Alessio:

I had never found myself very distracted from work before, but my trip had taken longer than I thought, and all I could think about was getting home to see Eliana. I knew this type of distraction was bad, there were a lot of reasons that relationships between leaders of the mafia didn't work out with their wives and girlfriends. She was a weakness, a chink in my armor who pulled my mind away from things I needed to focus on, but I knew that I couldn't walk away. The pounding in my chest at the thought of her made that obvious.

The plane ride seemed to stretch on for hours, the whole time my foot was tapping impatiently against the floor of the jet. Leonardo and Angelo had accompanied me, but Angelo seemed to have fallen asleep about half an hour ago, still propped upright in his chair. That man was always on alert, he took the idea of sleeping with one eye open further than maybe even me. Leonardo poured himself a drink at the bar in the corner, as well as one for me, then placed it on the armrest.

"You look like hell. How's the shoulder?"

I raised an eyebrow. He was my best friend, but even for him it was bold to speak that way to me. "We found out that the Russians are actively targeting our shipments, flew to Greece, then Russia, then Italy all in the span of a week and a half. We were all shot at and almost killed, I'm pretty sure that the three of us have some unaddressed broken bones. I'd be concerned it we weren't a little exhausted."

Leonardo shook his head. "You look worried about her, so I'm assuming you're just anxious to get back."

"What are you talking about?"

"Eliana. There's no point in trying to hide it, at least not with me. I saw the look on your face that day before we left, when you had to kill that man and tell her that you were leaving for a while. You called her cara."

I glared, but I knew that Leonardo couldn't be easily lied to, even by me. We had grown up together, he and Angleo were probably the only two people that I trusted with my life. I didn't want to discuss her with anyone, I was still sorting out how I felt. "We'll be home soon, so it's no matter."

He quirked an eyebrow, "Have you texted her already? That your almost back in the states?"

"Yes, but she hasn't responded."

"Is that what's worrying you?"

"No," I shook my head tiredly. "It's the middle of the night back home, I'm sure it's just because she's asleep. Something isn't sitting right for some reason, I don't know what's bothering me."

"It's called missing someone, boss. That happens when you want to be around someone but you can't be."

I shot him another glare for his sarcasm, but he only responded with a smirk, bringing his drink to his lips. I did the same, ignoring the scorching feeling that ran down my throat and relishing in the feeling of warmth in my stomach. "I'll stop by her work tomorrow and see her. I think the Niklov situation is stable for a few more days."

"The fact that he's being quiet might be something we have to worry about. It's almost more suspicious than his attempts to attack us."

I nodded slightly, conceding that he might be right. "After the botched attack on the shop that put them in the hospital, I think he may have realized that we aren't laundering money. He's probably having to reevaluate his assumptions about money laundering."

"That whole thing never sat well with me," Leonardo mused. "The Russians don't pull punches, and they sure as hell aren't merciful. How did Eliana and her boss get out of that alive?"

"From what I can tell, Ezrah almost didn't."

"Is that why you paid his medical bills?"

My gaze snapped back to his, guarded. "I don't know what you're referring to."

"Alessio, I'm your right hand man. I may not see everything, but I see the bills and financial statements."

There was no point in lying to him, it wouldn't take an expert to look into my financial statements. "I felt bad for the mess they were put in because of us, and we have the money."

Leonardo frowned slightly, "We do, but has it occurred to you that we may be putting them in more danger by visiting so obviously? I'm not saying that you should stop seeing her, but being out so publicly, so often.... Eliana doesn't know what we do, she's not on alert or looking out for herself with that in mind."

"She'll be fine, Eliana is smart. She's got street knowledge too, she's not helpless."

"I didn't say helpless, but I have to admit that I would worry less if she knew everything."

"And you also know that we can't tell her."

There was a pregnant pause as we both let our thoughts simmer, tossing the conflict over in our minds. To keep her safe, I needed to at least explain that there was danger being around me, and give her the option to step away. Knowing Eliana, though, she would almost certainly ask more questions than I could answer, and if she pried too far into my business it would only make things worse.

"That's why you stopped by the hospital after you dropped her off, before we went to the airstrip to leave. I thought at first it was to visit Benvolio, but you visited the surgeon for a different reason, didn't you?"

I took another sip from my glass, noticing the rattle against my fingers of the drained ice cubes. I didn't know what to divulge, but after a moment I reminded myself that I couldn't hide much from one of the only men privy to my personal matters. "Her boss, Ezrah. They're extremely close, practically father and daughter. When he was at the hospital after the attack, they found cancer. Extremely aggressive, bad prognosis."

