Chapter 120: Someone I Know

Isabelle’s Point of View:

The next morning, I was determined to find my mother. I had been feeling so pitiful after the way Achilles had been treating me. Not only him, I was feeling a hint of resentment from a lot of people in the Mafia. I didn’t know if it was just my mind playing tricks on me, or if they knew what happened and hated me as much as Achilles and just couldn’t show it out of respect.

However, all this failed to affect Lucy. If anything, she helped me go through everything. I felt like she understood the uncertainty that came along with being with a man of the Mafia, and the trust issues we had to harbour for our own mental health.

But as she said, I needed my mother if I wanted to remain sane in this suffocating place. And that’s what I planned to do. When no one cares for you, you learn to do things for yourself. A part of me worried where she was anyway—she told me we’d talk about it later and never contacted me again.

I stepped down from my room into the main room. As expected, two IT guys were working on the laptop, monitoring some… IT shit. I guess they were maintaining some connection with the other Mafia members and helping them with the war in some way.

I noticed that mostly everyone had already left, along with Robert. It was obvious that Achilles must have left too, as he was the leader so he probably would leave as soon as he could.

Walking over to one of the two of them, I grabbed his attention.

“Do you need anything, Mrs. Roman?” he asked with a small smile as he looked at me, steering his eyes away from the screen. I noticed the redness in his eyes—they both must’ve been working all night and even before that.

“Uh, yes,” I said, shrugging away the thoughts. “Would you be able to make some time to look for, um, my mother’s location? I don’t know where she is, and I—I wanted to find her. I can share her details and pictures with you.”

He nodded. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Roman. Please share whatever is important to this number.”

He showed me a phone number on the phone screen and I quickly saved it on my phone. “Okay.” I said and he switched back to the screen with his IT shit again.

I sent him whatever I thought was important, including her full name and the places where she might be, including the address she used to live at with several pictures of her.

Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and I turned around, confused. I was shocked to see Achilles walking up to us. My heart raced at his view, but I knew he would still ignore me so I tried not to show the excitement my heart relaid.

“What’s going on here?” I heard him say in a monotone voice—as he stood beside me, and I turned to face him but his eyes were fixed on the guy in front of the screen.

“He’s asking you,” I whispered slowly to the guy, thinking he didn’t notice that Achilles would most definitely never talk to me again.

He turned around immediately. “Oh, b–boss, Mrs. Roman just asked me to see if I could find her mother. I was just looking through the security cameras and running the facial recognition software.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Not yet, boss. Half of the—” His words were cut off by the beep of the computer. We all looked at the screen and the word ‘MATCH’ in old red letters was written over the screen. “Found her, boss.” He replied, clicking some buttons and a map popped up on the screen.

“So you’re gonna go alone?” I heard him and slightly confused, I looked at him again. Was he talking to me?

His face was expressionless as he stared back at me, probably waiting for me to reply. I wanted to say something like ‘oh so you’re finally seeing me’, but I decided against it because it sounded pathetic.

“Yes. It’s not as if I could ask anyone for help.” I taunted him as I looked down. I was scared to look for mom on my own because she could still be with my father, and I couldn’t face that man without trembling. Just the thought of ever seeing him again made me whimper and my breath uneven. But I couldn’t ask him for help, and that was the truth.

I looked up to see what happened, since he didn’t reply for a moment. Even in all the emotion-less-ness, his eyes exhibited anger in the slightest undertone.

“Send the location to me, Romero. You can get back to your work.” His eyes never left mine as he instructed the man, probably named Romero.

“Y-yes, boss,” His voice came in, slightly scared by the sudden dark tone in Achilles’ voice. I was still unfazed by him, highly frustrated at the way he was behaving.

He grabbed my forearm and practically dragged me to a room on the same floor and closed the door behind us.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my arm slightly paining by his strong grip. He looked at me, the anger taking over his expressions.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, and chuckled—a dark aura surrounding his every step. “You want some fucking attention? You think this is how you get it?”

“It certainly worked!” I shouted at him. It was as if he was a different person, the way he was talking.

“You want to go after mom on your own?” he asked, strengthening his grip around my arm more. I winced slightly but made sure not to look weak. He pushed me against the wall and I collided with the hard wall.

“Yes,” I whispered, determined to not give in.

“And you don’t care if she is with your father?” he asked further, for some reason tightening his hand even more and I gasped, tears forming in my eyes at the pain. He looked at his hand and retracted it immediately, as if he didn’t notice he was hurting me.

“I–I don’t,” I gathered myself and said after taking a deep breath. “At this point of life, I want to be with someone who I can recognise and it’s just my mother. Maybe.”

He stepped away from me, and I went away from the wall.

“I will send two extra men when I send my men back next week,” He said, looking away. “They will come to you and you can go with them to the location.”

“What if she’s left till then?” I asked.

“She won’t. Or ask Romero to look for her again. I need to leave now.” He started going but stopped.

I raised my eyebrow slightly, not knowing why.

He turned around and came over to me, taking my hand in his’. He pulled over my sleeves and noticed a very red visible print of his hand. His expressions softened as he noticed the hurt he had inflicted, probably without knowing.

“Apply some medicine on this. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He said and before I could say anything, he started to go again. Even in his ‘apology’, he sounded almost as indifferent as before.

“Wait, Achilles!” I said and his footsteps stopped. I knew war took a toll on people. I also knew that he still cared about me. “I know you—you are angry at me, and—and you said you didn’t love me, but I love you. Please stay safe.”

He took a moment before walking out.