A small note was slid under Elias' door in HQ to find when he next arrives.

𝑀𝓎 𝐵𝑒𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝒹 𝐸𝓁𝒾𝒶𝓈,  

 

𝒲𝑒 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝓂𝑒𝑒𝓉, 𝓉𝑜𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉.  𝒫𝒶𝒸𝓀 𝒶 𝒷𝑜𝓁𝓉 𝒷𝒶𝑔 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓂𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝓂𝑒 𝒶𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓅𝓁𝒶𝒸𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝒾𝓃𝒶𝒷𝒾𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝓉𝑜 𝓀𝑒𝑒𝓅 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝓁𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓁, 𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹𝑒𝒹 𝓊𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝒹𝓈 𝓉𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇.  𝒲𝑒 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒶𝓁𝓀 𝓊𝓇𝑔𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓁𝓎.  

 

𝒴𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈,
 𝐼𝓏𝓏𝓎

Isabella waited on the shoreline near to where she and Elias rented the boat - alone.  Not a single bodyguard in sight.  On the ground beside her was a small bag and all the belongings in the world she dared to take with her.  The night, despite the summer heat, was a cool one as it had rained not long ago and the difference between the ground and air temperature was creating a dense fog that suited her foul mood.

Dressed in a trench coat, her hand on her gun within, she waited and prayed Elias would do as she asked.

Elias had just got in from his uneventful night at the Fiery Diamond Nightclub...he'd attempted to make contact with Isabella, but she told him to go home, and sounded awfully upset. However he did what she asked and got himself home for an early night, as he put his key in the door to his apartment, he heard paper crunching on his feet as he walked in. He turned on the light to see an envelope inside, addressed to him personally..there was no address so it had obviously been hand delivered, and once he got the letter into focus, he recognised the handwriting on it straight away...whatever was inside the envelope was penned by Isabella herself...

He took his time at first, and Elias went to sit down, with a glass of wine, and lit a cigar, he wasn't sure exactly what this letter would contain, he was still in two minds about last night..'what did actually happen there?' he thought to himself, as he replayed the evening in his head over, and over again..

Elias took a seat, and laid the letter out on a table, and he began to cast over each word, one by one.. she wanted to meet him by the shoreline...alone...with no bodyguards, 'if this letter wasn't penned by her hand, I would of thought this was a trap' he thought to himself - however he trusted Isabella with his life, and if the time ever came, would give his own life, for hers.. he packed a few things, and set off in his car to the shoreline.. on his way he would laugh out loud, at nothing but the thought of ending up in the drink once again, the last time they were both here, there was a huge argument, a fight almost, and it cost them both dearly, especially their dignity..

He pulled his car up to the meeting point, the night sky shone bright with the reflection of the moonlight..and as he got out of the car, he saw a shadowy figure that could only resemble one person..it was Isabella, walking towards him slowly..

'My dear...why are we here, and with no protection? I jokingly made that suggestion to you in the Dracula picture 'date' - but you stamped it out right away...and a few days later...here we are...what are we doing here..? I have so many questions about the other night, what happened...was it me..?'

Elias didn't quite know what to do, Isabella stayed in front of him with her dark eyes looking back at his, and Elias was fighting all temptation to just pick her up and hold her as tight as he'd ever done, but was afraid if he did so..he wouldn't have the strength to ever let her go, ever again.

Words had not been kind to them.  So much had been lost in translation in the times they'd come together before.  She'd begun to think of cupid as fickle.  He stood a polite distance from her as he spoke, and her eyes watched his every movement.  She noted how his body adjusted to accommodate her stance, and afford her only the utmost respect despite what she knew he longed for.

The sincere way he expressed himself, the amorous way he seemed to let his eyes slide across every inch of her body - even as he tried to keep the mood friendly amidst all his concerns and all the unknowns she'd left him with; each intentional and unintentional communication of his desire to please her, it all made her heart quicken.

Isabella did not speak.  She slipped forward so near to him that her breasts brushed against his chest.  Only the smallest hints of light separated them now.  It was as far from him as she thought she ever wanted to be again, and she needed him to know it... for it not to be lost in mere words and all the madness that their life seemed to bring.

Her lips parted slight, as if she was going to speak.  Elias' stare left her feeling naked in the night, bare and vulnerable as if he could see right through to the heart of her & what she was about to do.  Rising up to the tips of her toes, she held his gaze as her long fingers slid slowly into his lush beard.  Her nails brushing past the stubble until her warm flesh lay against his.  

