Chapter 58: Chapter 58

◆ MILES ◆

It took me a while, but now I finally had the guts to tell my parents why I couldn't make their plans a reality.  Their plans for my future, specifically.

The last time we had a lengthy discussion, I presented a couple of arguments to both of them...and Mykaela topped the list.

But therein lies the problem:  she refused to acknowledge it.  Out of spite?  I couldn't tell yet. All I knew for sure, at this point, I would do anything for her. Anything to keep her safe.

I abhorred violence.  But one of these days I might just find myself murdering a mob of lowlife thugs just to keep her and her family safe. She didn't have to go through this kind of trouble. Mykaela didn't deserve a life like mine. Her future should be hers to decide for.

If it meant I had to hide, forget, or lie about how I felt for her,  I would.  I would do anything to keep her out of my family's mess.

Yet she seemed oblivious to the fact that she was walking straight into a life-threatening trap...or the likelihood that Lorenzio Tomassini only saw her as an accessory. After all, she could be useful—even indispensable—to a family of criminals.

The prick wasn't as clueless as everyone thought. I wondered if she ever doubted the guy's intentions.  Not that my family didn't have huge skeletons in the closet.  We, the Falcos, clearly had a lot to answer for.

In fact, after I sorted out my plans to keep Mykaela out of this toxic and dangerous life, I would have to do something catastrophic just to stop my father from totally ruining our family name. Stop him from selling his soul to the devil in return for being one of Italy's richest, most powerful and influential organized crime families.

I didn't even know he also ventured into the sex trafficking business until I saw him with that poor girl.  Last thing I heard, the girl had been sold back to a filty rich Belgian businessman.  Possibly someone associated with the Tomassini seniors.  Dirty old perverts.

Although getting the authorities involved was the right thing to do, I couldn't just turn my father in even if I wanted to, and even if my guilt and conscience nagged at me to no end some nights. Our family had cops, good lawyers, and even judges on the payroll, just like the Tomassinis. Heck, one of my uncles was a judge.

To ensure that it would keep my father behind bars for a long time, I would have to get my Mamma Eleana, Ricchar and Cloe on board.  At the very least.  Get them to testify against my father, too.  That alone would take more than courage and guts. Also, I had yet to confirm that they didn't know anything about it.  Or else...

"Hey." Niccolo crossed the living room and charged his laptop. He took a drag on a freshly lit cigarette. despite knowing I didn't like the smell lingering in my house.  "They know you been hiding out here all weekend?"

Responding with a bored sigh, I looked away and sat on my couch.  Should I just share the details of my plan? Talk about how much my wild imagination wandered whenever I remembered what my father did to that poor girl?

Alessio and Ricchar didn't even know my father also invested his time and money into a prostitution ring. Or maybe they were just playing stupid? Some sort of plausible deniability.

Granted my lack of sufficient evidence, should I tell Niccolo my secret plan? Tell him that I was planning to put my father in prison? That I'd probably kill someone if I ever found out they hurt Mykaela and deliberately led her straight to a dangerous path?

Clearly, my thoughts have been going through a downward spiral the past couple of weeks. And I couldn't do much but numb myself with drugs again.

Two weeks. That's the longest I could go without using.  Longer than that, I would experience withdrawal symptoms so bad it would make me question reality. The last bad episode had given me nausea, insomnia, and headaches so sharp it felt like something was stabbing my skull from the inside.

Back when I was away from my family, and I had Mykaela to keep me grounded and healthy, I did not have to deal with this kind of shit.  These days I often ended up having to roam around seedy bars and strip clubs in the middle of the night just to get my dose. It had disgustingly become my routine for some weeks.

To keep myself from overdosing again, these days I only bought pain medications and pure coke to keep me off worse and deadlier habit-forming substances. God knows I wasn't mentally or emotionally fit to go down that route again.

Shit.  My everyday life used to be so quiet and simple...

1) Wake up

2) Watch Mykaela fix me breakfast

3) Drive her to work

4) Eat, paint, sleep

5) Repeat.

If I could hypnotize myself into behaving like a sober, normal human being again, I would in a heartbeat. Problem was—I had a lot on my plate at the moment so I had to focus on those first before concentrating on myself and my issues.

Only thing I was sure of right now? I could not live the rest of my life suppressing the damned urges, to the point of almost chaining myself to my own bed sometimes just so I could sleep off the unquenchable cravings.  In fact, I just spent last night with another girl I met, and our dinner date of course ended up in my bed after having some fun with liquor and blow.

