The Mafia's: Bodyguards Redemption

Four: Strange Places, Strange People

Strange Places, Strange People

Four: Ilaria

Waking up with a start, sitting straight up my fist pressed against my pounding chest. I look around at the small room I find myself in. A sense of calmness comes to me as the room comes into focus. It’s a little room, nothing like I am used to. It reminds me of one of the many rooms in my grandmother’s house in Sicily the one time we went to visit when I was little. The religious Knick Knacks that are spread throughout the room along with handmade doilies.

I close my eyes trying to think of how I ended up here and where exactly here is. Scrubbing my face with both hands I still as the last memory I have filters through my mind. I had finally found the man I have been searching for. It has taken weeks to find out that he might be in New York. Then another week of me searching with no luck. I was in a cab next to another one heading to my hotel room to pack when I heard the slamming of a car door as we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic. My heart had stopped beating when the man I was looking for walked past my cab.

I had flung my money at the driver as I had hurried out, chasing after him. He is my only link to find out where my daughter is. I knew that it was a mistake to leave her with my mom. My dad had assured me that she would be safe until after the trial. That Alessio would never find out about her. That the Rossi family would never know that I had a child by Alessio, and she would be safer with them. That was my mistake that I will never live down. I am the sole reason that my family is dead and my daughter missing.

It was only because that man hadn’t thought of the outside camera that is on a battery and not hooked up to the original system that I even knew who to look for. Not even the police knew about that camera and if they did, they must have thought it was part of the original system.

I know right now I’m putting my life in danger, but I just cannot sit and do nothing. I don’t care about being in Witness Protection or about the trial against Alessio. What I need right now is to find my daughter. I don’t care if I die as long as they don’t get ahold of her. Just as long as I can accomplish that then the Rossi’s can kill me, I won’t care anymore.

I remember following that man into an alleyway and coming up short as he looks very intimidating leaning against the wall, his forehead resting on his arm. It kind of looked like he was asleep but wide awake and waiting for something. I look around but see nothing, but a disgusting alleyway filled with trash and sh*t. I shiver as I look back at him. “Sir.” I try saying, but it seems like my voice isn’t working that well and comes out very quietly.

I work my throat and try once more to get the attention of the man that is in front of me. The one I had seen on the video feed carrying my daughter out of my parent’s house. “Sir, please can you help me....” I say then like a flash the man that didn’t move a muscle the whole time I was standing in front of him moves so quickly that I didn’t know what was going on until a man drops from up above. A knife in his chest. I gasp seeing the blood quickly covering the crisp white shirt as my breaths start coming uneven from me. Blood I can’t stand the sight of blood. The black spots start to invade my sight as I feel myself falling, still gasping for air.

I lower my hands from my face as I look around once more. “Okay Ilaria, you now know what happened last but where the hell am I now.” I mumble out talking to myself. Swinging my legs around, off the bed and realize that someone had put a nightgown on me. A handmade quilt coving my lap, I pick the quilt up off of my lap and move it to the side treating it with respect for all the hard work that went into making it. I look and see my jeans and t-shirt sitting nice and folded on a chair, my sneakers underneath with my socks balled up inside of them. Okay. I think to myself. Time for a run down. I watched as the man that took my daughter from my parent’s house. The house where my mother was killed after my dad was killed in his office. The man was probably the same one that killed my mother, and I watched him kill another right in front of me before passing out.

Opening my eyes, I stand up and approach the door to the room. Could it be that this killer, this man that took my daughter didn’t kill me or just leave me in that alleyway but took me to a place to torture me? Maybe kill me? I guess there is only one way to find out. I slowly open the door and hear voices. I cannot make out what is being said but I can tell one is a female voice and the other. Well, the other voice sounds like it is not used very often. It is rough like the sound of gravel crunching under foot but also very deep and scratchy sounding.

I tiptoe closer to where the voices are coming from. Hearing them better I still cannot make out what they are saying as they are talking in a language I have never heard before. No, wait I have in Sunday School when the old priest talked to the nuns when I was really little. What the hell, they are talking in Latin. Why would a killer know Latin? I peek in, trying to be sly but the moment I look into the room. My gaze is met with the very dark eyes set into the perfect male face of a God. The small hairs raise all over my body as my gut tells me to run for my life.