The Mafia And His Angel: Part 2 (Tainted Hearts 2)

I didn’t know how long I stayed in that position. When my eyes started to droop, I got to my knees and crawled back to my spot next to the wall.

I laid down and curled into myself, closing my eyes.

I tried to go somewhere in my mind, a place where I could escape this nightmare. But I couldn’t remember anything.

No, that was a lie.

I remembered something.

Even when I would forget my name. Even when I had forgotten everything, there was something I didn’t forget.

Blue eyes. Bluish-steel colored eyes.

A face with those blue eyes would always flash behind my closed eyes. Although the face was blurred, I always saw the eyes.

It was the only constant thing in this nightmare.

Sometimes, I would see a hint of a smile on the face. A lot of times, I tried to concentrate harder, and occasionally I could almost see the man behind the blue eyes.

When everything else was broken memories, the man with blue eyes was my savior. I called him my savior because he kept me from completely losing myself.

I didn’t know who he was, but while I had forgotten everything else, there was something stopping me from forgetting him. And those blue eyes.

My mind wouldn’t let me forget him. Whoever he was, wherever he was, he probably didn’t know it, but he was my savior.

It was strange that while I didn’t know anything, he was there. Always in my thoughts.

Who was he to me? I wondered.

With my eyes closed, I heard a voice calling out to me. The man with blue eyes was calling out to me.

I was surprised when I heard him say Angel. He was calling me Angel.

Was that my name? Angel?

No, my name was Ayla.

Confused, my head started to ache, but I still forced myself to remember.

The piano. White flowers. The forest. A river.

They were all just blurred images in my head. They flashed behind my closed lids before I had a chance to understand them.

Alessio.

The name was a whisper in my mind. I heard laughter. And the name Alessio.

Alessio. I felt it in my heart.

Sweet kisses. Gentle caresses. Loving eyes.

The memories were all broken puzzles that didn’t make sense.

But one thing for sure was that with all the shattered memories that assaulted me, the man with blue eyes was always there. In every single piece of memory, he was there.

Alessio.

Was that his name?

It felt…right. It felt like…him.

My savior finally had a name. Alessio.

With my eyes still closed, I slowly sank into another pit of darkness. Sleep took over my body as I slowly succumbed to my tiredness and pain.

And as every time I fell asleep, the man with blue eyes met me in my dreams.

Alessio.

With his name a mere whisper in my mind, I fell asleep against the cold hard floor with the shackles around my wrists and ankles.

Chapter 40

Maddie

I looked at the clock in the living room. It was 9:30 p.m. The men were still not home. I grew worried as each minute ticked by.

I hoped that tonight was the night they would bring Ayla home.

So I sat on the sofa in my nightdress with my robe around me. I waited. I prayed that by some miracle Ayla was going to appear in front of me, safe and sound.

But again, tonight that wasn’t the case.

The men walked through the doors, and I jumped to my feet, looking wildly around them for any sight of Ayla. When I saw their heads hung down, their shoulder sagged with yet another night filled with defeat, my throat closed up.

My chest tightened, and I almost fell to the ground. Despair filled me, and my cheeks were already wet with my tears.

I cried as Alessio walked past me without a word. A few minutes later when his roar of pain echoed around the house, I sobbed.

Nikolay walked away. And then Viktor. No one said a word.

Phoenix stayed at the door, his face drawn in with sorrow. That was when I noticed the blood on him. My eyes widened, and I scrambled toward him in panic.

“Phoenix!” I gasped, my arms moving over his body, looking for the wound. “What happened to you?”

My tears blurred my vision. With the thought of Ayla in pain and now Phoenix being hurt, I was slowly going crazy.

He grabbed my hand, holding it still over his chest. “Shhh…I’m okay, Maddie. It’s not my blood.”

He palmed my cheek, softly rubbing his thumb over the skin. I should have pulled away. It was wrong for him to touch me like that. It was more wrong for me to care the way I did.

But I found that I couldn’t move away.

“You’re not hurt?” I whispered, looking at his blood-covered suit.

He shook his head. “No.”

The air left my body in a loud whoosh, and I sighed in relief. But the relief was short-lived when I heard Artur’s voice behind me.