I waited for Leonardo to interject or say something, anything, but he only listened with an emotionless expression on his face. He could be hard to read, but most of my men adopted that defense mechanism. "I took her home from work one day, and she said that Ezrah wasn't going to try and fight it, he didn't have the money and he didn't want to leave her in debt when he died. I have more than enough for that, especially since we basically keep the head surgeon on retainer, so I paid a special visit."

I glanced out the window as the lights of a distant city appeared through the clouds, "When Ezrah gets back from his trip, he'll find that he qualified for an advanced trial surgery and treatment with one of the top experts in the states, and he received an anonymous donation to cover all of the expenses that come with it."

I was waiting for his judgement, to say that I was becoming too emotionally involved and that I needed to step back, but it never came. All that I got was a tight lipped and slightly rueful grin. "I just wish she knew what she was getting into."

"You think I should stop seeing her?"

"No and yes." He sighed, swirling the brown liquid in his glass around, "Would it be better for her? Undoubtedly. Should you? I don't know. Would I be able to avoid someone that I had such feelings for? Probably not. Do I want you to stop talking to her and lose the one person that seems to make you happy for the first time in years? Definitely not."

"I don't know if I could," I murmured, almost to myself. I cleared my throat, "Distractions from work right now are the last thing I need, though."

"This seems like a good distraction. One you can afford. You can still be a leader and have emotions, it may even help you make rational decisions."

"I'm extremely rational."

"Pragmatic, clear minded, assertive, and persistent, yes. But cold and objective empiricism can have its limits."

I sighed, staring out the window again and thinking that I couldn't wait to get home. I wanted to put off the ethical question of involving Eliana for a little bit longer. At the moment, all that I wanted was to have her next to me, to put an arm around her or see her sitting across the dinner table from me in her fuzzy socks and christmas sweater. Being gone for a week had only made me want her around more.

Leonardo broke me from my thoughts, "Have you done a background check on this girl?"

"No," I hesitated.

"You would have done one for anyone else who was this close to you. What stopped you? Trying to respect her privacy?"

"I didn't think dredging up someone's past was a good way to start a relationship. If there was anything to worry about, she would have told me in time."

"Maybe in a normal circumstance, but you're not normal, neither is this job. I'll order one to be ready for us when we get back. Don't give me that look, I'll go over it first and I won't make you read it unless there's something that catches my eye."

Leonardo could tell that I wasn't happy about it, but I said nothing because some part of me knew that he was right. I was the leader of the Italian mafia. My job, duties, and loyalty came before anything else, especially a girl that I had only met a couple of weeks ago, no matter how quickly she had caught my eye.

We spent the rest of the flight in silence, both of us exhausted from our trip and everything we had to do during it. As soon as we touched back down on the ground, we would need to be on high alert, and as soon as we were back at the house, we would need to debrief with the capos. I checked my phone again, over and over until we were on the tarmac and walking to the car. Angelo was his usual silent self, stoic and professional. He kept his suit jacket on to cover the bloodstains on his sleeves that he had acquired before we took off, a product of beating one of the men from our Italian branch for making a sexual pass at a woman and trying to grab her, but I had stripped my own jacket off even though it was cold. I needed the biting wind to wake me up, but it did make me worried that Eliana would try to walk to work in this weather when it was time for her shift.

Angelo had very little tolerance for any man who was sexually aggressive towards women, especially if their advances were unwarranted. It was one of the lines my men wouldn't cross, and they knew that I didn't allow it among them either. If they did something and I heard about it, I wouldn't stop Angelo from beating them within an inch of their life. That was one of the reasons that I hated Niklov- over the past couple of years, word had gotten around that he had branched past normal imports of drugs or weapons, and had moved on to human trafficking. None of the other syndicates got involved in that, most people had some sort of a conscience.

I checked my phone again as we neared the house. Still no messages from Eliana, even though the sun had begun to peek over the horizon and she would usually be at work by this point. Hopefully, she had taken the morning off and let someone else open so that she could actually get some sleep.

I was greeted by some of my other important men lined up on the steps, attentive and hands in their pockets. The one on the end, our top technical specialist, had a folder tucked under his arm, then held it out as we neared him.

"Everything I could find on Eliana North, sir."

I brushed past him, ignoring the papers. I wanted nothing to do with her background check unless I had to, but I heard Leonardo behind me thank him, then footsteps as all of my men followed me to my office. Once the door was closed behind us and I was seated comfortably behind my desk, I gave Leonardo the nod, telling him to start explaining what had happened over the past week. He was my right hand for a reason, and he seemed to understand that I was still thinking over our conversation on the plane, not in the mood to recount details and debrief my men.