The only sound, aside from the distant echoes of the city & the water lapping upon the shoreline, was their breath.  Greedily she pulled his lips to her own and claimed him as if she might never know this feeling again.  Her lips and tongue danced across his slowly at first - each minuscule motion made with purpose and intent to convey the depth of her feelings for him. 

She trembled against him, not from cold but because of her heart quaking within the bounds of her still injured chest.  His height causing her to sway on her toes, helpless without his help to balance; but even that would not stop her from possessing him - at least one time the way she had wanted to since that first time he kissed her without her blessing.

She closed her eyes and soaked up the feel and smell of him.  She breathed him into the dark recesses of her mind on the chance that one day she might never know him this way again.  She longed for him to return her eagerness; and she prayed that he would not reject her now out of fear of her father, nor demands for answers to all the foolish things that didn't matter a wit in the world.  How she wanted him to accept this as the only truth that really mattered right now: that she was his, if he wanted her, and if only he'd had the courage to defy the wishes of the most powerful man in all the world.

Elias was always torn between two minds with Isabella..ever since he laid eyes on her all those months ago, there was always an attraction there, he would always be rather daring, and flirt with her..quite outrageously at times..but ever since his original meeting with Don Salvatore, he defied his wishes only once, and in a terribly drunken state..

As the months passed, they spent more & more time together, Elias always justified it as completing objectives for the greater good..for the well being and safety of all Luciano's, this was true..however there were plenty of other ways to earn the family money, without killing and chopping up mobsters, ex mobsters, or FBN agents.. he did it to be near, and close to Isabella..

The turning point in his life happened when Isabella was shot, Elias was convinced he was going to lose her, and it was in this moment Don Salvatore could see the genuine love he held for his daughter, and it was anything but a ploy to get close to him, if anything the only closeness he'd craved for months on end was standing right in front of him, on a cold, moonlit night..

As Elias had all of these flashbacks, and his heart tightened in his chest, he stepped back to a dream like reality, it took him a few moments to realise that Isabella was as close to him now, as she was after they'd been crammed in the back of the police car, on that frightful drunken night...as Elias paused slightly, he could almost feel his heart racing, and breaking at the same time. He knew what he wanted to do, but knew what he should...or shouldn't be doing..they were both two, very different things..

In the midst of it all, he put his right hand around her waist and pulled her even closer to him...'Izzy I'm risking my life here, you know I love you, and I genuinely do..with all my heart, and I want you to know in this moment if we were caught by your father, I'm not going to be denying anything..I'd kneel down, and if he wanted to execute me for experiencing love for the first time in my life, at least this moment..was worth all of the years i've lived on this planet, I'm never going to leave your side' 

He brushed her raven hair behind her shoulders, before tugging it backwards, not rough..but hard enough to tilt her head backwards, exposing her neck, and he kissed her all the way up, and down...

Shuddering Isabella took a deep breath, filling her lungs, a primal moan flowed from her throat.  It made no sense to her, she hadn't meant to moan, but was the easiest and most natural sound she'd ever made.  She panted softly, her nerve endings electrified as he promised her that he'd happily die for - not just her - but this moment. 

She ran her hands across the firmness of his core, attempting to appease the frenzied fire that was all she could feel.   "Elias... il mio cuore!"  Sense flung to oblivion she gripped onto him muttering his name each time his lips pulled away from one point on her skin and claimed another stimulating parts of her that had been only touched by one other man - a man who she had once wanted as deeply as she wanted Elias now.  A man she'd put into a grave less than a month ago.

Isabella tried to push the family and the sacrifices she'd already made for it from her mind.  Her toes dug into the ground beneath them urging Elias back towards a nearby boat which was laying on the shore.  It was the very same boat they'd tipped into this lake an afternoon not long ago.  

Her hips rolled into his with each step they took - mimicking a dance they both seemed to know well.  There was no mistaking that Elias and she, for once, had the exact same thing in mind.  Her mind wandered to their past fights - and all the things that had caused them.  She truly believed, there would be no fighting tonight.  For once, they would both happily submit to one another, and not even the family was going to get in the way of that.

