I shook my head, "I'm not going in there"

Leo grabbed my arm and ducked as a helicopter flew by over us. There were tall trees all around us, we were in the middle of nowhere; we were not even in New York anymore and it had been just a few hours since I left with Leo. Leo opened up the trap door again and pleaded with me to get inside.

"Evie, it's either this or Nikolai!" he whisper-yelled.

Tears stung my eyes, taking a long, deep breath, I stepped down the unsteady wooden ladder that led to nothing but deep darkness. I couldn't see anything, the second my feet touched the ground I heaved a sigh of relief and looked up at the faint morning light coming from the trap door.

"Leo!" I called and there was no answer.

A certain tension and anxiety crept up as Leo didn't answer, I looked around the dark place, my heartbeat accelerating. Goosebumps crept over the back of my neck.

Did he just leave me down here?!

"LEO!" I called again and I was ready to climb back up the ladder.

A second later, Leo appeared in my view, he stepped down the ladder and closed the door behind him.

"Evie, touch the wall to your left, there is a flashlight mounted on it, grab it and turn it on."

In the blinding darkness, I touched the wall and moved my hand around until I touched something, my first instinct was to pull my hand away but then I grabbed the head of the flashlight and pulled it off the wall. I touched the flashlight, looked for the ON button, and finally found it. I flicked it on and the dark tunnel-like place illuminated. This place reminded me of the tunnels under Nikolai's mansion but this was more on the messed up side. The walls were falling apart, the ground was uneven and it looked like it had been over a century ago.

Leo sealed the trap door with a bunch of stuff, including five giant padlocks. He stepped down the wobbly ladder and faced me.

"What took you so long up there?!" I snapped at him.

"The signal is weak down here, I was downloading this for you."

He handed me a cell phone and played a video. It was from a news channel. My picture was plastered all over the screen with the news of me being kidnapped.

"We are here with the missing girl's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bolton," the newscaster announced.

What the-

What was going on?!

There was a couple that I have never seen before, they were sobbing, wiping their eyes as if they had actually lost a daughter.

"I know who took her, it's the same man that had been stalking my daughter for the past month. Mark Leopold-he is a serial rapist and killer, he took my daughter, please she is just nineteen years old. Please, help us find Evangeline and bring her home," the woman cried, barely holding herself up.

The man sitting beside her wrapped his arms around her shoulders and looked into the camera, "Evie, sweetheart, if you are watching this, just know that mom and dad are looking for you and we won't give up until we find you and bring you back to where you belong."

The camera cut to the newscaster once more as she reported the case, referring to me as the missing girl.

"...the nineteen-year-old Columbia University student was forcefully shoved into a helicopter by two unidentified individuals and taken from the campus this morning. You can see the picture of Mark Leopold on your screens, he is the prime suspect in Evangeline's kidnapping case. According to Evangeline's parents, the sixty-year-old man had been stalking her for a month now; she reported him to the police and filed a restraining order against him. Mark Leopold is a well-known criminal, he had been charged with the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl, Stacy Richardson a few years ago but the case was dismissed—"

Leo grabbed the cell phone back from me and shoved it into his pocket, he snatched the flashlight and held my hand in his as he led us deep into the tunnel.

"What-" I swallowed, "What was that, Leo?"

"That was just the glimpse of the power Nikolai Costello has over this country. The police, the FBI, they all are in it."

"Who were those people?" I asked referring to the people who were playing the part of my parents.

"It was all false, Evie," he unlocked one of the doors, it was a bedroom. The furniture looked new in the old dirty bedroom, "By now the entire country is probably looking for us-for me."

He looked so distressed, so tensed. I grabbed his arm and squeezed it, "Leo, what now?"

"We lay low, Evie."

I looked around, "Here?"

"Yes..."

"For how many days?"

"Until they come to get us."

I frowned, "Who?"

"You'll know soon, my lovey. There is a bathroom, and a kitchen, everything works perfectly fine, my room is right next to yours. There are air vents for ventilation," he pointed to the other door, "We have enough food and water down here to survive for two to three months."

"Two to three months?!"

"I have no idea how long all of this will take. Nikolai Costello would never stop looking for you. He has eyes everywhere, he has the chief of staff of the United States in his pockets. We need to lay low until they come to get us!"

"Who? Who will come for us?"

"The person who owns these tunnels. You will know soon."

"Leo, what if Nikolai finds us first?"

"Then I'm dead and you're doomed for life."

I shook my head, "I don't want to go back to him."

"I won't let it happen. If I knew; if I had an idea that was alive, Nikolai Costello would have still been in the dark about your existence."

"Where were you?" I asked.

"Your father had sent me to Ignacio's warehouse. After I heard about what had happened to Elijah, I stayed there."

"Leo?"

"Yes?"

"Did my dad really murder Nikolai's mother?"

Leo pulled in his lower lip and looked at the ground disappointedly, "He did..."

"Why?"

His head snapped back at me, frowning, frustrated, "Because your father was an idiot! He was losing his mind, he was losing his fucking marbles! He was bitter because Niko won't give him the respect he thought he deserved."

Leo leaned against the wall behind him, he seemed tired, defeated, "He had no good reason to murder Anastasia; he did it because he felt like it. He wanted to see Luciano and Nikolai in pain. Anastasia was a good woman, she was lovely, you would have loved her, Evie. Your father killed her, he could have used anything-anything as a direction to take you out of the country but he wanted the thrill of spilling the Costello blood. Your mother was in on it. Your mother invited her to dinner only to stab that poisoned needle into her back. Your mother didn't care who was getting hurt as long as you were safe. They killed a child, Evie, a four-year-old child! Nikolai killing your parents was justified, Evie."

