Isaac's POV

"Where'd you find him?!" I grumbled, turning to look at Dom who's trying to keep up with my fast pace as I storm into my warehouse.

"Ricci found him. Well Vin and Al did." He shakes his head. "Actually, wait- I don't know which one of the idiots it was."

"So what do you know, Dominic??" I grumble.

He shoots a very unpleasant glare in my direction, "they found him on the outskirts going to work. They ran him off the road so he came in already a little banged up."

"The vehicle?"

"Bike," he corrects. "It's in the shop."

"They ran him off the road on a bike?" I furrow my eyebrows, a little confused.

Dominic smiles, "Emiliano was with them... on his bike. He shot out the back tire sending him flying into a field."

"And who exactly gave Sax clearance to be back in the field? Back on the bike?"

"Ricci," Dominic answers. "Your second in command."

"I didn't need the clarification, Dom, I know what and who he is." I snap.

"Emiliano's been testing negative every time so Ricci felt he needed to be rewarded."

"Idiota," I mutter under my breath. "Who's with him? Who's with Enzo?"

"Beans.. He's barely touched him and the kid can barely breathe on his own. I genuinely believe he doesn't know anything, Isaac."

"I'll be the judge of that," I say as I walk up to the door that leads to the lower levels.

The guard watching the door immediately steps to the side allowing Dominic and I inside, locking the door behind us.

We step into the elevator making it all the way down to the lowest level, the level that I've dreaded coming down here so much. Nothing good ever comes out of this level, the air down here always feels thinner, my skin, my body, it's always uncomfortable and on high alert when I'm down here.

"P-please, n-no more," a soft masculine voice sobs from a couple doors down.

I walk forward in the direction of where the torment is coming from and step into a dimly lit room, my stomach instantly tight.

This is the same room that Pops had memo in, this is the last room that Hailey ever stepped foot in when she was down here. This room, the memories from everything that happened around that time is what keeps me from coming down here. This room fuels my rage, this room is what makes me lose touch with the little humanity that I have left, if I have any left.

I watch quietly from the back of the room, near the entrance still, as my men continue to interrogate and torment Enzo, Gregory Robsciotti's nephew.

He hangs his head low, mildly shaking it, blood dripping/dangling out of his mouth, his eyes nearly swollen shut. He's sitting in the middle of the room, in the same chair his uncle did, practically naked only in a pair of boxers, blood, cuts, bruises in almost every aspect of his body.

"P-p-please," he wheezed.

Beans is standing off to the side of him, his back towards me, blood dripping from his knuckles from all the times he's hit Enzo in the face.

One of the masked men from the other side of the room steps forward, tilting his head to the side, indicating that Beans step out of the way and he does.

Sacramentos guy pulls out his baton stun gun, a cracking sound of electricity fills the room for a second or two and he is then pressing it against Enzo's ribcage as he lets out an agonizing scream.

Sacramento's men definitely don't play around when it comes to getting what they want.

"I- I- d-don't know! I swear. I-I- don't know!" He shouts in between the taze.

He lets out another strangled scream before I interfere.

"That's enough."

Both Sacramento and Beans quickly look in my direction and are stepping away from Enzo, who is now trying to cough up a lung, choking, gagging, as he starts to throw up.

I wave a hand at him looking in Sacramento's guys direction, "he's not fucking use to me if he's dead, Lino, do something."

He nods his head and is walking back over to Enzo and is tilting his head forward, holding it so that he doesn't lean his head back again and choke on his own vomit.

A minute or two passes by and Beans is stepping forward when Lino steps back and is splashing a water bottle on top of Enzo, rinsing his chest off from his puke.

He takes a step back and is reaching for a large black metal cup with a lid and straw. He walks back to Enzo holding it in front of him.

"Rinse," he commands, poking at his lips with the straw.

Enzo takes a couple zips of the water and is rinsing his mouth off a second later, spitting out a red hinge color a second later.

Beans places the cup back next to his face, "now drink."

Enzo doesn't hesitate. He drinks deeply from Beans cup for a few seconds until you hear the cup go nearly empty and Beans is pulling it away from him, taking a step back.

I take a couple steps forward, crouching down in front of Enzo, meeting him at eye level as he looks up from the ground, over at me.

His body immediately shutters as a breathy sob escapes his lips. "P-please," he shakes his head. "I s-swear man, I d-don't know where he is, I don't know where my uncles at." His teeth clatter. "I s-swear on my d-daughters life, I d-don't know."

