Chapter 75
Layla
The war between the reinforced families of the Marcello/Orlov alliance and the Moretti/Falcone cesspit had turned the city into a chessboard of blood, violence, and fear.
What had once been a tentative peace of glowering threats had erupted into full-blown battles. Gunshots ricocheted through the nights, and even the police had stopped trying to intervene.
Territories changed hands like captured pawns. What had been Marcello land for years suddenly belonged to Moretti—only to be reclaimed in a bloody skirmish.
Aldo and Dmiti worked with brutal efficiency—dismantling drug routes, sabotaging supply lines, taking down enemy soldiers with a steatlh-like guerilla efficiency.
But it wasn’t enough.
For all that we won, we lost, too. For all that we gained, we were forced into retreat. For all that we fought to keep the city from falling to ruin, our own home had been laid to waste by Marco’s relentless attacks.
One night, just after I’d tucked Eli into his new bet at the Orlov estate, I headed towards Aldo’s borrowed office—only to find that Dmitri had beat me here. His voice rang through the hall of the villa.
“They’ve taken the eastern docks.” Dmitri slammed a map down on Aldo’s desk. Tension etched deep lines into his sharp features, and dirt and ash streaked his usually immaculate suit. “Marco hit it with everything he had. It’s a critical loss.”
I hovered silently in the doorway, watching as Aldo leaned over the map to study the place where Dmitri’s finger jabbed at the paper. His usual mask stayed firmly in place, rendering his expression unreadable, but his silence spoke volumes.
“Then we take it back,” he said finally, his tone cold and steady.
That, the next few weeks would demonstrate, was much easier said than done.
War escalated.
The injury toll rose.
I found myself, more often than not, in the impressively well-equipped infirmary of the Orlov villa, stitching broken men back together. The room around me was a cacophony of groans and mumbles, the occasional swear or cry of pain. It reeked of blood, but antiseptic burned my nose with such ferocity, I’d stopped smelling anything else.
I took the lead on most of the medical work, but I had a capable staff working around me, tirelessly, day and night.
“You’ll live,” I informed more than one patient per shift. Which I decidedly preferred to the alternative.
“Another knife wound, Antonio?” I sighed as I wrapped a bandage.
“How do you keep getting shot, Vlad?” I muttered as I dug out another bullet.
“Well, you’ll fight another day, Paolo.” I proclaimed, digging a needle into a wound.
Every day that Aldo, Carlo, or Dimitri fought and didn’t find their way into my clinic was a day I chalked up as a win. Just like before, just like always, I was learning to cherish the small victories. The moments.
Tomorrow was far from guaranteed for any of us.
As the war wore on, I took an extended leave of absence from the hospital—Aldo and his men needed me so much more. And that need only grew with each day that passed without an end in sight.
Out on the streets, Aldo and Dmitry’s men clashed with Moretti soldiers in bloody battle after bloody battle. Too much evidence dotted the streets—the charred remains of vehicles, buildings missing entire walls, sirens wailing ceaselessly through the night.
The one bit of light in all this dark—if it could even be considered light—was how much time Eli spent in the kitchen of the Orlov villa with his grandmother Melissa and his great-grandmother Irena.
Not only had he learned just about every traditional recipe common to an Italian kitchen, he was also learning both Italian and Russian—and showed a propensity for languages.
He threw himself into his studies, and it warmed my heart to see how he lost himself to knowledge, to learning, to gathering up every piece of the world that he could.
My heart ached to know that he acquired knowledge with such determined ferocity to block out the realities of the world.
“Are you afraid, Eli?” I asked him one night as I tucked him into bed. I’d washed the blood from my hands, but I wondered if he could still smell it, if the scent of antiseptic clung to my clothes the way it did to the insides of my mind.
I offered him a bright smile, but I wondered, too, if he could see the utter exhaustion beneath it.
“I’m not scared.” Eli leveled me with a cool blue stare, and I knew he saw and understood all the things I hoped he wouldn't. “When I’m old enough and smart enough, I will help Daddy win the war.”
And that’s how I realized all of his determined learning wasn’t an escape—but a way to make himself useful.
My heart broke that cruel, cold night.
And I decided that this war would end. Whatever that meant, whatever that took. This war would end before my son was old enough or smart enough or simply brave and determined enough to become involved.
Whatever it took, I would end this war.
“So, what’s the meaning of this furtive meeting?” Aldo asked, leaning back into his office chair. His mouth bore a teasing curve, but the dark circles beneath his eyes showed his true exhaustion.
In front of him, a large map of the city sprawled over the tabletop, marked with colored pins and tiny toy soldiers in varied colors—green for Moretti, purple for Falcone, blue for Orlov, and red for Marcello.
There were too many, spread across the city, to find a pattern.
“I, too, would like to know.” In the corner of the room, Dmitri cradled a glass of vodka, his face equally lined and tired. It had been another long day of fighting, of battles won and lost.
I leaned forward and set my palms flat on the map. “We’re here because it’s time to end this.”
Aldo’s brows arched upwards. “Is that not what we’ve been trying to do?”
“We can’t keep up this pace.” I shook my head. “Your men are stretched to the breaking point. Injuries are heavy.
“Marco and Aurora are too entrenched,” Carlo sighed from beside me. “Too well-funded. They’re bleeding us dry.”
Metaphorically and literally, I feared.
“Then let’s end it,” I said, sliding my finger up the map. “One big, bold strike. Hit them where it hurts.”
“You’re suggesting we take out Marco,” Aldo realized, studying my finger on the map.
“And how exactly do you propose we do that?” Dmitri asked, raising a skeptical brow. “It’s not like we can get close to the man.”
“You can’t.” I settled back in my chair, crossed my arms. “But I can.”
“Layla.” Aldo sat forward, concern turning his face ragged. “There’s no way in hell I’ll let you do something like that.”
“You don’t have to let me do anything, Aldo,” I replied coolly. “This is my choice. I’m a doctor. I save lives. It’s my duty.”
Aldo opened his mouth to protest, but I held up a hand before he could speak.
“In the past, my life-saving has been with a needle, sure. But if I can walk into a room and save all your men’s lives … isn’t that my duty, too?”
Aldo’s jaw flexed at the truth behind my words. True, yes, but that didn’t mean he liked them.
“If I can save our son,” I continued, throwing down my trump card, “isn’t that my duty, first and foremost?”
He had no answer to that.
