Chapter 88 Chapter Eighty Eight

Chapter 88 Chapter Eighty Eight
"I have a son?" He still couldn't believe his ears.

The words rearranged everything he thought he knew about his own existence. A son. Him. The man who had haunted the edges of Arya's silences his whole life suddenly had a name, a face, and now — apparently — a claim on him that no one had ever bothered to mention.

"Yes, Dante Silvestro. You have a son, and he's none other than Cesari Sandoval," she spat.

"So... you decided to ruin my life in return?" he asked. "Your husband practically bought my company right from under my nose and left me broke. My daughter got sick, and I couldn't take care of her, and I lost her. She was the light of my life."

"An eye for an eye," she said.

"Yes," Dante agreed, picking up the gun from the floor. "An eye for an eye. A daughter for a daughter." He pointed the gun at Rose.

"No, please!" Arya pleaded. "Dante, please!"

"No can do, Ari." He shook his head. "After I'm done killing her, you'll be next, and then... you." He pointed at Ellie.

Arya slowly rose to her feet, and the two women did the same. They moved close to each other.

"Dante... for the love of God, please don't do this!" she begged. "Killing us won't bring your daughter back!"

"God? Are you serious right now?!" he bellowed. "I've been waiting for years for this, and now you're calling God?" He chuckled darkly. "Leave Him out of this."

"Okay. You want to kill me? Go ahead, but just so you know... it won't bring back your daughter." Arya told him. "Your son will never forgive you if you kill his wife and unborn child. In fact, I know he'll never rest until he finds you and puts a bullet in your fucking head! Kill me if you want to!"

"You asked for it." Dante cocked the gun.

He suddenly heard gunshots coming from outside, and he frowned, wondering why none of his men had alerted him. As if on cue, one rushed into the room, panting.

"What's going on, Hero?" he demanded.

"We were taken by surprise, sir," Hero said. "Cesari Sandoval and his men... they were just too many."

"How did he find us?" Dante spat.

"Don't know." Hero shook his head.

"The police are with him?"

"Nah."

Dante faced Arya then, and with a smirk he made to pull the trigger, but he never made the mark, as a shot out of nowhere was fired at the gun in his hand, and he threw it away, turning around at the same time to look at the person, and his eyes widened. It was his supposed son, Cesari Sandoval.

"Cesar." Ellie and Rose breathed his name, looking excited.

Cesar didn't drop his hand as he continued to point the gun at Dante. He wanted to blow the man's brains out, but... on second thought, he wondered why the man looked so much like him.

Who is this man, and why does looking at him feel like looking into some twisted mirror of my own face twenty years from now? The resemblance nagged at him even as adrenaline screamed at him to focus on his family, on the room, on anything but the stranger's face. 

He filed the thought away. There would be time for it later — right now, all that mattered was Ellie and Rose.

"Ell? You okay?" he asked.

"Yes. I need food though," she said. "I'm starving."

"Rose... did he touch you?"

"No." She shook her head. "Mom is fine too."

"You made a mistake, mister," Cesar growled at him. "You fuck with my family, and I'll fuck with you. I just want to know one thing."

"Ask away." Dante spread his hands. He was not armed, and his son was. Funny enough, he knew Cesar wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if he moved a muscle.

"Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Dante Silvestro. Unfortunately for both of us... Arya just told me... you're my son." Dante told him.

"What?" Cesar's eyes widened.

The gun in his hand suddenly felt heavier than it had a second ago. This has to be a joke. Some sick, desperate lie meant to buy him a few more seconds of breath. 

But Arya wasn't the type to hand out lies that cost her this much to say — and the look on her face, drawn and hollow, told him this wasn't a bargaining chip. 

It was something she'd been carrying long before today. Cesar's jaw tightened. Whatever this was, it would have to wait — right now he had a family to get out of this room.

~Flashback~
"Dad! I know where they are!" Tristan barged into Cesar's home office with a big smile on his face.

Cesar looked up from his laptop with bleary eyes to his son. He rubbed his eyes and sighed.
Two days. Two days of nothing — no leads, no calls, no proof of life — and now his son was standing in the doorway grinning like he'd just won something. 

Cesar didn't dare let himself hope yet.

"What is it, son?" he asked.

"I know where they are." Tristan beamed.

"How do you know this? Wait, don't answer that." He shook his head.

Tristan chuckled and sat down on the chair in front of Cesar.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"In an abandoned building in Bordertown." Tristan replied.

"Bordertown? The only abandoned building there belonged to Edward Brown. It was a candy factory." Cesar frowned.

"That's where they are. I saw a man holding Arya at gunpoint." Tristan said.

Something cold settled in Cesar's chest. A gun. On Arya. On Ellie, wherever she was in that building. Every second he spent asking questions was a second his wife and unborn child didn't have to spare.

Cesar immediately took his phone and dialed David, informed him of Tristan's revelation, then ordered him to get his bodyguards ready. They were going to Bordertown to save his wife. No police involved.

"You're not calling the police?" Tristan looked shocked.

"Yes, Tristan." He turned off his laptop and closed it. "I'm very capable of saving my wife." The police would waste too much time negotiating with the man, and he wasn't the patient kind.

Negotiations. Protocols. Waiting for a warrant while some stranger held a gun on Ellie. No. He'd built an empire out of refusing to wait for other people's timelines, and he wasn't about to start now, not with her life on the line.

"But... Can you handle a gun?" Tristan looked skeptical.

Cesar stared at his son in disbelief. "Of course I can handle a gun." He frowned. "I used to be an actor, remember?"

"That's different." Tristan said. "This is real life."

The boy wasn't wrong. A film set had blanks and stunt coordinators and a director yelling cut before anyone got hurt. This was nothing like that. But there was no room left in him for fear — only the singular, burning need to get to Ellie before it was too late.

"Don't worry about me, kid. Take care of yourself and your sister, okay?"

"Yes." He nodded.

"Good boy." Cesar kissed his forehead and rushed out of his office.

Soon Cesar got into his car, and his bodyguards did the same, and they drove out of the compound. They had stored weapons in the trunk of the cars, and those men, whoever they were, had no chance. Cesar hoped that Ellie was still alive and not hurt. He wouldn't know what to do if he lost her.

Not her. Not the baby. Not after everything they'd already survived to get to this point. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles ached, forcing himself to breathe, to think, to stay sharp enough to be useful when it mattered.

They got to Bordertown less than two hours later and parked the car a few blocks away, then they all got out of the cars and took out the guns. David insisted that Cesar put on a bulletproof vest, and he had no choice but to do so.

Cesar grouped them in fours and told them where to go, and they all dispersed. Then he, David, Ross, and Stefan took the front entrance. Cesar could say it was too easy taking down the kidnapper's men — after all, it had been a surprise, and they were no match for Cesar's bodyguards. But one was able to escape being shot, and Cesar followed him.

He got to the room where they'd been kept and heard Arya pleading with someone not to kill her. His heart raced in his chest, and without thinking, he barged into the room and immediately shot at the gun in the man's hand, then the one that had escaped.

Ellie. Rose. Alive. Both of them are alive. The relief hit him almost as hard as the adrenaline had — but there was no time to feel it yet, not with a stranger standing in the middle of the room wearing a face that looked unsettlingly, impossibly like his own.
~flashback ends~