My eyes teared up at Leo's words and I shook my head, "It wasn't justified-"

"IT WAS! Elijah was my closest friend! He started this war with Costellos knowing that this won't end well for him, your mother, or you but he did it anyway. He was losing his mind. He put you in danger when he planted a chip inside of you when he involved you in his plan. He thought you were his coffer. He wasn't listening to me, he was being reckless and that got him killed. You can never escape Nikolai Costello."

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that my parents were bad people. I only saw the good parts, they kept all the bad parts away from me.

How can they do it? How can they keep their daughter safe and kill someone else four-year-old child?

I felt bad for Nikolai's mother. Since the day I have been in Nikolai's life, everyone had told me that his mother was an amazing woman; even Leo had nothing but good things to say about her.

I wrapped my arms around myself and went to sit on the bed.

My vision blurred, "We did..."

"What?"

"We managed to escape Nikolai Costello..." I whispered.

"Because I had the strongest weapon I could use against him."

I looked up at him, frowning, "What?"

"You... you are his weakness, he can't see clearly when it comes to you. That's why he never saw this coming because it was something that involved you."

"That's where you're wrong. He doesn't care, he doesn't love me. He just doesn't want to let me go because I'm the only way he could take his mother's revenge. I'm the only thing closest to Elijah Bolton he could torture."

"Evie, sweetie, if he wanted to torture you; you wouldn't be alive right now. You'd be tied in one of his torture chambers begging for death to come and he wouldn't have given it to you."

I squeezed my eyes shut and looked down at the ground. A sinking feeling spread through my chest. I pulled my legs up, wrapping my arms around them.

"I don't want to talk about him anymore, Leo. I don't want you to ever mention him again. I want to forget about him, his existence, and-" my words got stuck in my throat as my eyes went to the wedding ring on my finger, the diamond shined in my eyes, "...and this marriage."

I took the wedding ring off my finger and put it on the nightstand.

╌───═❁═───╌

I woke up to the heavy footsteps resounding all around the tunnel. I startled up from my bed and looked up at the ceiling, the dust fell all over me. I ran out of the room and so did Leo.

"Leo, what's happening?" I asked.

"I don't know, Evie. I don't know!"

"Who is that? Are the people you were talking about finally coming to get us?" I asked as the hope of getting out of this tunnel ignited.

The words hadn't fully left my lips when several gunshots rang throughout the tunnels. I screamed and stepped back, I looked up at the trapdoor and saw it being busted to the floor.

Sunlight illuminated the tunnel, it had been a month since I have last seen the sunlight. My mouth went bone dry as Leo pulled me in his arm. Fear became a tangible, living force that crept over me like some hungry beast, immobilizing me; my brain, holding me captive.

A few men jumped down the ladder and into the tunnels and then I saw black shiny shoes, they slowly stepped down the stairs. I know who those shoes belonged to.

I wanted to run, I wanted to hide but I had nowhere to go except for hiding myself in Leo's arms.

"No, please, no!" I cried, hard.

"I won't let anything happen to you!" Leo kept repeating these words.

Slowly, his face became visible as he jumped down the ladder. The men took off their masks, Scott, Lorenzo, Marco... and behind them stood Nikolai Costello.

Another gunshot rang through my ears, and a warm liquid sprayed all over me. I looked up and saw a bullet hole, just like the one that was on my mother's forehead. It was in the middle of Leo's forehead, his arms went limp around me.

"NO!" I screamed, holding Leo's dead, limp body, "No, please, no! No! No! No! Leo!"

The next second, I was ripped away from his body. Someone grabbed me by my arm and slammed me into a warm, hard body.

I looked up and my eyes met with Nikolai's feral ones, "You think you could escape me?" he pointed a gun over my forehead, "Stupid little Evangeline!"

"Let me go! LET ME GO!" I screamed at him.

"You betrayed me, Evangeline. You knew how much I hated traitors," he sneered at my bloodied face.

"Kill her, Niko," Lorenzo's voice echoed.

"Goodbye, sweet cheeks," Scott's menacing smile was all I could see.

"Give her what she deserves," Marco added.

"No, please, no! Let me go, please!" I sobbed but Nikolai didn't seem to care.

"This is what happens when someone betrays me, Evangeline," saying that, he pulled the trigger of the gun that was pointed over my head.

I shot up from the bed, screaming and crying and moving my limbs around. Tears were running down my face. The room's door burst open and Leo ran in, "Evangeline?!"

I jumped into his arms, frantically, "He was here, Leo, he was here, he killed you, and then he shot me!"

"No one's here, Evie, it's just the two of us. He didn't find you, He didn't find us! You are safe, we are still here in the tunnel. You were having a nightmare," Leo's words soothed me, he rubbed my back up and down and pulled me closer to his body, "You're fine..." he kept repeating.

I'm not fine...

I'll never be fine.

I know how this will end, it will end with a bullet hole in my chest.

Nobody gets away from him, the only way out is death.

Maybe, it's not today or tomorrow. Maybe I'll be alive for a few more months.

But that's all.

There's an hourglass out there somewhere and every day a grain of sand falls to the other side, chipping my life away.

And a few grains of sand is all I have left.

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