BA-DUM-TSS

"I take Evangeline with me forever," he declared.

I let out a dry laugh. He had balls, I gotta hand it to him but he was also stupid. Courage and stupidity don't go well together, not in my world anyway, "You really think that I'd just hand Evangeline to you because you asked me to?" I raised an eyebrow.

Mark's eyes dropped to the floor, most men can't handle looking me straight in the eyes, "Respectfully, Don Niko, she is of no use to you. She didn't know anything about her parents, the girl had lived in isolation her whole life. I know you have taken care of her after her parent's death but it's my responsibility. She is my goddaughter. I'd like to take her with me."

I brushed my thumb over my lower lip as I heard him rambling on and on about Evangeline, "Do you even know who she is?"

"I have cared for that girl my entire life. I can take better care of her."

"That's an impossible feat considering that Evangeline is my wife now."

A look of pure shock and horror crossed his face as it shot up in my direction and his eyes went wide, "What?"

"Evangeline is my wife, Mark," I accentuated every word so he'd understand.

He looked like a fucking madman, "No, please, Don Niko, she doesn't know any better. How did you— I thought you were engaged—she's a child!"

"She is not a child."

"She is, she is as innocent as the day she was born. She doesn't know any better. I have raised that girl, she is a child from the brain. Don Niko, please, don't do this."

I gritted my teeth, if that man didn't have a mountain of valuable information in his brain I would have shot a bullet through his fucking head. "Mark, Evangeline married me willingly and, she is a fucking adult, if you don't want me to go back on my word of granting a respectful dismissal from the Cosa Nostra, you will not utter her name from your fucking mouth again."

"But Don Niko—"

Scott slammed the barrel of his gun onto Mark's face, "Didn't you hear what he said?"

Mark staggered to his side and held his bruised cheek before looking back at me.

Not sparing him another glance, I walked around the room. There were crime boards all around the room, they had a lot of our pictures pinned over them. All of them were of Costellos, my uncles, my aunts, all of my cousins, and their children. Two boards had the names of my men, probably every single made man of the Cosa Nostra.

The thing that caught my attention was the big red crosses over some of the pictures. My cousin died in a shootout five months ago and then it was all of my dead men and cousins. The dead women of our family had died the last year. Even the Costello children? Fuck! Children as young as four years old?

Then my head snapped to the board that had me, papa, Scott, Lorenzo, Marco, Alessandro, and mama...
There was a big red cross over mama's picture, and underneath it said: “Eliminated”

Can't be?

My mother died after Elijah was killed, it was way after...

He can't possibly fucking know about it...

Alessandro turned the computers on and Mark told him the passwords. I picked up Evangeline's picture placed over her father's desk and stared at it. She was probably around fourteen to fifteen in this picture, smiling widely into the camera.

I placed it back as the screens in the room came to life. My father had been utterly quiet since we stepped into this room, he didn't say anything. He kept looking at mama's picture with a deep frown.

"Mark, start from the beginning," I ordered.

Mark swallowed and nodded, he looked around the room, "Elijah... Elijah broke the Mafia's Oath of Omertà. He broke the sacred code of silence and became an informant for the FBI in exchange for immunity against all the crimes he committed under the Costello Crime Family. Elijah, his wife, Evangeline, and I, were supposed to leave the country after he had successfully exposed the Costello family and handed you and your father over to the FBI."

Blood rushed to my head and I felt my face getting hot. Anger coursed through my veins faster than my blood. My eyes snapped back to my mama's smiling picture and then back at Mark.

"It was just about exposing the family at first but then day by day, Elijah grew greedy. It wasn't enough for Elijah, nothing was enough for him. He wanted to ruin you. Luciano Costello called him a brother, he worked for your family for years, he thought that Niko would make him his underboss. He thought he earned it but Niko named Scott—an outsider—as his underboss. His plan was set in motion three and a half years ago after you became the head of the family, Niko. Elijah killed Vito Costello, your uncle, it wasn't Ignacio or the Chicago outfit. It was Elijah. Vito came to his house for drinks and found everything in the storeroom, that's where he was killed. Elijah threw him into the sea with a ton of weight strapped to his chest, that's why his body was never found."

Mark pulled up Elijah's e-mails as an FBI informant. It was an exchange of information between Elijah and multiple FBI agents.

"That's when the thirst to spill Costello's blood started, he wouldn't stop, we always had someone to blame, innocent people died. He even killed a four-year-old boy because of his last name. Elijah was behind the war with 'Ndrangheta, hundreds of your men died, and still, it wasn't fucking enough for him!"

"There's more?" my father's voice resounded in the room.

"He contacted Ignacio Reyes. Elijah knew that Ignacio was thirsty for revenge, and he used it to distract you from him. You were too busy dealing with Ignacio and the FBI that you didn't care to notice what was going on right under your nose."

"Fucking bastard!" my father muttered under his breath.

"He was planning on giving control of this lair to Ignacio. After he was done dealing with the FBI, he planned to feed the rest of your family to the wolves—to Ignacio Reyes. That's how Ignacio knew about this, that's how he knew about the key. Elijah had promised him your head on a silver platter."

"Pity, he isn't here to see what had become of his plans," Scott gritted through his teeth.