I nod my head nonchalantly, "I believe you. It doesn't necessarily get you out of this situation though."

"There's a r-reason why I l-live in the suburbs man. To g-get away f-from all this, f-from him. I w-wanted nothing to d-do with him after my d-dad died. I p-promise my f-family a better life, a b-better life for my m-mom."

"How old is your daughter?" I asked

He stares in my direction, remaining quiet as his lips continue to tremble, his dirty bloody chest heaving up and down.

"He asked you a question!" Lino grumbles, digging the tip of his automatic weapon into the side of Enzo's head.

I immediately pick up my left hand and shake my head, motioning that he step back, he does so immediately.

"Your daughter, how old is she?" I repeat myself.

"F-four months."

I stand back up to my full height towering over him.

"What's your biggest fear as a father?" I asked.

He frowns looking up at me with his one good eye. His right eye is completely swollen shut.

"I mean besides your daughter growing up without her dad," I add.

He stares up in my direction long and hard for a second or so and then says, "that she'll fall in l-love with someone like y-you when she's older, someone like him- m-me. Someone from this lifes-style. That I won't be able to p- protect her from any of it."

"You weren't really trying that hard by moving out into the suburbs, rather than out of state. Look how easily and quickly my men found you, Enzo."

"It's a lot harder than you think to relocate without the r-resources," he snarls.

I nod, remembering a conversation I had with Fonz about struggling to live a normal life the night he was killed.

I inhale a deep breath and cross my arms along my chest, quickly turning my head back at the sound of the knock on the door.

It's Sacramento.

He tilts head to the side, calling me over to him. I wave him off and focus my attention back on Enzo.

"Let's do this.. Get me your uncle and I'll get you and your family out of the city, out of the state, across the country, wherever you wanna gowith enough resources to last you until you can settle in."

He frowns, mildly shaking his head, "how the hell am I supposed to do that?"

I shrug, "that's for you to figure out, Zo-zo."

His facial features immediately begin to twist the second I use his street name. Bet he hasn't heard that one in a while.

"He doesn't give two fucks about me," he says.

I lift a hand up, silently getting him to shut up and wait. I stick my hand into my black sacks and pull my personal phone out of my pocket to see Vito is calling and immediately go on high alert.

He's at the hospital with Hailey and Isaiah and was given specific instructions to not bother me unless someone is dying.

I answer the call, my feet instantly bolting towards the door, Sacramento's quick to get out of the way and take a couple steps back.

"What is it? What's wrong?!" I say in a slight panic.

He sighs deeply, "I'm sorry boss, I tried-"

"The hell are you going on about?! Spit out, Vito!"

Vito's voice is quickly being replaced with a feminine one, my wife's voice actually. She practically screams into my ear. "Where are you?!"

"Hail?" I frown. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

I frown.

"Where. Are. You?!"

Inhale a deep breath and release it the second I realize that she's okay, she's not in any danger, but from the sound of her voice I might be and that instantly confuses me.

"Jesus woman. You nearly just gave me a heart attack, babe!"

"Call off the curfew you have in the city."

The hairs on the back of my neck are instantly standing up. This is why she's upset?. "Scusami?"

"I didn't stutter, Antonio."

I scoff softly shaking my head, "of course he fucking told you," I mutter, referring to my father.

"He didn't tell me anything," she retorts. "You're all over the fucking news!"

"Maybe you should be doing more resting than watching TV." I immediately regret the words once they leave my mouth.

She scoffs loudly, "I'm gonna do you a favor and pretend like I didn't hear that. I'm really not in the mood to argue with you right now, Isaac."

Hang the phone up, end the call. My subconscious screams at the back of my head. Hang up right now. But I can't. I feel the same prickly sensation at the back of my neck the second the anger attempts to grab ahold of me, making it hard to think, breathe. It's the only emotion I've been running on for the past few days. If I don't hang onto the anger then I let the guilt in, I let the guilt take over and like always I don't know how to make it go away.

Hang. Up.

"Well, if you're fine and Isaiah is fine then why are you calling me?"

"To see if I can stop my husband from making stupid decisions," she quickly snaps back. "But he's clearly lost his goddamn mind speaking to me the way he is right now."

I stay quiet for my own good, for the sake of my marriage and inhale a deep breath.

