A Lifetime With You by Athrhteera

Chapter 111 Matteo

Alena and I were sitting at the sofa in the living room. We had been waiting for Mikhail and Alexei to arrive for the past half an hour but couldn't blame them for their punctuality, we were the ones that went down early. As soon as we heard the doorbell, I had went to open the door for them.

Mikhail was the first one to step inside and Alexei followed him afterwards. They went straight to the living room but they didn't say a word to Alena as they sat on the other side of the sofa, the opposite from where we were sitting. "I didn't expect you to come," Alena said to her brother.

"Why not?"

"Because of what happened the other day,"

Alexei continued to look at his sister before he cleared his throat, "I've moved past that. We fight all the time when we were kids but none of it was personal."

"But what I said during lunch was personal."

"Enough!" Mikhail had interrupted, not wanting the conversation to turn out into an argument.

I stood still by the doorway as I watched the three of them, wanting to let them settle down for a little while before we started to discuss things. I could sense the tension in the air but I knew better than to acknowledge it. Another knock was heard on the door and I instantly knew it was Luca.

I had informed him earlier to come over, spread out his ideas and discuss things. We had wasted enough time for the past few weeks thinking of ways to solve this problem, we didn't have the luxury of time anymore.

This man, this culprit, was getting closer to Alena as we spoke. He was getting braver in appearing in front of her at random places, where she was alone, where she though she was going to be safe. Her freedom was slowly being taken away from her and none of us were willing to do that. However, we were left without a choice.

Luca walked to the living room before he sat down, on one of the other sofas.

Alena kept quiet as she sat at the edge of the sofa, looking at her family. Based on the look on her face, she had a lot to say but she was trying her best to keep it to herself. I went to make my way towards her before grabbing onto her hand, giving her the support she needed.

"So, what is it that we have to discuss?" Alexei asked, completely annoyed,

"Why do

you have to be so annoying?" Alena confronted.

""Excuse me?"

"Your attitude. Your ego. Everything about you,"

"I came all the way to your house just to discuss things for your sake and you're saying all of that to me?"

"Nobody forced you to come here, Alexei."

""Your husband did," he turned to look at ine.

"Well, you

could've said no if you didn't want to be here."

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The rest of us were looking at the both of them as they went to argue. Alena was beginning to stress herself out but I knew I couldn't hold her back any longer, she had a few disagreements with Alexei and she wanted to express it all out. She couldn't hold it in anymore because if she did, she was going to burst.

Luca cleared his throat, trying to catch my attention but I was focusing on my wife.

"Alena..." I called out as I tried to grab onto her hand but she pulled away.

"Every single thing that we have done was for you, Alena. We had sacrificed so many things for you and for your freedom but I can see that you're being ungrateful," he replied.

"I'm being ungrateful? I am where I am because of me. I sacrificed things for myself when nobody else was there for me," she continued to speak, disagreeing with Alexei.

"You're putting us at the edge here!"

"So, you're blaming this all on me?"

"No, I'm blaming all of this on your dear husband."

Alena stood up, angrily as she went to her brother. She had managed to push him back which caused him to fall backwards on the sofa, she had completely caught Alexei off guard because she was upset with the words he said.

As I stood up to grab onto her, she slipped away.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Alexei exclaimed.

"I fucking hate you!"

"The feeling is fucking mutual, Alena."

Mikhail stood up as he held Alexei back from continuing any longer. He managed to calm his son down as Alexei took a few steps back, trying to control himself from saying anything else. As for Alena, I had managed to grab onto her and distance her away from him. "I didn't come here for the two of you to argue like children," Mikhail spoke.

"I have to admit, it was fun to watch." Luca responded, a smirk plastered on his face.

The rest of us turned to look at Luca who seemed completely unbothered by what was happening. He continued to smirk as he stared at us, as if all of this was entertaining. It wasn't near as entertaining for the rest of us especially for Alena because she was mostly upset and she needed to calm down.

I wrapped my arms around Alena's waist before pulling her away, looking at her face.

We were further away from them.

It was just the two of us for a little while.

"Baby, look at me."

Both of her eyes were filled with tears but she tried her best to calm herself down by controlling her breathing, even though -she was on the verge of crying. "I hate him,"

"I know. It's okay, just try to breathe."

