stops me when I'm about to leave, "please Fleur. Stay." He's begging; something is seriously wrong with him.
"You're tired." I tried again.
"That's why I want you to stay." Looking at me the way he was right now made leaving this room impossible. It's the fact that he wants me here that's making me stay, not just his need.
"Why me?"
"There is not one soul in this house that I trust to stay here with me that I trust as much as you."
"Ironic."
"Make fun all you want, Fleur; it's the truth."
"Ok... If I ask you what happened, would you tell me then?" His eyes drifted away from mine, and that was answer enough. I gingerly sit next to him on the bed. That's when he looks at me again and says, "I was looking for someone important." That's all he said as I looked at him questioningly. He tried shrugging, but I guess that was painful enough that he stopped mid-action. His hand reached out to mine, which was resting on my knees. He holds onto it while his eyes remain closed.
I decided I would wait for him to fall asleep, which I did, and then I would leave. Not without my mind jumping to conclusions. By any chance. Was he looking for my sister? It can't be. I just told him about it—not only that but also the fact that he got shot today. He wouldn't get shot looking for her; why would he?
Mere hope breaks me on the inside even more, and my damp cheeks are getting wet again. Fillip's eyes flew open with a startled expression, and then his hand let go of mine and was rubbing my face again. "You're crying again," he says, stating the obvious.
"Were you looking for her? Emma? Is that why you got shot?" I couldn't imagine what my reaction would be if his answer was no, which was the most likely answer.
"Yes."
Everything is fading right now. His pained face, his sweet touch on my face, his scent, everything. Six years. It had been six years since I last saw her. She had been with Alberto all this time, and I had thought she was dead. I had stopped believing and stopped trying to look. But he hadn't. The thing I had wished for the most—she is out there. Fillip has already reached a place. Unsuccessful yet, it was a whereabout regardless, a chance.
And now I felt an unmistakable ache in my chest; however, this time it wasn't the misery from thinking I had lost a part of me forever, a part of me that I wasn't ready to bid goodbye. It was the merciless and brutal claws of hope latching on to my heart.
My throat felt as if it were closing, and the air wasn't squeezing through. An uncontrollable sob broke through me and into this room. Loud as others followed. Without even thinking about my next move, I fell on his chest. An audible groan rumbled in my ear, but he still said nothing. Instead, his hand caresses my head gently.
"She is alive?"
"Yes, Fleur, she is." His hand ran through my messed-up hair as I continued sobbing on his chest.