Chapter 53 Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Irina's POV
I stood there in shock, staring at Roberto.
"She has to leave." Roberto repeated coldly.
Marina's face crumpled, the delicate lines around her eyes deepened with despair. "You are not being serious."
"I am very serious," Roberto said, gripping the back of a kitchen chair until his knuckles turned white. "Did you not hear what I said? Her being here is too risky, she is involved with the Volkov twins, and that is dangerous for all of us. Now our only son is missing."
The last sentence broke my heart. Carlo was missing and I was the reason.
"But where will she go?" Marina asked desperately, her hands fluttering in the air as if searching for an answer. "She is pregnant, she has nowhere else to go."
"That is not our problem," Roberto said harshly. "Our problem is finding our son, and having her here might make that harder."
Marina looked at me with tears pooling in her eyes. "I am so sorry, Irina, he does not mean it, he is just scared."
"I understand," I said quietly, tears streaming down my face. "I should pack my things and leave."
I turned to go upstairs but Marina grabbed my arm.
"No," she said firmly, her voice gaining a steel I had never heard before. "You are not leaving, not yet. We have to at least look for Carlo first, we have to find him before you go."
"Marina," Roberto started to protest, but the fire in her eyes stopped him.
"No!" Marina shouted at him, the sound echoing in the tiled kitchen. "I will not let you throw a pregnant woman out on the street while our son is missing! We will find Carlo first, then we will discuss what happens next!"
Roberto looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he just gave a sharp nod. "Fine, but after we find Carlo, she leaves."
Marina hugged me tightly, the scent of flour and vanilla from her apron enveloped me. "I am so sorry," she whispered into my hair. "I am so sorry for all of this."
"It is not your fault," I said, my voice weak. "None of this is your fault."
Roberto walked stiffly to the old wall phone. "I need to call Mikhail, he needs to know what happened."
He dialed the number and waited. I could hear it ringing.
Finally, someone answered. "Mikhail, it is Roberto, we have a problem."
I could not hear what Mikhail was saying but Roberto's face became more relaxed.
"Carlo is missing," Roberto explained. "He never came home from school, the police are searching but I think this is connected to... to her. The pregnant lady you brought here."
My heart sank. I have become the pregnant lady now. Not Irina.
Mikhail seemed to be talking for a long time because Roberto was silent, listening intently, his eyes fixed on the floor . His expression grew more relaxed.
"You promise?" Roberto asked finally. "You promise you will get him back?"
Roberto nodded, a mechanical up-and-down motion. "Alright, thank you. But please hurry. I need to have my son back."
He hung up the phone with a soft click and looked at us, his gaze avoiding mine. "Mikhail says we should not worry, they will get Carlo back. He said they will not hurt an innocent boy."
Marina looked hopeful, a fragile light in her eyes. "Did he say when? Did he say how long it would take?"
"No," Roberto admitted, running a hand through his graying hair. "But he sounded confident. I believe him."
I wanted to believe him too, to cling to that thread of confidence, but a cold, sharp fear was eating at me from the inside.
"Roberto," I said quietly, my voice barely audible. "I need to tell you something."
"What?" Roberto asked, his tone weary.
"Mikhail is not just helping us out of kindness," I said, choosing my words carefully. "He has his own agenda, he might use Carlo as leverage or..."
"I know," Roberto interrupted, his voice suddenly old and tired. "I know exactly who Mikhail is and what he is capable of."
"You do?" I asked, surprised.
Roberto sighed heavily. He sank into a chair. "Mikhail is my younger brother."
My jaw dropped, I could not believe what I was hearing.
But I looked at Marina’s face. Her expression was calm, and resigned. She was aware. She had always known who her husband was.
"But I left that life behind," Roberto explained, staring at his work-roughened hands. "I have mafia blood too, Irina, my father was a powerful man, but I did not want that life. I wanted a quiet life."
He looked at Marina with a love in his eyes so profound it hurt to witness. "I fell in love with Marina, she was a maid in my father's house, and my father was against us. He said she was beneath me."
"So we ran away," Marina finished quietly, reaching over to take his hand. "We left everything behind and started over here. This bakery, this quiet life."
"Mikhail helped us," Roberto continued, his thumb rubbing circles on Marina's skin. "He gave us money to start the bakery, he made sure no one came looking for us. He was the only one who understood."
"And now he is using that to control you," I said, the truth feeling like a betrayal as I spoke it.
"No," Roberto said, but it lacked conviction. "Mikhail is not like that, he genuinely wants to help, but he also expects loyalty in return. It is the currency of our family."
"This could be any random rival family," Marina said suddenly, a desperate hope coloring her words. "It might not even be connected to Irina, it could just be some family trying to throw tantrums, trying to scare us."
But I did not believe that, I knew in my heart that this was connected to me.
The day passed slowly, and painfully, each minute stretched thin with anxiety. Police came and asked their careful, useless questions. They searched the area with dogs, and they put out alerts.
But there was no sign of Carlo, no clues, nothing but a terrifying, absolute silence.
Marina was a mess. She could not stop crying. Silent tears tracked endlessly down her face. She would pick up Carlo’s school jacket from the hook by the door, hold it to her face, and then put it back with trembling hands. She could not eat.
Roberto tried to stay strong, pacing the small living room like a caged animal, making pots of strong coffee no one drank. But I could see he was breaking inside, his solid frame seemed to shrink with every passing hour.
I helped where I could. I made phone calls that led nowhere. I talked to neighbors who shook their heads with sympathetic, fearful eyes, but it all felt useless, a pathetic.
Evening came, then night followed swallowing the house whole, and there was still no news.
No one ate dinner. The pasta Marina had mechanically cooked just sat on the table getting cold.
We all sat in the living room, shrouded in dim lamplight, waiting, hoping, and praying to gods we weren't sure were listening. The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Each passing second felt like an hour.
Midnight came and went. Everywhere was silent.
Then finally, around one in the morning, the house telephone rang, making a deafening shriek in the silence.
We all jumped. Roberto ran to answer it, fumbling the receiver.
"Hello?" He said desperately, his voice cracking. "Carlo? Is that you?"
But it was not Carlo's voice that answered. It was something worse.
"Hello," a distorted voice said. It was mechanical and cold, stripped of all humanity. "I believe you are missing something.”
We froze.