Stronzo. The fuck is the matter with you?!

She's okay. She's fine. She's alive.

"Call off your stupid ass curfew," she hisses, repeating herself.

I instantly shake my head, "I can't."

"You can't or won't?"

"I can't," I repeat myself, my voice a lot softer than a couple seconds ago. "Not yet.."

"Isaac, please," she pleads. "Please just let it go, baby. You're not thinking clearly right now. You're hurting innocent people for no reason. We're okay. We're fine. Whatever it is you're doing, just forget about it. Come back to me, come back to your son."

"My son-" I can feel the anger slowly starting to wash over me again. "Our son- is in the NICU. He's hooked up to a machine because he can't fucking breathe on his own yet, Hail. Because you- my wife, his mom, wasn't ready to go into labor yet. Because you forced to have an emergency C-section, forced to have him in order to save both of your lives."

"Isaac-"

"I don't care what the fuck they do, I don't care how many times they come after me, how many times they shoot at me, threaten me. When you threaten my wife, my family, when you come after the people that matter the most to me, that's when we're gonna have a problem. That's when I become the fucking villain, that's when I become everyone worst fucking nightmare." "I get it, baby, you're upset, believe me so am I. I hate that he's connected to those machines just as much as you do, but killing innocent people isn't gonna change the outcome to the situation we're in. It isn't gonna turn back time. It isn't gonna change what happened. Isaiah is here, your son is here, he's alive, and his dad is nowhere to be around. His dad is miles away from him, falling exactly into his grandfather's footsteps; choosing a lifestyle over his own blood, over fatherhood. You are not him, Isaac. You are so much better than this, babe. Please just come back, I need you here with me," her voice cracks.

There's an instant nagging tug in my chest at the sound of her broken voice. I inhale a deep breath, slowly starting to nod my head.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. After I get back the time they stole away from our son. After all- deaths come in three and I have one more debt to collect."

I quickly end the call before she can get another word in, tossing my phone over to Sacramento, who's been standing a couple feet away, awfully quiet, watching, waiting.

"I don't want it back unless she has a real crisis."

He nods his head silently and stuffs my phone into one of his many pockets on his vest.

"This, uh, this probably isn't the best time to tell you that I did something unauthorized today.."

I inhale a deep breath and pinch the bridge of my nose.

Sacramento doesn't have many rules that he has to abide by so I'm about 97% sure that I already know what the hell he is going to say.

"I will stab you in the fucking neck, Sacaramento, if you say what the fuck I think you're going to say."

He stands up straight, "then no, I definitely didn't let Mrs. Matteo see my face about an hour ago. I didn't reveal my real identity to your wife."

I instantly clench my fist beside me. He's lucky that he's valuable to this faction, to me, to Hailey, or I'd really be tempted to wedge a bullet in between his eyes.

I inhale a deep breath attempting to control the anger rising in me. I need to be different from him, I am different from my father. I don't blow up on my men, I don't mistreat these men for invalid reasons just because I'm in a shitty place.

"And what the fuck made you want to do that?" I grit, biting my tongue as much as I can right now. I inhale another deep breath counting backwards from ten.

An old trick Jer taught me how to do a couple years ago.

Ten.

Nine.

"She was awake when I stepped in to speak to your father."

Eight.

"I thought she could use the cheering up."

Seven.

"A distraction, even if it was for a moment."

Six- fuck it, fuck this.

I take a step forward standing directly in front of Sacramento, looking up at him since he's clearly taller than I am. The man is too big, too tall, for his own good.

I jab a finger at his vest, slightly nudging him back. "You don't get paid to reassure my wife, Sacramento. You don't get paid to comfort her. Let me remind you that you chose to give up friendships and personal relationships from the get go when you and Pops decided to hide your identity from the world. You either keep up the asshole persona you've adapted as Sacramento, or you befriend my wife 100%. Hailey is not a half ass friend. She enjoys some of these men's company. She enjoys being the one person they might need to make their day better because she knows just how lonely it can get."

"You may be a very valuable asset to me, to this faction, but my father had ways to keep everyone and I do mean everyone in line. These men get punished after hurting my wife's feelings, which lets me remind you, can be fairly easily due to the kind hearted person she is. You may not fear many things, Sacramento, but even you have weak points."

I pick up a finger, "you have MK, who would jump in front of a bullet for you, as you would do for him. You have a non-biological brother who can easily be replaced, easily be broken."

