Sydney Moya

©2016

All rights reserved

Synopsis

Interpol working with a multinational taskforce of Anti-Organised crime agencies is closing in on Mario Di Michele and his ‘Ndrangheta crime family, His father, uncles and his three brothers and two sisters have been arrested or killed. He is a wanted man in North America, Europe and Latin America. There seems to be only one way to evade capture or certain death and it is by being true to his nature
Chapter Six

A large part of Anna Shevchenko's soul died as she read the news item. Her babies were dead.

She felt her life was over as she read of her family's demise. Anna had not known such pain was possible. It was as if someone had ripped out heart and crushed it underfoot, repeatedly. Anna couldn't comprehend it except that it was the worst feeling ever.

She stared at the computer screen but she no longer saw it, her mind reeling from what she had found out. Nothing entered her mind , no thoughts came except for one.

'My babies,'

Antonin found her virtually catatonic hours later. The sight of her like that roused him out of the drunken haze he lived in.

"Anna,"he murmured.

There was no response from his wife of many years. He called her again in a louder voice, worry creeping into his gruff voice.

He was frightened at what he saw, Anna just sat there, still as a rock staring blankly at her screen, her blue eyes glassy. Tears streamed down her face.

He followed her gaze and saw the story online.

Antonin sighed, so she had found out. He had known for months now. He loved Anna dearly and he knew about her past as a Mafia don's wife and the five children she had left behind. He knew her better than she knew herself and had known it would be a blow when she found out.

He had kept the news from her while trying to figure out how to tell her. It was one of the reasons for his increased drinking lately.

Antonin took her hand and helped her stand up at which point Anna began to bawl her eyes out yelling, "My babies!"

Her voice was hysterical and his heart broke at her pain.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her, guessing how she felt. He only had the one daughter who Anna had raised and he didn't think he could live with losing her.

No one was going to do this to his Anna. There would be hell to pay.

About a month after getting Luciano out Ava and her entourage left the ghost town in Andalucía for good. Luciano and Natalia were healed enough and Ava had supervised the makeovers for both of them.

Natalia black hair was now red, her green eyes covered with blue contacts while Luciano had been told to lose the clean shaven look and grow a beard. His black hair had been dyed too. He now sported brown hair too gelled to perfection by Ava's hands.

The previously darkhaired kids were both blondes now but that was as far as Ava went with them.

Ava had procured new documents for all four too after a day trip to Barcelona. These were courtesy of a forger reputed to be best in this side of Europe and known for being discreet. He did work for many groups and never asked questions. Ava was relieved the Albanian's hadn't reached here or else she would have been in a bind.

Luciano and Natalia were now Marcos and Nadia Reyes, a Spanish couple.

Luciano had not dared question his boss again about her choice of gender. Mario had rarely scolded him and the dressing down he had received from Ava was making wonder if he knew his boss. He was however a man who took his oaths seriously and he had sworn to obey her, his loyalty to Ava was unquestioned, she had come through for him and his family. Natalia had reminded him afterwards that it wasn’t his place to question her on personal choices, weird as they may be.

The pair of them had discussed their situation late at night in their room.

“There is no man like that,” Natalia opined.

Luciano bristled at her choice of words and he couldn’t help but feel affronted.

Natalia sensed him tense and grabbed his arm, “You know I’m right. She isn’t pretending. I mean you couldn’t pass as a woman to save your life.”

Luciano smiled faintly.

Natalia carried on,

“She has real breasts Luciano, wears perfect makeup, walks and talks like a girl. A lot of men couldn’t pull that off for a night let alone eight months,”

“Mario is very smart,” Luciano murmured, “it is a good disguise,”

He knew he was clutching at straws even as he said it.

“Sure it is, why don’t we turn you into my cousin Bella,” Natalia teased.

“Don’t be silly woman,” Luciano replied a bit angry.

"See what I mean! A real man wouldn’t even entertain the notion. I know it’s weird but maybe he is a girl on the inside.” Natalia said.

Luciano shook his head he didn’t want to think about. Ava’s words had been a slap in the face he couldn’t believe his boss wanted to be a woman. All those years and he hadn’t mentioned it. Not a sign. There were so many feelings warring for control in his heart, anger, betrayal, shame and chief of all concern.

“I feel like I don’t even know Mario anymore,” said Luciano.

His wife squeezed his hand, “Well I trust her, she got you out of jail, I thought I had lost you forever,” she said, tears forming in her eyes.

He hugged her before kissing her.

Mauro Rossi sighed deeply. He wanted to reach for another pack of cigarettes. It was one of those days.

He reached for the drawer.

"I said I would quit," he muttered to himself when he discovered it was empty, "great timing Mauro."

Rather than curse he sighed, he had bigger problems. Luciano Marciano was nowhere close to being found. They hadn't had any luck tracing the operatives who had freed him.

It was a given that those were people with military training. It was also clear they weren't from one particular country or that they had tried to make it seem that way anyway.

The truth was that they had no leads. However they did know only one person had the means and motive to orchestrate a mission like that.

He glanced at Mario Di Michele's file. The man was one slippery son of a bitch. The man had eluded him for eight months now, it was like he had vanished into thin air. When he hadn't shown up at the staging point in Croatia or Prague a new theory had been put forward by their source, perhaps he was in London or the east coast of the United States, two places he had lived in for a while. That had been a bust, he hadn't showed at any of his father's properties. He had no known associates there not even an ex-girlfriend or two he might have contacted. No one had been able to place him regularly at any bar or restaurant when he had stayed there. It was as if the kid knew he would be on the run years before it happened. He was paranoid and much smarter than his brothers who were loud, brash and very dangerous but had been easy to pinpoint. He had even picked his associate well. The only person who may have known was Luciano and that one lived by omerta and now his boss had freed him.

