Chapter 5 RUNNING AND HIDING

The air was unusually cold and had this strangely familiar smell that made him recoil. The active streets were now derelict, vacant of people who walked the busy road either for business or pleasure. It was just a quarter past eight. Not even midnight, but it was already a dangerous hour to walk the streets of Naples.

Even for Manuel Tommaso, the streets weren't a place he would love to be caught stranded on. Escaping from the Prison Napoli Poggioreale had been a spur of the moment decision after he set his eyes on the target he had been searching for, for years but Manuel Tommaso doesn't even for once miss being locked up and nothing was going to take him back behind those walls. Now, he has a purpose and nothing was going to stand in the way of his revenge.

He tucked his gloved hands into the pockets of the stolen hoodie palming the nail he had picked up few hours ago at the uncompleted building he slept, walking hurriedly on the side walk. Not that he was scared but he was apprehensive because of the Cops that were combing the whole of Italy looking for him. He had known better than to show up at the Cosa Nostra-his late father's estate-because he knew that even though his father was feared, he wasn't above some laws, so he had been hiding in empty and abandoned buildings, under collapsed bridges like a destitute.

Manie hated the new way he had to live but it was just a matter of time before his uncle gets the right people buttered up then the search for him would be called off.

Right now, he was on his way to his own home, a place that was once his safe haven. He didn't know what to expect when he gets there, probably the house would be surrounded by those hungry Federico but he had a message sent to one of his men to meet up with him there. He needed to know everything about Mackenzie Rodriguez, the Key to his revenge.

He pushed down the tightening sensation in his chest area as the thought of using her to achieve his revenge goal became unappealing but what other options did he have. The Godfather had no blind spot except his daughter.

It seemed as though he was running from his own shadow, from his own reflection as his mind jumped at any movements caught by his eyes that were darting about the street. His heart was beating faster than he could keep record of as he neared his house. It was a good sign that no cars were in sight but it didn't necessarily mean his house was not under surveillance. He hurried to his front porch, carefully sliding the nail in the key hole.

As he worked the nail in the door as quietly as possibly, something caught his gaze, like a flash of light and he stilled waiting to be surrounded. But damn his late father to hell if he goes down without a fight.

After five minutes of waiting and nothing happened, everything seemed still, he continued twisting the nail till he heard a click. "Something's wrong." He half whispered, hesitant to open the door. 'Don't you need this revenge anymore?" A voice in his head urged him on. He gave a slight lick at his lips, sighed deeply, "Here goes nothing." Manuel said to himself and opened the damned door. Walking into the dark interiors of his house was not much of an ordeal but not knowing what awaited him on the inside drove him insane as he felt about for the light switch. Not remembering where the light switch was infuriated him but being behind bars for the good part of five years did that to someone. Finally, he found the light switch and he found himself scared shitless to press his inclined finger on it. He sucked in a deep breath and in a flash, the lights came on. He was already poised in a battle stance but the living room was still as he had left it years ago, but something was amiss. He could feel the air prickling with tension. He reached for the nine millimeter revolver in his pants, "Rico." He called out, half expecting his voice to echo in the too quiet room.

Nothing.

Suddenly, his brain captured the signal he had agreed upon his with men in case of trouble and he turned around, pointing his gun at the attacker or helper. "Rico?"

It was no attacker. Only his best friend and second in command. "Mila, what the fuck are you..?"Manuel froze on seeing the blood on his hand fixed over his dirty shirt. "Puta Madre! Mila, you are fucking bleeding!" Manuel couldn't take his eyes off his best friend's bloody hand as Mila groaned and let his hand fall off the injured area on his abdomen. It was a gunshot wound.

"Th-they are c-coming..."

"I know they are coming for me Mila, what the fuck are you doing here?! Why did you get involved in this?! Puttana! This is between the Federico and me! I haven't seen my best friend for years and this is what I meet now... Mila, where the fuck is Rico?" Manuel yelled at Mila as he shoved his gun back into his pants, moving closer to him as he wrapped Mila's arm around his shoulder. "Don't even bother answering those questions, you fucking idiot. Don't fucking talk."

