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It had been a month since the kids went missing.

Twenty nine days to be exact.

If someone asked River and Mateo, they would count down to the seconds since their precious children went missing.

"Tesoro, please go home. You are still not fine." Mateo bent down and hugged River from her behind, placing a kiss on her jaw and taking a whiff of her scent which seems to calm him down every single time.

"The house feels so empty, Mateo." She breathed out, diligently watched the CCTV footage for any clue - the smallest of a clue would do - anything that might point to where the children were. "I can't breathe in there without them."

"Nothing." Michelia sat back in her chair. "Absolutely nothing." She breathed out angrily and looked up at her husband and then at Mateo. "What the fuck do you pay all these people for?" She asked angrily as she picked up Leonardo's hip flask and threw it against one of the screens, shattering the display.

"Lia, calm down!" Leonardo got up from his seat and walked over to her, hugging her shaking form. It had been extremely overwhelming for Michelia as well. She was a mother after all, and to think that the children of their family were kidnapped from right under their nose was extremely scary to her.

And it had been a month, with no news, ransom... body... nothing. What did the kidnappers want?

"How can I calm down?" Michelia clutched her hair. "They must be so scared!"

"I know." Leonardo hummed.

A sob left River's lips and Mateo hugged her. "Shhhh.... They are going to be fine. You know how brave our bambini are. I wouldn't be too surprised if Ki made the kidnappers question their existence with her smart mouth." River smiled as she pursed her lips, trying to keep in her sobs. Mateo was right about their Kiara alright. She was shy and didn't speak much but every time she opened her mouth, her words would be coated with sass.

"And Luke must be showing them the real meaning of a death glare." She whispered.

"Yeah." Mateo chuckled.

River's phone rang.

The couple looked over at the device to see that it was none other than the younger brother of the Boss of the Russian Mafia, Dmitri Petrov.

"Hope he has some good news." Mateo sighed. He did not really like Dmitri. Especially because of how close he was to River in such a short time.

In River's words, he helped her find their children but Mateo could argue that he had already found them anyway so even if Dmitri had not helped, it wouldn't have made much difference.

And in Dmitri's words, River had saved his life. And again, Mateo could argue that she was a surgeon and he was at the hospital so even if she had not been there, someone else would have saved his life.

But of course, his arguments would fall on deaf ears because Dmitri and River had a pretty decent friendship. So Dmitri had offered all the help that he could provide when he found out that the kids had been kidnapped.

"Dmitri.." River sighed as she took the call.

"So, I took a diversion from the normal direction of investigation-"

"Please get to the point, Dmitri." River said, tired. She was exhausted from all the stress. She just wanted her kids back.

"Okay okay, Detective Ian Sanders, the sketchy guy who's been tailing you guys?" Dmitri asked.

"What about him?" River sat up straight. They had thought of him as one of the prime suspects but could not find anything against him. He was just going about solving cases. And his crime solving rate was also pretty high.

"I may or may not have approached him with this." He sang.

"What?" River furrowed her eye brows. "Dmitri, what did we talk about not getting the stupid police involved?"

"He did what?" Leonardo bellowed.

"Technically, I hired him as a private investigator. He took leave from his job for this." Dmitri quickly said. "Besides, he knows nothing about the Mafia."

"Or so you say." River sighed and looked up at Mateo. "Dmitri went and hired Detective Ian Sanders as a PI to find the kids."

"Is he crazy?" Michelia asked. "Should I go kick him? What does he think we are all doing? Sitting back and waiting for a miracle?"

"HE MADE SOME HEAD WAY!" Dmitri yelled when he realized that the entire Italian clan were going off tangent and probably planning to take his head. "And he wants to meet up with me to talk about it so I was thinking if you wanted to come?"

River paused, taking deep slow breaths through her mouth when she heard what Dmitri just said.

There was news? There was some sort of news?

Anything would do.

Anything would be fine as long as she could somehow get to her children.

"Of course I am coming. Mateo's coming too."

"Okay, I will text you the time and place. Meet you there." He said.

"Okay." River breathed out and hung up the phone, feeling some kind of hope in weeks.

"Detective Sanders have something." She stood up from her seat and hugged Mateo, who didn't miss a beat before hugging her back. "We will have to go meet him."

"I hope we find them soon." Michelia hugged Leonardo.

"We will." Leonardo said, looking over at Mateo and nodding at him.

"We will." Mateo echoed.

Of course they would. They were going to bring their kids home and make whoever kidnapped them and attacked them pay.

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"You know sex is not the answer to this, right?" Adam sighed, holding Alessia by the shoulders and pushing her back a little so that he could get a look of her face.

Alessia was acting pretty irrationally.

Ever since the day of the kidnapping, the guilt just kept eating away at her to the point that she was not able to think straight.

One would think that an assassin like Alessia would be immune to such emotions. But the ones in question were her nephew and niece, who were only five years old, and the woman just could not take it.

"I have no idea what you are talking about." She said, her words slurring a little.

Adam sighed again - and she was drunk.

"Come on Sia, let's go to the range and blast some heads." He said, dragging her with him. "You will feel much better after that."

"I don't think anything less than the head of the assholes who kidnapped my babies will be able to make me feel better." She slurred in Italian.

"Um... Care to translate for the poor secret boyfriend?" Adam asked, cringing at the fact that he had just addressed himself as the 'secret boyfriend'. He just hoped that Alessia didn't remember any of it after she revived and all of this bullshit was over.