There had been no progress with establishing a money trail. Carlo Di Michele ran a tight ship, only he and his genius kid knew about the way his billions were kept. The government had confiscated the businesses Di Michele had owned across the country but all of them were by the book, there was no evidence of any transfers to offshore accounts. All the money they made was either taken by Carlo himself or banked at known accounts. They all had very little money to take anyway. The whole thing confused everyone looking at it and the workers there had never seen Mario there.

Begrudgingly Mauro admitted his opponent was a lot smarter than he had given him credit for. He suspected Mario had overhauled the way his father's profits were used. It was known he travelled out of the country a lot, probably to do his father's banking. They had unfortunately never been able to know where he was going except for the frequent trips to Geneva and Zurich as he was not on a watchlist and his records of travel were conveniently missing from the system. He was very good.

Strangely he also wasn't a killer, it was clear those men he sent could have taken Luciano and caused casualties but the use of stun grenades, flash bangs and tranquilisers pointed to a plan that didn't want casualties. There was no body trail anywhere in Europe pointing to a gangster on the run.

'That was it,' Rossi thought, Mario didn't tie up loose ends.

People helped him no doubt for money and he didn't kill them when they had given their assistance. That was his flaw. Find one of them and be guaranteed one would talk.

'Yes,' he thought as he looked at Mario's file, 'you're smarter than I thought but I am going to nail you.'

Mauro came to a decision. He would try to find some ex-special forces guys from anywhere in Europe or the States awash with money. One of them was bound to be spending and talking.

The Shevchenko's private jet arrived in Rome later that hour. Anna had come to bury her children, Antonin and Yulia her stepdaughter accompanied her.

Their hired SUV snaked through the byzantine traffic of the city. Nearly an hour later they reached the police headquarters.

Anna swept into the building clad in black mourning clothes. They were expensive and tailor made and she walked with the same grace she had used on the catwalk so many years ago.

She presented herself to a constable manning the reception.

"My name is Anna Shevchenko and I would like to know the whereabouts of my children's bodies."

As soon as those words left her lips a crying jag overcame her. The pain was so raw, it never dissipated or receded like a tide.

Yulia rushed to her side and said some soothing words

"Don't cry Mama," she murmured embracing the stepmother she adored so much.

Antonin joined them before addressing the policeman.

The short sharp knocks on Mauro Rossi's door broke his concentration and disrupted his research.

"Yes," he said irritably.

"Eh boss, I have news," Officer Renzo began.

"Get to the point man," Rossi barked, irritated.

He felt he was on the brink of something and Renzo had just yanked him away from it.

"Of course sir," said the uniformed man nervously, "someone walked into HQ and wants to know where the Di Michel bodies are?"

"What? Who?" Rossi shot back.

"The former Mrs Di Michele," Renzo said.

He enjoyed watching the surprise blossom across his bosses face.

"The hell?" Rossi said, shocked out of his mind.

The woman had been missing for 17 years. Everyone assumed Carlo Di Michele had offed her. The local police had even questioned Carlo about it but no one could link her disappearance to him as he a watertight alibi. He had been having drinks at a local club the entire day she disappeared with a nearly 50 witnesses and he had reported her missing.

Mauro had always assumed he had put a hit on her and no one who knew would talk for fear of losing their life.

"You're kidding," Rossi remarked.

"Nope its her, the man she came in with claims he is her new husband and she has her old passport in her name. They took her prints and they agreed under protest. They were positive. The husband is a big shot of some sort. After he complained about the finger printing he called a number and less than half an hour later the deputy commissioner himself came out and apologised profusely. The kicker is Giuseppe who insisted on the prints been transferred to Palermo, the orders came in a couple of minutes later.

"Shit," Rossi muttered.

His interest was piqued, clearly this woman was a lost Picasso and he wanted to see her maybe even interview her. This woman could be danger to the operation. It was possible she could have tests done on the bodies and one of them wouldn’t match her DNA compromising the entire operation.

Maybe she was hiding her son or could pinpoint his location. Rossi also realized he would have to tread carefully as she clearly had enough pull to get someone who had annoyed her transferred the same day.

Since he was behind the operation which had resulted in the death of her children, he was probably the last person she wanted to see. He wondered if his source knew of the latest development and what she would make of it.

Ava knew the house had been compromised the minute she unlocked the door. The security system she had installed was not working. She saw that the panel by the door was not on. Someone had tampered with it. Her backup, the paperclip she kept on the door hinge was on the floor. She had set it up so that if anyone opened the door with a shove it would fall.

She had never bothered getting something more hi-tech as that attracted attention and most were set up to call the police. Ava didn’t want to have anything to do with the police.

“Luciano, cover me,” she instructed before pulling out her sidearm

He made a gesture signifying he had heard her before getting into position behind her. They quickly went through each room in the house. The place had been searched no doubt by someone looking for something, obviously a criminal.

There was no one in the house.

Ava had Luciano lock the door before she clambered up into the house’s ceiling and took out the case she kept in there. It had an emergency stash of bearer bonds, traveller’s cheques and cash amounting to two million euro’s or so.

They hadn’t found that.

She found Luciano in her room.

“You work at Tesco?” Luciano asked, grinning as he pointed at the t shirt on her bed.

The very idea of a Di Michele working in a supermarket was hilarious as far as he was concerned. Back in Italy the didn't even do their own groceries as far as he remembered. Still he thought it was great. Ava clearly knew how to lay low. He felt sure she wouldn't lead them astray.

Ava frowned.

“I’ve been made. I didn’t leave that there and I think I know who is looking for me,’’ she remarked, her face a mask.

To be continued.