Elias took a knee then, bringing her down to the ground gently, so they did not fall unceremoniously to the hard earth.  The boat was still feet away from them - they weren't getting that far - they were both too eager for that.  He sat down, pulling her into his lap, shielding her from the dirt and the unknown things that lived there.  All the while neither lover had released their embrace of the other.

For a moment their eyes met.  It was as if she'd found him suddenly, in the middle of a place she'd been waiting so long to go - that with all her excitement at being here, she'd almost forgot that the destination was all about him... and not just herself.  Isabella's mind spun.  She could hear the words of the man she least wanted to hear from now - her own father. 

'I don't keep you apart to be cruel or mean. I do it so you can come into your own and he into himself.'

Well... she had focused upon herself, her own desires and all that she'd wanted to the exclusion of everything else.  She saw then how she'd missed so much the other night with Elias.  She'd been so wrapped up on thinking about him and her and all they'd been denied by her father's rules she'd missed Durden's people to begin with.  And her bodyguards had been forced to focus on keeping her from her desires so much, that they'd missed it too. 

"...in order to survive this life for as long as you can you must remain loyal to this family first." 

What had felt so cruel & self serving at the time, now seemed the most sound advice she'd ever been given.  She felt shame and sadness that she'd not had more faith in her father's love and devotion - that she'd not trusted the Don of her family absolutely.  She'd done everything wrong in coming to this moment and now she'd hurt Elias but taking a complete 180 from a plan that had been hers alone all along!  She was wrong and that wasn't an easy thing for a Luciano to admit, even if her choices had been for all the right (and desperately pleasurable) reasons.

Forcing herself to slow down, she put her hands up into his beard and hair once more - resisting the temptation to reach downward towards the lap she was now so pleasantly straddling.  Her body and mind warred - but in the end there could really only be one winner in such a war.  She pecked his lips innocently.  It was a non-verbal cue that she wanted things to ease up a bit... that she did, actually have things to say - important things.  Gently she lifted her bottom and adjusted herself so not to cause him discomfort.  

"Hello."  She said quietly, a small bit of amusement in her tone, returning his kisses with gentle ones of her own.  Less fiery, less desperate... she hoped he would come to understand and not feel regret for having been lead on in this way. 

"I owe you an apology... about last night..."  She felt his hands side down her body and she squirmed atop him as she felt his intentions.  She'd opened flood gates, crossed lines they'd carefully drawn to keep them from this place they'd run head long towards ... the last thing he wanted to do was stop and talk and yet, he stopped just shy of his intended destination.  A place she very much wanted him to go even with these new thoughts in her mind. 

She thought he growled something about forgetting last night, it was hard to say between his kisses.  She chuckled and her eyes looked towards their bolt bags that she knew now they would not be using - at least not in the way she'd intended. 

"Eli?"  She'd never called him that before, but she'd been toying with it in her journals and was finding herself to be quite fond of it.  And since he had one for her, it seemed only right.

"I chased you off because there was a gun fixed on you... at least one.  They could have killed you and I was was far more ready to accept you thinking that I was mad at you, rather then risk the alternative."  She felt his arousal easing and saw the change coming into his eyes... the animal brain in her lover was shutting down, and something of the man - who was logical and careful in all that he did - heard her words. 

Elias had realized the danger she was talking about.  People... someone, he did not yet know who ... had a gun on him last night and she knew, but didn't tell him.  She'd tried to save his life last night but those people could still be out there.  They could be out there RIGHT NOW.  The two of them were acting like idiot teenagers, reckless and without regard for their importance to the family or each other really.  These enemies who had not only shot her... but had taken another go at the family... they were out there at this very moment. 

"I should have told you last night.  I should have called Spartacus and my father right away."  She felt Elias lift her off of his lap so he could stand.  "Please ... hear me out."  She begged, worried he might be mad as he'd said nothing so far.  "I was so wrapped up in what I was feeling, and what I wanted, and what I was afraid of losing that I acted childishly and reckless ... and I did so again tonight." 

As he came to his feet she reached out and took his hand.  "I love you, Elias."  She said without preface or justification.  There was nothing for it except to say it.  "But we should go somewhere safer to finish..."   God it hurt to admit this wasn't happening tonight that she, not her father, was putting down the uncross-able lines once more. "... this talk." 

'I love you' - Elias had never heard Isabella say these words to him...ever..