"He was planning on leaving soon, he wanted to move away for Evangeline too. She was growing up, asking questions, and he wanted to give his daughter a normal life away from all this. He was always scared and concerned for her safety here and this was his chance. Evangeline was also the reason he became an informant. He wanted her to have a normal life, he needed to leave without anyone knowing about it."

"Why is my wife's picture on the board? And why the fuck does it say eliminated?" my father barked out, stepping in Mark's direction.

"I told you he wanted to leave—"

"What does my mother have to do with all this?!

Mark took a step back and his gaze shifted between me and my father, "I have no part in this, I want you to remember that you have agreed to let me go."

"FUCKING TELL ME!"

"Your mother didn't die a natural death, she was injected with a certain type of bacteria—I don't know the name of it—a blood poisoning bacteria. He wanted you to be distracted by your mother's death when he left. He couldn't step out of the house with Evangeline in broad daylight. He had plans to leave the country the second your mother died. He thought you and your father would be too busy with the funeral and paying respects to your mother that no one would notice him missing and none of your men would know about Evangeline."

My head started to spin and threatened to explode. I clenched my fists so hard that my nails cut into my skin. I balled my fingers into a fist and drove them through the wall right beside Mark's head.

He killed my mother.

Elijah Bolton killed my mother.

"Get the fuck out of my sight before I kill you, Mark. Someone get him fuck out before I go back on my word!"  

Mark went out of the room like a fucking bat out of hell. He didn't fucking look back, he knew that if he did I would have shot him so many times that no one would be able to identify his body.

"Niko and I need the room," my father announced.

Alessandro and Scott nodded before they both went out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them. I watched the names of my dead men on the screen and the other had the names of the alive ones. Cosa Nostra had more than eight thousand members right now... but more than two hundred deaths were on Elijah Bolton.

"He killed your mother."

I gritted my teeth, "I heard."

"Right under all of our noses, he managed to murder her."

"I FUCKING KNOW!"

"You have the fucking nerve to raise your voice after what you have fucking done?!" my father stepped my way and pushed me back.

A deep frown etched over my forehead as I glared at him, "What I have done? You are the fucking husband, you fucking failed to protect her."

"Yes, I failed but you married the murderer's daughter, you gave Elijah's daughter Anastasia's place! That girl is the fucking reason your mother is six feet under the ground! Didn't you hear what Mark said? He needed to get his beloved daughter out of the country undetected and he used my wife as a distraction. He used your mother as a pawn, he used Anastasia Costello as a fucking scapegoat to protect his daughter!"

"I fucking heard everything!"

"You married that girl. You love that girl, Niko, I can see it in your fucking eyes. You have never given me a reason to be disappointed, you have never done anything wrong but her---that girl is all wrong. You have married your mother's murderer. Your child will have Elijah's blood in their veins. Your mother's murderer's blood."

Fuck! I couldn't fucking think. I didn't have the words. I looked around the room and found nothing but information that could destroy my whole family, every single member of the Costello family was listed, he was going to hand them to Ignacio, even our children.

"I hope you enjoy the rest of your married life with that whore. I will disown your children. They will never have the Costello name. They murdered a Costello, they will never be a Costello. We don't kill our own family!"

He walked up to me and pointed a finger at my face, "You don't deserve to be the head of this family. Unfortunately, I have no other heirs, just you. I will never let this go, Niko, ever. Now, you have the decision to make, end her life and avenge your mother's death or I will do it for you."

He pushed me back one more time before he walked out of the room. I swallowed but it felt like the most difficult fucking thing I had ever done. Breathing became unbearable, and a lump fucking formed in my throat that choked me. I needed to fucking get out of here. 

I headed out of the door and Scott came beside me in a flash, "Niko?"

"Scott, I want you to thoroughly search this room. I need to know everything. Every single fucking thing. I want you to corroborate all of it to Mark Leopold's story. I need to fucking know everything!"

"I will, Niko."

"Don't let Mark get away just yet."

"Alessandro will take care of him."

I nodded and went back up again. I needed to fucking get out of here. I can't fucking do this! I had put a bandage over the pain of my mother's death but Elijah ripped it open. I got into my car and sped to my home. I will not rest until I find out what has happened, how did Elijah Bolton—our caporegime—manage to murder my mother right under our noses?

I recklessly parked the car out front and stepped out of it. I held my head in my hands. I made a mistake. I made a fucking mistake. How can I be this fucking blind? How can I not see it happening around me?! How I can let this fucking happen?! How the fuck did I get deceived by Elijah.

I walked into the house and slammed the front door open. I wanted to fucking slam my head against the wall. I ran my hands down my face and groaned as frustration and agitation grew.

For the first time in my life, I did not know my next move. What fuck am I supposed to do? What's my next move?

I grabbed the vase from over the wall-mounted shelf and slammed it onto the floor. It shattered into a pieces but it did nothing to calm me down. I walked further into the living room and dropped everything on my way to the fucking floor. I grabbed a liquor bottle and slammed it into the TV mounted on the wall. I turned over the coffee table, and the glass table shattered. It fucking shattered!

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. I looked up and saw her, standing over the foot of the stairs, watching me with wide eyes. Her mouth parted slightly and she gave her head a shake.

"Nikolai..." she whispered.

The girl that has Elijah Bolton's blood running through her veins.

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Sorry for the late updates, I'm just so busy rn. 🥺