Angelo didn’t look away from the ceiling even when he heard his door open. Without looking, he already knew who was there. Silvia often poked her head in to check in on him, even though all he ever did was stay in bed.
"Angelo? Do you want to come with me to Asher’s club?" Silvia asked hopefully, her hair full of wild curls.
Angelo noticed that Silvia was home more often these days, but he refused to address it, pretending not to notice. "Not really," Came his lackluster response.
He reluctantly looked at Silvia, who still waited expectantly at the door, she looked worried, but not enough to prompt Angelo to rise to his feet.
"If you say so," Silvia reluctantly gave in, "Do you want pastries?"
Now that held some of Angelo’s attention, he partially sat up, some light coming into his eyes, which were dark in the dim room. "Yes, please."
Silvia smiled to herself as she turned away, Angelo had been moping in his room ever since he realized that the few days he was supposed to spend with her didn’t have any end in sight. She was honestly impressed that he had yet to mention Nikolai even once.
Thinking about Nikolai made her expression grim. There was a lot of unrest in the Mafia King’s turf currently, and even though she was still gathering information about it, all roads led to the High Council.
Silvia knew that Luis Caddel would be a tough nut to crack, but she didn’t think that he had this much authority in the High Council. Luis Caddel himself had gone AWOL, it was almost like he had long figured out what Nikolai was up to and was just biding his time until he had weakened the other’s defenses.
Silvia had more or less closed down ’Frequency’ for the meantime, things were going to get worse before it got better, and she wanted to protect Angelo, so closing down was the only way to take some heat off them.
She didn’t tell Angelo that Frequency was taking a break, she still wanted to keep the illusion that everything was alright, even though the illusion was fraying at the edges. She hadn’t been able to protect him from much, even after she found him, this was very important to her.
The reason she was heading to Asher’s club was to discuss more of this with the Mafia King. It was the weekend, so she had hoped to get Angelo out of the room, it was getting colder, but some fresh air would still be good for him.
Back in his room, Angelo laid back down and stared at the ceiling once more, he wasn’t sad or disappointed that Nikolai had been completely silent after sending him here, instead, all he could feel was an ever-growing panic.
It took a lot not to ask Silvia if she had heard anything from Nikolai, because he knew that if the Mafia King wanted to reach out to him, he would. And it took even more out of him to try to pry some information about what was going on in Nikolai’s turf.
He rolled over to his side, he had refused to leave the house in days, and for the past two days had barely left his room, but it didn’t deter Silvia from buying him things, like the dark red oversized sweater he had on.
Angelo tried to convince himself that Nikolai was just busy and that the Mafia King hadn’t gotten rid of him, refusing to accept otherwise.
Nikolai sat at the edge of a couch with a cigar between his teeth as he dug out shrapnel from his arm. Blood ran down and pooled by his elbow, staining the cotton pad he placed under his arm for that very reason.
His gaze drifted down to his wrist, where he could still see the visible bite mark on the skin there. It had healed, the indentations fading with every day that passed.
He was unwittingly reminded of what Angelo would have done if he were here, he would have insisted that he see a doctor... Nikolai stemmed the bleeding after he got all the twisted metal out of his arm, wrapping it up tight with gauze.
He leaned back and blew out a cloud of smoke, the darkness of his pupils bleeding into his dark blue irises. His patience was running incredibly thin - it was almost like Luis Caddel was showing off with all the trouble he had been stirring up on his turf.
He couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what fire power the dog was packing, he just wanted to have a word or two with him but Luis Caddel kept hiding behind smoke and mirrors.
At any other time, Nikolai would have had a field day with all the moles that kept popping up, sabotaging handoffs, warehouses, and supplies, but he didn’t have the time for that right then.
Angelo’s scent was getting fainter in his memories, and he couldn’t remember the exact shade of the assassin’s eyes, it was driving him up the wall.
He glanced at his phone, which broke the rare silence with a shrill ringing. Having Angelo right next to him would fix most of his problems, but his promise to Silvia aside, he also didn’t want Angelo anywhere near his bastard of a father, and it was also too dangerous.
He picked up the phone and swept to his feet, grabbing his ruined trench coat as he did. He would have to change because his current clothes were torn and stained with blood, and it was barely afternoon.
Nikolai walked through the unfamiliar house, he had left his penthouse shortly after Angelo left, even though he would rather not, there was so much of Angelo in the large apartment that he had to leave behind because he hadn’t wanted the families living in the apartment complex to become collateral damage as a result of him.
The new house he was temporarily living in was just as big as the penthouse had been, and he was starting to regret it. It was all empty hallways and quiet rooms, there was no dangerous assassin to subtly fill up the space.