It was justification for what he was doing, and even more for what he was feeling. He cared about Isabella more than anything in his world, that seemed to be full of nothing but pain, and suffering.. he slowly started to calm down on his infatuations before listening to what she was saying to him.. He couldn't take his eyes off of her, and hung on everything she said..about almost having a feeling of regret to what she'd invited him out for, and how they were right now. Completely out in the open, and once again taking a huge risk, for both of their lives..

Elias pulled his dear Isabella in closely once more...'you've just told me you loved me - and in this moment Izzy, I'll do whatever you want, whenever you want..maybe we made a mistake in coming here. If we get caught by anyone, friend or foe. The same result will finish in my dead, either way that is not something I can't allow to happen... he slowly got up, and held out his hands to Isabella, pulling her up from the ground also...

'There is one place that I can take you..I have a safe house in Detroit, it's setup in case I ever needed to get away quickly..nobody knows about it...and I mean nobody...there are things I haven't shared with the family, and this is one of them..we can be left alone, for the whole night, and nobody would find us - so my love, would you come with me?'

"That sounds ... logical."  She had other words to describe the idea of a night alone with Elias, but all of them brought her back to the things she had just put a stop to.  They needed to get safe and she had to tell him what she'd learned.  THEN, maybe, she'd consider whether it was safe to think about other enjoyable words. 

"Anywhere we normally go isn't probably safe so, until we sort things out maybe it's best we lay low."  She squeezes his hand.  "Lead the way."

Elias took Isabella by the hand, and he lead her to the car..he opened the door for her, allowing Isabella to get inside easily..he popped round the other side before getting in himself...'you know Izzy, most of the time we get in my car, we end up travelling to either kill someone, or to a destination...where we end up killing someone, have you ever noticed that?'

'But tonight, that won't happen. we'll be alright in my safe house. Nobody could find where we are going..'

As they started their journey, Elias held Isabella's hand tight, clearly letting his body tell hers that she was safe tonight, nothing could, or would happen. They had some small talk, the usual things people would talk about, in order to avoid any awkwardness. It was an attractive trait that Isabella had, she would often put herself at Elias' mercy, just to back out at the last moment, before he even had a chance to properly respond. He saw her as the girl that got away, yet she was still sitting next to him in a car..

As they pulled up to Elias' safe house, he escorted her to the door, unlocked it before putting her belongings down on the floor..'take a seat my dear' he said to Isabella, before gesturing to the sofa, and lighting the fire, he wanted to warm the room up quickly, and he could notice Isabella shivering in the corner..he went over to her before standing her up, and putting his arms around her and kept her warm..'So Izzy, could you eleborate a little more, of the thoughts in your head? I mean..you don't have to speak to me if you don't want..but I feel I'm owed this, my cards are on the table now, I'm sure yours are too. What's standing in the way?'

"Perhaps the explanation requires a visual component?"  She wandered over to her purse and pulled out the photo she'd been given by Durden's woman.  "I was cornered in the bathroom by an associate of the Tyler Durden gang."

"What?!?"  Elias looked shocked, and perhaps a bit upset at himself that she had been in danger so near to him but she shook her head.

"I wasn't hurt." She told him, realizing he was genuinely worried about what had happened in that bathroom to change her mood. "The woman came to deliver a message and this photo was the message.  Somehow, some way I have yet to understand, Tyler Durden found out who shot me.  He wanted me to take this photo to my father." Seeing how tense Elias was at this news, she walked back to him and took his hand.   "Let's sit." 

Once on the sofa she snuggled up beside him, letting him put his arm around her and pull her close.  "Durden wants to give my father to learn shooter's identity so that he'll go to war with whoever that gang works with or for."  She shook her head,  "I ... I didn't want to give my father the photo and I very nearly killed the messenger right there in the bathroom."  

She laid her cheek against his chest, listening to his heart beat while she spoke, "I would have done it too, but she told me that her gang had put a sniper on nearby roof.  She claimed they had you in their sights and if I did anything stupid, you'd be killed."  She looked down ashamed, "I thought might be a bluff... but when I left the restroom, I spotted the shooter.  He had you.  Hell... maybe they had both of us, dead to rights."

Elias kissed the top of her head.  "But we're still here."

"All I kept thinking about was how I hadn't told you what I felt for you and I was so ... blinded by that, I went from one dangerous situation to another.  After you dropped me off, I went out again and had my father's men round up anyone with ties to Durden's last attempt to hold Detroit and I questioned them... extensively."