"I SAID THAT I DON'T FUCKING THINK THAT ANYTHING LESS THAN THE FUCKING HEADS OF THE FUCKING ASSHOLES WHO KIDNAPPED MY DARLING LITTLE BABIES WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!" She yelled in his ears, making him flinch and want to pull away, but the woman had his head in a kind of headlock and so he had to bear with the torture.

"God, you are a handful!" Adam exclaimed.

"Should have thought about that before getting inside my pants." She groaned, clutching her head as they reached the basement of the house, which Adam had converted into a shooting range because why not?

"Should I remind you that you were the one who threw yourself at me?" Adam rolled his eyes as they reached one of the booths. "And threatened to castrate me if I didn't play along?"

Alessia narrowed her eyes at him and then let out a huff before turning to the wall onto which a hundred varieties of guns. She went for a sniper rifle, didn't care which model - Alessia could do with any gun. She was one of the best shots in the Mafia, if not the best shot in the Mafia. And it was something that she was extremely proud of. She had completely turned her life around. From a victim of domestic violence and rape, she had turned into an assassin.

But she still hadn't killed off the last of her rapist, her abuser, her husband.

The truth was that, she had thought that her father or brothers would do that for her.

Take revenge for what she had gone through.

And she was waiting to this day, after years.

But they hadn't done anything. Yes, they got mad and pointed guns at Antonio but they never pulled the trigger. Why? Because he was a useful piece of shit. And the Mafia business mattered more than her, right? And of course there was her grandmother, who still treated that vermin like some golden human.

Alessia looked over at Adam, who was leaning against the booth with his hands folded, his head tilted upward as he thought of something - probably about what else they could probably do to find the children.

A smirk formed on her face.

Maybe it was time she stopped waiting for her useless father and brothers to do the deed for her.

She was going to kill Antonio as soon as the babies were found.

How else was she going to marry this useless, dumb piece of shit?

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"Mateo!" Dmitri exclaimed as soon as he saw the Capo and then his eyes fell on River. "And Doctor!"

"Fuck off.." Mateo grunted and entered the restaurant while River took Dmitri's outstretched hand which Mateo had intentionally ignored.

"Honestly Dmitri, we are both too tired for this." River sighed as they entered the restaurant.

"I know I know." Dmitri sighed. "I was just trying to brighten up the mood, which I know again, will probably only be brightened up when we find pretty little Kiara and that handsome, Mateo's clone, Lucas."

Dmitri was simply testing out their names, because they sound too good rolling out of his tongue, but it made tears well up in River's eyes.

"Hey, we will find them." Dmitri gave her a side hug before all of them took their seats in the private booth that Dmitri had reserved for them.

"Where is he?" Mateo asked impatiently.

"He has reached the parking." Dmitri said, "He will be here in a moment."

"I hate that man." Mateo growled under his breath.

"You hate this man too." River pointed at Dmitri who pouted sadly while Mateo gave him a flat look.

"Don't worry Mateo." Dmitri chuckled, taking up the menu. "I will be out of your hair as soon as the kids are found and we deal with whoever killed my sister and tried to start this scuffle between our families."

"Can't wait." Mateo said.

River rolled her eyes. Never in her life could she ever hope Mateo to get along with anyone from the Russian Mafia.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting." Said the new voice. The three turned to him, and Detective Ian Sanders smiled down at them.

River felt chills run up her spine. Her hunch was never wrong. This man was trouble. All she wanted to know was that if he was trouble in ways which made her wish that he was dead.

He quickly sat down and opened his laptop.

"So, I have been working on the case very diligently, especially with two children involved." He said as he typed away in his laptop. "Though I wish you would tell me why you didn't get the cops involved."

"Because they are useless." Mateo said without missing a beat.

"Because they should use their resources in helping people who don't have the means to help themselves. We happen to have our own resources." River said, giving Mateo the eye.

Dmitri and Ian were probably two of Mateo's least liked set of people. And he was all the more mad at Dmitri for involving Ian in this, but he could not complain as, as of now, Ian was the only one who had made some headway.

"This guy!" Ian turned his laptop around so that it was facing the other three. "Have any idea who this is?"

River shrugged. She had never seen the burly looking man.

"I remember him from somewhere." Mateo stroked his beard, which had grown unruly and wild due to the lack of grooming.

"He was Mona's .... assistant." Dmitri said, his eyes serious and wide for once. "Matthew Morris."

Mateo and River looked at each other, both of them realizing who this was.

"But he is dead." Dmitri said.

"How did he die?" Ian asked, his gaze deliberate.

"I have no idea." Dmitri lied conveniently. "He died when I was in Moscow. Mona called me to let me know."

"Hm... Interesting. Because this unknown enemy is out for vengeance." Ian sat back, tapping his fingers together. "And he is after both of your families."

"What do you mean?" River asked.

"That's what I would like to know." Ian chuckled. "You-" He pointed at River. "-don't even know the dude in the picture but still, the kidnapper blames you for his death."

"We don't pay you for suspense." Dmitri squared his shoulders, realizing that they were playing a dangerous game and if things went wrong, the police could get involved.

"Exactly, do you know who is behind all this?" Mateo asked, his gaze steely.

Ian shrugged as he sat up straight.

He took a breath and let it out, watching each of them as he did it.

And he dropped the bomb they didn't see coming.

"Matthew Morris' brother is out for revenge." He smiled. "William Morris."

The three looked at each other. They had no idea who this dude was.

"Or as you all might know him as, Victor."

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