Chapter 174
It's him.
It's her Vitale.
He's really here.
Isabella wanted to shout his name, but she couldn't make a sound.
Vitale stood in the clearing among the trees, his entire body tense, as if he could explode at any moment.
His eyes were bloodshot, covered with web-like red veins, his eye sockets sunken, cheekbones sharp, his face hardened by extreme exhaustion and anxiety that had burned him over and over.
Three days and nights of relentless tracking without sleep had nearly drained all his strength and energy.
Vitale was only holding on with the help of powerful stimulants and an almost obsessive belief.
He didn't dare close his eyes, not even for a second.
Because the moment his eyelids shut, those terrifying, vivid nightmares would seize him instantly.
Isabella's pale, horrified face, the bloodstains on her body, the dirty hands of a strange man, her severed golden hair, her silent tears...
Every image was like a dull knife, repeatedly slicing into Vitale's already bleeding heart.
He had to find her, right now, this very moment.
This time, the lead was cruel but effective.
Credit had to go to Amboni.
After Vitale's furious phone call, Amboni didn't dare waste a second. He immediately gathered his best men and launched a lightning-fast raid on the Harrison family's estate in the northern suburbs.
It wasn't smooth sailing. The Harrison family, after all, was an old-school mafia with their own armed forces. There was a short but intense firefight.
In the end, at the cost of a few injuries, Amboni managed to take Bob's most beloved mistress and his two young children.
When Bob, shaken and rattled, fled to another safe house in downtown Arcturus, he barely had time to catch his breath before receiving a "friendly" video call from Amboni.
On the screen, his beloved woman and children were trembling in fear, with cold gun barrels pressed against the back of their heads.
Amboni's voice came through, icy and to the point, offering only one choice.
Reveal Barton and Isabella's whereabouts, and your family lives.
Refuse, or play tricks, and prepare to collect their bodies.
Under the threat to his family's lives, Bob's weak anti-mafia beliefs and fragile alliance with Barton crumbled instantly.
Almost in tears, he gave up the coordinates of an abandoned observation station on a desolate coastal cliff, along with the general layout and Barton's possible backup escape routes.
As soon as Vitale got the intel, he didn't stop for a moment. He led his men on a hundreds-of-miles overnight drive, like a drawn sword piercing straight into this barren land.
But they were still one step too late.
When they stormed the building, all that remained were signs of a fight and a hasty retreat, along with the faint lingering scent of Isabella in the air.
Barton had slipped away again.
But Vitale wasn't the kind of man to let anger cloud his judgment.
Years of life-and-death struggles and power games had honed his instincts like a beast and his patience like a hunter.
He quickly deduced that the enemy's rushed escape likely meant they split up, possibly using a decoy group to draw his attention while the team holding Isabella fled via another route.
Vitale didn't hesitate. He split his forces.
He sent Efren with a team of skilled men to chase Barton's main group along the most obvious trail.
Meanwhile, he took Victor and a dozen of his most trusted, capable men down a less obvious path—one that his gut told him was more likely to lead to his true target.
They ventured deep into the sparse woodland near the cliff, where the terrain was rough and complicated.
Now, Vitale stood by a patch of trampled, messy grass, his gaze locked on a small smear of dark red blood, not yet fully dried, staining the blades of grass and the dirt.
That blood was like a red-hot iron branding his eyes, instantly snapping the already taut string in his mind.
"Isabella," a low, almost whimpering growl escaped Vitale's throat. His heart felt like it was being crushed by an invisible hand, the pain so intense he could barely breathe.
He instinctively believed the blood belonged to Isabella.
She was hurt!
Those bastards had harmed her again!
A wave of panic and rage shattered the last shred of calm he'd been forcing himself to maintain.
Vitale spun around and slammed his fist into a nearby tree trunk as thick as a bowl.
There was a dull thud. The bark splintered, wood chips flew everywhere.
His knuckles split open instantly, blood trickling down his fingers, but he didn't feel it, as if the physical pain could somehow ease the torment in his heart.
"Vitale! Calm down!" Victor, startled, rushed forward and grabbed his arm, speaking urgently in a low voice, "This blood might not be Isabella's! It could be one of theirs, or even an animal's! Don't scare yourself like this!"
"If it's not hers, then whose is it?" Vitale yanked his arm free from Victor, his bloodshot eyes glaring at him, his voice hoarse and wild, like a wounded, trapped beast, "She's my Isabella! This is her blood! I can feel it! She's here! She's hurt! She's scared!"
His logic was muddled by extreme worry and exhaustion, but the raw pain and desperation radiating from him made everyone around feel uneasy.
No one dared say another word at that moment.
In the few seconds that Vitale and Victor argued over the bloodstain, their attention briefly diverted, deep in the nearby thick, waist-high grass, Eva was covering Isabella's mouth, pressing a gun hard against her lower back. The two of them crouched low, moving like stalking cats, using the grass as cover, inching slowly and carefully deeper into the woods.
Isabella's mouth was clamped shut by Eva's cold hand, only able to let out faint whimpers like a kitten in distress.
Her hands still ached, but the pain in her heart was worse.
Through the gaps in the swaying grass, she could see Vitale not far away.
So close.
He was right there.
He looked so tired, so pained, so angry—all for her.
Isabella wanted to call out to him, to run to him, to throw herself into Vitale's arms, to tell him she was okay, to touch his weary face...
Countless words and emotions clogged her throat, nearly suffocating her.
But the cold, hard gun barrel pressed against her back felt like a snake's tongue, holding her in place.
Isabella could feel the pressure of Eva's finger on the trigger.
She had no doubt that if she dared to struggle or make any loud noise, that bullet would pierce through her without hesitation, snuffing out the flicker of hope she'd just regained.
She didn't want to die.
Especially not when Vitale was so close.
She couldn't die.
She had to live to return to his side.
Immense hope and crippling fear battled fiercely in Isabella's heart. Tears streamed down her face, soaking Eva's hand over her mouth, mixing with dirt and grass, smearing across her cheeks.
She could only watch helplessly as Vitale's figure grew blurrier and farther away in her vision, dragged by Eva through the moving grass.
Despair, like icy seawater, engulfed her once more.
Were they really going to pass each other by like this?
Just as Isabella's heart sank to its lowest point, and Eva thought they were about to slip out of sight, Vitale suddenly stopped arguing with Victor. As if sensing something, he whipped his head toward the patch of grass where they were hiding.
His bloodshot, gray-blue eyes, burning with a hellish fire, sharp as a hawk's, pierced through the swaying grass and dim light, seemingly locking onto the faint, unnatural movement and the barely audible whimper carried by the wind.
In the next instant, Vitale moved!
Like a black panther spotting its prey, his long legs surged forward, closing the distance to the grass in a few strides, blocking their path.
His movements were swift and silent, carrying an undeniable aura of dominance.
A single syllable, not loud, even a bit hoarse, exploded like thunder in Eva and Isabella's ears, laced with chilling, deadly intent, cutting through the barrier of grass:
"Let go of my Isabella."
Vitale stood firm, his posture tall like a mountain. Despite his exhaustion, the commanding presence of a man who had long held power over life and death radiated from him.
Staring at the faint outline of a figure in the grass, he spoke slowly, each word clear and heavy as a thousand pounds, "Or I'll blow your head off."
The movement in the grass stopped abruptly.