Cold nights lately. I needed someone to warm up my bed, in short.   To my understanding, it was nothing but a fleeting night of fun and self-indulgence.  I didn't particularly like the girl, and she only wanted the sex part—it was more or less a business transaction, frankly.

But I shouldn't be complaining;  the girl gave me a clean, pure supply for another month in exchange for a night of reckless fun and some cash, of course.  As much as it defied my moral code, I relished how it immediately satiated my repressed cravings and numbed the horrendous pains. For a while at least.

"Is it solely for pain attacks?" Niccolo squinted at me and grinned mischievously.

"What is?"  Was he asking me if I only bought the drugs to numb the pain?  Weren't all junkies the same?

"You told Kel; I'm sure," Niccolo mumbled with a bit of a smirk.  "What'd she say?"

I scowled at the only guy I let into my house lately. Calling him a friend would be a stretch. But just one call and Niccolo was here in no time. Favor for an old friend, apparently.

"Mind your own business." I eyed my phone. For hours now, I'd been waiting for a new message to pop up in my notifications.

Was she on a date with Lorenzio? Or was she only doing it to spite me? Spite me because I was too cowardly and selfish to try?  I hoped that was the case.

Did she want commitment? Did she want a serious relationship? I mostly doubted it, but I wanted to believe so, even for just a short time.

Maybe Mykaela just wanted me to try.  To my logic, my assumptions and expectations were justified, because she was on my mind every day.

Damn it.  If I could just be with her, explain and make her understand my current dilemma, maybe then I could test my theory and end this fatuous longing.  It would sound foolish to anyone else, but the pining almost became debilitating to the point of constant sleep deprivation.

Did she even want to see me again after what I did?  I could only hope.

"Just out of curiosity...is he more of her type?" Niccolo teased while he reclined on the other couch.

After hearing his question, I resisted the keen urge to roll my eyes.  "Fuck if I know."  I tossed my useless phone onto the coffee table.

Niccolo laughed at my plain annoyance. A moment of familiar, friendlier silence lingered in the room.  "She saved his number into the new phone after you left. Maybe had it written down."

"Not impossible."

"He's been calling her everyday."

I massaged the bridge of my nose. The new job in the corporate world my parents had shoved me into was stressing me out, and I needed to blow off some steam.  "Fucking stupid."  I eyed my cellphone, unsure who or what I was cursing at.  I kept waiting for the phone to ring and display Mykaela's name on the screen.

Dammit. I should've put more than one tracking device in her stuff.

"She's been pretty careful, though," Niccolo murmured while staring at his laptop screen. "Deactivated her social media, too."

Yep. She seemed to have deleted her account this week.  "I need their exact location now."

"Patience, Maximiliano..." Niccolo snickered, seeming amused by my impatient, almost livid state.  "I'm on it. No need to get your panties in a bunch."

"It's been hours."

"Chill out. You know I'll do good if you give me half an hour." He played with his box of cigarettes and eyed me.  "Few hours? I'll be great. But an entire night?" Niccolo whistled. "Man, I'll get you anything you want."

"She still thinks you're dead." I shook my head a little.

"Unless the guy planted some ideas in her overly curious brain." Niccolo shrugged casually.

"I bet she told him about the papers and the birth certificate you sent."

"I'll talk to her soon."  Niccolo clicked his tongue and kept his eyes on his computer.  "He seems real fond of her, and vice versa."

"She's just so fucking stubborn."

"They refueled in Vicenza but took off again." Niccolo yawned. Wrinkled packs of chocolate bars and empty soda cans littered the coffee table where his laptop sat. He'd been tracking Kel's phone and Leandro Tomassini's private jet all day.

"Off to where?" I couldn't help the ticking nerves constricting in my impatient brain. My entire body stiffened at the mere thought of Mykaela being assaulted by a bunch of criminal sociopaths.

Should such circumstances happen, I might just slit Lorenzio's throat till he bled to his untimely death. For Mykaela's sake, I would do just that. The insurmountable wrath and guilt would push me to do even more. It would be the inevitable.

"Where the fuck is she?"

"En route to somewhere in the northern coast." Niccolo munched on another energy bar and frowned at his laptop screen. "Wait. Do they own beach resorts, too? Lorenzio likes to surf."

Shit. That sneaky son of a bitch. What the heck was Enzo planning to do to her?

Her last text didn't say much—Mykaela even lied to me about where she was.  She would stop at nothing just to find her real father.

Dammit.  I wanted to punch something  again but I had to keep my cool. Keep level-headed.  "Call the pilot. Get guns."

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