Mila groaned, trying to let go, "No, y-you have to go," He said weakly as Manuel tried to hoist him on his shoulder even more but stopping as Mila cried out in acute pain, gasping as hot tears filled his eyes. Manuel had never seen his best friend cry. "S-stop whatever r-revenge plan... you've got going on... the Godfather is too powerful... stay away from his daughter."

Manuel ignored his friend and placed him on the carpeted floor that was beginning to get colored from the blood pooling. He swiftly ripped off his stolen jacket and pressed it on the gunshot wound, applying pressure.

"I have to get you to the estate right now!" Manuel said and Mila reached up gripping his wrist with a strength he didn't know he even possessed at the moment after all the blood he had lost.

"No! Manie... you have to get out of here... G-get out of Italy... things have gotten out of hand... things aren't the same anymore... t-this is beyond the Federico." Mila begged.

"Who did this to you?" Manuel asked in pain, trying not to cry, knowing there was no way Mila would make it with the copious amount of blood that was rushing out of the wound. It was a clean through and through shot but it must have hit an organ.

"It doesn't matter... Just know the Federico will soon call off the chase... but some...t-t-t..." Mila began gurgling and coughing up blood.

"Mila you listen to me. You and I are going to kill that sonuvabitch like we had planned before I went to prison. You hear me." Manuel said with a voice thick with unshed tears and emotions. This was the same way his father had died six years ago. In his arms as he helplessly watched. He could see the life draining out of Mila with every drip of the blood that pooled on the floor.

"M-M-Manuel...-" Mila tried to speak but he shut him up.

"Shh-sh. You are going to be fine. Okay?" The formerly quiet room became a battlefield as sounds of gunshot filled the air, alerting him. "Mila..."

"Run! Leave Italy..."

Manuel needed not to be told twice that he had to obey his best friend's last wish on earth.

Running as though the devil was hot on his chase-and maybe it truly was, Manuel ran past bushes and tall foliages. His foot almost caught on underbrush's but he regained his stance and pushed on as fast as his legs could carry on. He must have ran for hours if not for the jagged tree stump he stumbled into that had him face down on the ground. "Fuck!" He groaned, limping and searching for a place to rest and he soon found one as he sat to reminisce on the turns his life took.

He wasn't a good man. Being his father's only son and heir to the mafian throne made sure of that. He had taken more life than he could count. What the people he killed might have done doesn't matter, he pulled the trigger at his father's instructions. But losing the one man that taught him everything he knew, that gave him the life he knows isn't perfect but filled with some wonderful memories destroyed him. And knowing the man who killed his father and being unable to do anything about it was like taking poison that was killing him slowly. That was when the seed of revenge took roots and sowed in his heart and nothing was going to stop him from avenging his father's death. Not even Mila's warnings.

"Wanna know why your wife is going to die right now...?" Manuel had asked one man his father had sent him to on his first kill.

"No...p-please kill me instead..." those were the words Manuel replayed in his head, remembering how he had pulled the trigger on the woman at his father's words, mercilessly.

"No!" Wailed the man whose wife Manuel shot, sending electricity up his spine.

No one dared hurt the Chain-ripper Mafioso. No one dared disobeyed the Leader, the boss.

Manuel wasn't a psychopath, even though most of his father's soldiers think he is. He is just a boy who does what his father wants. Although, taking a life became a high he never gets enough of.

Manuel allowed his tears to fall as he wept profusely-for the first time feeling sorry for killing that woman-that was not the only time he had taken a life but it was the first innocent he had ever taken. And Mila was innocent... he didn't deserve to die that way...

His father... was not innocent in any way but he also didn't deserve to be killed like a wild animal, left bleeding out on the sidewalk.

He knew the godfather was responsible for what happened to his best friend.

Manuel looked up into the night sky and laughed. Laughing like a maniac, he clutched at his sides.

He would so enjoy destroying Mackenzie Rodriguez.

She would pay with her body and soul for everything her father did to his family