She drew a breath and sighed, not knowing why that was difficult to admit.  "A few hours into it, my father showed up.  His men called him... I felt betrayed by them and made to look a fool in front of my father; but I thought maybe some good could come of it... so I begged him to take pity on me ... on us, and give his blessing."

"Did he?"  Elias sounded hopeful.

"Not exactly.  He told me that you and I are in a situation similar to him and Marie and that if we put our love above our dedication to the family - it would be the death of someone; maybe us, or maybe someone else we loved.  And, I hate to admit it, but he's right.  We've been running around longing for each other the way children long for sweets and we're so distracted by that temptation that we've been blind to threats all around us.  We've put ourselves and other people at risk and it wasn't what we meant to do... but there it is."

"I couldn't admit that though.  I was hurt that he dared to say he supported us and wanted us together, but then didn't just give us his blessing.  So... I planned to ask you to run away with me.  I told myself I could leave this, that I'd only known my father for less than a year and what difference did it really make..."  She closed her eyes, ashamed.  "I don't know how wrong any single person could ever be... you've been saying it to me over and over for weeks now.  I AM a Luciano.  I can't escape that."

She looked up to Elias, "He told me he wasn't accepting the photo or Durden's debt.  Instead he wanted me to go to you and bring YOU the photo... to get to the bottom of it.  To find our enemy so we can be done with this and move forward."

She offered the photo to Elias and Elias took it.  "It's a mug shot, that means one of our agents inside the FBN should be able to get us a name.  Then it's an easy matter of finding out who the fuck he ran with and whose payroll that gang was on.  In theory, we could be days away from finding our enemy and finally ending this... but now that I'm here with you, in your arms, I'm not ashamed to tell you how hard waiting to be with you really is."

Elias stared at the photo.  

"Do you know him?"

"No.  I don't, but now that I've seen him... I'll never forget his face."

"You know my dad shot him that day, right?  You're not going to be able to hurt him."

Elias shook his head, folding the photo and putting it into his pocket.  Whatever he meant, he didn't explain.  "Come on... let's get you to bed."

Isabella blinked hard at how very vocally forward Elias was about his intentions.  It was one thing to be taken by passion and find yourself falling into bed with a lover, but so few people were as upfront as to be able to just say it.  She hesitated and blushed.

Elias looked at her when she didn't rise up with him, and upon seeing her expression he laughed a deep baritone - the sound of distant rolling thunder.  "My love..."  He reassured her.  "I mean for you to sleep the first shift.  We don't dare let our guard down until we know we're safe."

"You mean you don't want to..."

"I think you know that I do."  He said pulling her up to him and he kissed her gently on the lips.  "Every moment."  He kissed her again.  "Of every day."  He kissed her a final time and smirked.  "But tonight the best way we can show each other how much we mean to one another and this family... is to keep our guard up."

"And our hands to ourselves?"

Elias nodded.

She sighed, sightly disappointed, but also relieved it wasn't she alone who could see that her father had actually made sense.  

"So your father knows you're off hunting this lead down with me?"

"I had figured it would give us a few days to run before he burnt Detroit to the ground hunting for us."

Elias nodded.  "Good, then we don't need to worry about him questioning where you are tonight."  He started down the hallway, "The bedroom is this way."  It wasn't much to look at - but she didn't need much, not with Elias at her side.  Walking through life by his side made even the shabbiest bolt hole into a palace.

Elias gave her one of his spare shirts to sleep in from a dresser drawer and once she was beneath the sheets he came in to kiss her goodnight and turn off the light.  Hallowed by the hallway light, she couldn't see his eyes looking at her in the dark room, but she felt his eyes as he said in a lover's whisper, "Thank you, Izzy."

"For what?"  She asked.

"For making sure that no matter how things go - with your dad, or durden, or whoever he wants us to war with, that I went knowing how you felt about me before the end."

"I could say the same.  I mean... no one is promised another day in this thing of ours.  Sometimes, I think you just need to toss the dice and hope for the best.  And so far, I haven't been too disappointed.  What about you?"

Elias shook his head.  "No.  It's been one hell of a ride.  I look forward to the next chapter with you."

"Goodnight, Eli."

"Sweet dreams, Izzy."  And with that, he closed the door, and the darkness swallowed her up into dreams.

Rest in Peace. 
It's good to read all the story.