I pick up another finger, holding two fingers up. "You have a five year old niece that you don't have full custody of yet. Who you spend multiple days and weeks away from. Who goes to a private school because you think it's so much better than a public school, but you're only doing that in hopes that the court with rule out in your favor but private school it's just as easy to steal documents from."

I pick up a third finger. "Avianna."

I see the immediate panic in Sacramentos eyes when I mention his wife's name. Well her new name, the new identity Sacramento chose for her. Her name used to be Amberly Kacey before Sacramento wiped her off from this earth and no one could figure out who she became, not even my father, but no one really ever stays dead.

"How-"

"I am not my father, Domingo." I lower my voice when saying his first name so no one else hears. "You do not intimate me, regardless of your height, of your size, your background, your skills. You work for me and I keep tabs on all of my men, even the secretive ones. That custody battle with the state for your niece will be your downfall if you don't start getting your shit together. They always fuck up if your patient enough and you fucked up enrolling that little girl into that private school."

He looks down at the ground shaking his head, clearly upset with himself.

"That's how easily you can get my wife killed now that she knows who the fuck you are. That's how easily you can put two and two together. Don't fuck with my family and I won't touch yours. The new faces that I chose for this faction, for my inner circle- they're a lot more skilled than you think. Fix your fucking mistake before anyone else gets ahold of those records. Stop trying to being civil and do what you're fucking good at and make that little girl disappear just like you did with your nurse."

"Yes sir."

"What the fuck was so important that you had the need to drag me out of that room?"

Sacramento cleared his throat fixing his posture, "the little brunette is awake, asking for her boyfriend."

I nod. "I'll be there in a bit."

"It's not my place- but you should tell her boss, you should tell your wife that they're not dead."

He's referring to the couple from the news footage. The news footage Hailey just saw.

"You're right, it's not your place."

"I'm just saying boss. She sees you for who you really are, she loves you for who you are. You don't have to be the villain in her story too, you don't need to install fear and doubt in your wife's eyes like the rest of the city. Don't let her believe you are capable of the things you're being accused of. Go to her. Go to your son. Be there for your family. Let me take care of it from here on out."

I inhale a deep breath, glancing back into the room where Enzo is.

Dom peaks his head out, nodding as he steps out into the hall. "Listen to him, go,," he inclined his head to the side. "Break the cycle your father never could. Your anger does not control you. Kick everyone out of the hospital if you have to, if it'll make you feel more comfortable, but go back to your wife. Go back to little Red. Let it all in, let the fear in, let the relief in, let it break you, let her back in, let your wife put you back together because you know that's who you really need right now."

I glance up at him, silently.

Beans pokes his head out a second later as he steps around Dominic. "We'll get your vengeance, Isaac. We'll bring him in, but until then you don't need to be here. You don't have to be here, period. This is why you have a second in command. This is why you have an entire army at your disposal. We do the dirty work, we make your life easier. You're spending all this time away from Hailey for what? Because you're afraid of coming to terms that you nearly lost her again? You're afraid of feeling vulnerable around your wife even though she's seen you at your lowest countless of times? Get over yourself."

I feel my heart instantly begin to slam in my chest.

"You hate being compared to your father yet you're following exactly in his footsteps," Beanie points over at me. "You know the difference between you guys. Your son just got here and instead of being over there with your family, you're over here making everyone else's life miserable. Your fathers biggest regret was throwing away the father you needed and here you are following in those same exact footsteps. The more time you spend away from her, from that baby, the more your anger and hatred is gonna grow, the more the guilt is gonna eat you up alive and then it'll be too late. Then you really will start taking innocent lives, it won't be just for pretend, it won't be for show. You're gonna lose touch with the person your wife fell in love with, you're gonna let your ego take over just like your father did. You're gonna slowly lose your wife if you don't go to her when she needs you the most, kid."

I point a finger at all three men, looking back and forth from them. "Dion put you up to this, didn't he?"

Dominic's lips tug to the side, "even when you act like the biggest asshole on this planet he still looks out for you."

I slowly nod my head and point to the room behind Dom and Beanie, "if you don't have Robsciotti within the next 48 hours kill him."

"Don't worry, I plan to have him within the next 12," Sacramento says behind me. I look over my shoulder to find him handing my phone back.

"Preferably alive. Keep me updated."

"Will do."