After the shooting, he was immediately in contact with his lawyers to take care of things. He was close to having a meltdown. He locked himself in his room and wrecked his brain to figure out what had happened to Ari.
He started snorting heroin to calm his nerves. He had always been an on and off drug user, most of the time he used it to reduce his urges and anxieties. Somehow the heroin was easier to control than his sex drives.
Cossimo had planned the attack months before the wedding. His only purpose was to take over the entire Montenero’s businesses and assets by taking their daughter into the family and kill them on the wedding day. Armand had agreed to it with only one condition, Ariana was not to be harmed.
But like so many times before, his father breaks his promise. His mother was dead, his wife was gone. Armand broke down on the floor in anguish.
After 24 hours, he couldn’t take it anymore. It was time to pay a visit to his father and get some answers. He had ordered his father to be treated in a private hospital, he put his men on surveillance and not allowed anyone to come near the premises without his permission. Not even the police.
He put on a brave face, swallowed the agonizing pain of not knowing what happened to his wife and stepped into his father’s VIP room in the middle of the night. He was still unconscious. Cossimo’s head was wrapped in a bandage, the bullet had penetrated his skull, and damaged his brain.
Armand stood by the door and watched his father laid helplessly relying his life on life support. The heart monitor was beeping, the oxygen was pumping, an IV was stuck in his arm. He had never looked so powerless before in his life. He walked over to his father’s bed side, there was a thousand things he wanted to ask him.
“You miserable son of a bitch … I put a bullet in your head and you can’t even die from that …” he said quietly.
He took a seat next to his dad, and stared at him for a while. It didn’t look like he will be waking up anytime soon. He probably will never know what had happened to Ari, even though his father said he didn’t have anything to do with it, his words mean nothing to him. He swallowed hard, tears started to form in his eyes.
“I trusted you … I did everything you asked me … still you take everything that ever meant anything to me,” he clenched his teeth.
“The doctor said your brain will never function normally again … you may not even remember anything if you ever wake up … but he said you can hear me.”
He leaned closer to his father’s ear, “Bed ridden for the rest of your life, or wake up as a vegetable and make some nurse’s life a living hell to have to take care of your shit everyday … not a favourable choice is it dad?” he chuckled.
He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. For a moment his mind wandered to a different time when life was sweet until that day his father took it all away from him. Even the memory of his childhood was stained by his madness.
He stood up. His hands were in his pockets. He had been contemplating it for the past 24 hours. Or maybe for the past 22 years. Cossimo had awoken something inside him that fine afternoon in their backyard. It was a turning point in his life that happened much too early.
“Should I let you suffer? … Should I put you out of your misery?”. He stared coldly at his father, “Even if there is a hell, I don’t believe they will do justice for what you did to me … but I wonder … if it will give me some kind of satisfaction …”
He put his hand around his father’s neck. What if he turned off the life support and just squeezed the life out of that miserable old bastard? He doesn’t have to deal with his half corpse half zombie state if he ever has to wake up from his coma. Even in between life and death, that motherfucker is making him suffer.
His face hardened, his grip tightened, his heart cold as stone. That asshole should die with all the rest of them for what he’d done. The heart monitor beeped faster. There was no movement from his body except his irregular heartbeat. He was possessed by his hate and anger towards his father and what he had to endure to be his son. As if his immobility was fueling him to strangle him harder and maybe at the end of it, he will feel better.
Then his phone rang and broke the spell. As if he was sucked back to reality, he let go of his grip. He was panting, his face was red, the rage hadn’t left his eyes. He put his hands on his knees and bent over to catch his breath.
He picked up the phone, “What?”
“Armand … I think we know what happened to Ariana,” Pasquale, the most trusted family lawyer was on the other end.
“I have an informant from the underground web … somebody else ordered the kidnap, it’s a rookie client … it was intercepted the minute she was picked up and now she’s fair game in the dark web,” he added.
“Well get her back … find out who the fuck ordered it, I want to know the son of a bitch who took my wife,” Armand said.
“It’s not that simple, I heard they’re bidding her to the millions … the highest contenders are pretty solid with their offers …”
“I don’t care how you do it, just get me back my wife! I want that bid closed and you can fuck the fucking contenders … I’ll chop their heads off myself if I have to … you will get me my wife back, do you understand?” his threat was never empty, Armand Lombardo will not take no for an answer.
Pasquale was quiet for a moment, “Of course Armand … I’ll use the fund in the emergency account, we should have her back in a few days.”
His heavy breathing was subsiding, “Good … I want to see that happen, Pasquale … whatever it takes.”
He hung up the phone and leaned his back on the wall. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “You lucky son of a bitch … I almost killed you for that,” he mumbled to his dad.
He left soon after and received a phone call 6 hours later from the hospital telling him that his father had passed.
He slumped on his bedroom floor, laid on his back and stared at the ceiling the whole night with tears seeped through the corner of his eyes.