The only thing to pull me from my reverie was one of my men setting a glass of liquor in front of me. I didn't question what it was, just raised the glass to my lips and took a gulp, hoping that it would even out my thoughts and make them less clouded than Eliana was currently making them.

Snapping back to attention, I caught what Leonardo was saying just in time to hear, "Attentive behavior is advised. Niklov might be taking a break, and we might have sorted out some of the troublesome international shipments, but that doesn't mean he won't try something backhanded like what landed Benvolio in the hospital."

"Do you think he's planning something else that we haven't seen before? Sort of.... Biding his time?" One of my men asked, pouring himself his own glass.

Leonardo answered, drawing a silent gaze from Angelo who was leaning against the wall, slightly removed from the rest of the people in the room, "I think it's something that we won't see coming. I hope that I'm wrong."

My men began to talk amongst themselves, but our tech analyst was nearby and I gestured him over, "Roberto, did you see anything lately in online transactions or even in your work that suggests Niklov is planning something big?"

"No sir. Even communications were being monitored and nothing stuck out. Well, not electronice messages that is."

"What do you mean?"

"You got a couple of packages sent here while you were gone with no return address, which is a little odd since most of them are sent to the office downtown. We had the dogs check though, no explosives, drugs, even the metal detectors didn't pick up anything significant."

I sighed. It was probably something that was sent from Italy, the men there were always forgetting to get it to the office. "Could you bring them in? I'll take care of them now."

Roberto disappeared for a minute before Leonardo raised his glass, "And congratulations to our boss, for once again putting Niklov in his place and gaining another alliance in Greece."

They each raised their glasses in a toast, and I nodded with a tight lipped expression. It was the most optimism that I could offer them at the moment, but they were used to my stoicism and silence. A smile that looked like a grimace was the closest I ever got a grin, and that was on a good day.

Roberto came back a moment later, carrying a package with a letter perched on the top. I started with the white envelope, sliding my knife across the paper and pulling a piece of paper from it. There wasn't time to read the neat writing on the page before another small piece of folded paper slid out onto my desk.

Roberto had taken a couple of respectful steps back, attempting to look like he wasn't invading my privacy, but I knew he was curious. His own furrowed brow seemed to catch Leonardo's attention, who chuckled from a little further away, "Back to work already, I see."

I sent an expressionless look at my right hand, knowing that his casual attitude was due to the fact that we were in a room with my best men and we had just completed a great achievement. He and I, as well as Angelo, were probably all still running on enough adrenaline to ignore any injuries and exhaustion for a while, but I was starting to feel it in my shoulder and head.

I ignored the letter and picked up what seemed to be a folded post-it note. Someone had obviously folded it with precision, the pattern seemed to be something very detailed, but it was ripped and there was some blood on it. I couldn't make out quite what it was supposed to be, but it was familiar somehow. After staring at it a moment, it almost looked folded into the pattern of a flower.

The letter itself was forgotten as I used my knife to open the box. I flipped open the cardboard and I stared at the contents in confusion as Leonardo joked, "What did you do? Go online shopping?"

Angelo, who was in unusually good spirits as he sipped his Campari and Vodka, actually chuckled along with some of the other men in the room. They were all openly watching now with mild interest at such an odd package delivered straight to their boss.

I pulled a single shoe out of the box and stared at it in confusion. It was a girl's boot, and it seemed familiar as well. A sinking feeling took over my stomach as I flipped the package over completely, spilling the contents out onto my desk. A shirt and skirt were among the items, not just ripped, but cut, like someone had removed them from a body. And I recognized them.

I frantically dug through the pile, looking for something else that would confirm my suspicions as something else fell from between the folds. I held it up by the chain so that the pendant swung back and forth.

Leonardo stepped forward with a pale face, "Is that-"

A hollow feeling filled my chest and a ringing started in my ears. My own voice sounded foreign to me, "These are Eliana's."

And everyone in the room could clearly see that it was all covered in blood. 

Hello! I'm gonna start straight out and apologize- with school and everything else starting up, I kept writing, but since I didn't get a read on the last chapter for a long time, I didn't feel super rushed to publish the new one. As soon as someone checked out the last chapter and I realized that someone had actually looked, I decided to finish it up and update. So thank you to that one person who took pity on me and read that last chapter, it really does mean a lot to me that someone was interested! 

-Thanks, 

Elizabeth