"He's being an asshole to you,"

"It doesn't matter, Alena. It's not important,"

ww.

"I don't like it, Matteo."

"I appreciate it when you defend me, baby but I don't want you to stress out over it. We've talked about this before and we have agreed to take things slow especially with what we're going through right now, right?" I looked into her eyes, cupping onto her face. +5

Alena's eyes were wandering around elsewhere and if I didn't cup onto her face, she wasn't going to focus onto me. I needed her to breathe and calm herself down instead of getting too carried away with Alexei's bad behaviour. ""Mm," she breathed.

"Think about you. Think about the baby," I whispered.

She nodded a few times as she continued to breathe properly, calming herself down.

I didn't waste any time as I pulled her in, wrapping my arms around her body before kissing onto her forehead. She needed me to be around her as much as possible and during the early stages of pregnancy, she was going to be extra emotional. I had to understand her better and to never judge her feelings.

It wasn't going to be easy for us especially when we were going through something even bigger than all of this but we had to push forward, we had to prioritise that.

"I'm sorry," she muttered under her breath.

Tears were falling down her cheeks but before they could reach her lips, I had managed to wipe them away with my hands. She was too beautiful to keep crying like this, even though the tear stains didn't do anything to ruin the beauty she possessed. "Don't be. Don't apologise for anything,"

"I should apologise. I got too carried away with what happened the other day,"

"I understand and it's okay. You have every right to be upset about that,"

"I should've moved forward. I wasn't thinking straight,"

I shook my head, kissing her cheeks.

"You're doing just fine, baby. You're doing alright," I replied.

We took a few more minutes with each other to calm ourselves down. We had stayed in this position of hugging one another until we were both ready to walk back into the living room. They had gave us some time to sort out our emotions and we were ready to discuss. Alena and I walked back into the living room, sitting on the sofa

Luca was still in the same spot.

As for Mikhail and Alexei, they were now seated as well. We were going to discuss things as adults now and we were going to leave any disagreements behind-Alena wasn't going to burst out anymore and I trusted her to cooperate.

"What are the things we have to discuss? Have you found the man?" Mikhail asked, looking at me before glancing at Luca; he knew Luca was the one who had went through with the investigation, he knew everything first before me.

"Luca and I have been discussing about a lot of things. We found a few hints,"

A

his whereabouts?" Alexei asked.

I nodded, "I think we both know where he's hiding."

) ww W

Alena kept quiet as she listened to the conversation.

"Where exactly is that?"

"He's all over the place," Luca replied instead of me.

Both Mikhail and Alexei were confused as they looked at each other. They had expected us to come up with a different answer, a more defined one. I knew it wasn't enough to satisfy the both of them but we had a plan to catch this culprit. However, we had to use Alena as bait-it was a bit risky but it had to be done.

"That was not the answer we expected," Mikhail replied.

I cleared my throat, "He came by the hospital yesterday."

"What? Alena's hospital?"

"He was close. He kept looking at her,"

Mikhail turned to look at his daughter in disbelief. He leaned back on the sofa before letting out a deep sigh, "Did something happen yesterday? Did she get hurt? How could you let this happen to Alena? Have you forgotten the deal we've made? Do you not care about losing my daughter?"

"It happened during work. Matteo had no idea it happened," Alena spoke.

"I told you going back to work was a bad idea," he replied.

"I didn't expect him to be there, Papa."

Mikhail turned to look at me as he continued to speak, "I can't keep tolerating this. You're putting my daughter's life with danger and you try to hide it away from me, pretending everything was fine."

"I didn't try to hide anything from you, Mikhail. I invited both you and Alexei here to discuss things further because it has gotten too far. He has gotten closer and closer, we can't keep delaying things. We can't let anything worse happen," I said.

They kept quiet as they tried to take a moment to think.

I hadn't let go of Alena's hand, grabbing onto it.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

It was to show her how much I was there for her despite the things we were going through. It was also one of the ways to help calm her down-she needed all the support she could get, especially when I drop the idea on everyone.

"What kind of plan do you have in mind?"

I looked at Luca, Mikhail, Alexei and at my wife.

They were all looking back at me.

"We'll use Alena as bait,"

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