Their Rivalry

18

No one decides who I can be, I write my own legacy.

Unknown Location ~ 3rd Person's POV

He looked at the numbers on his wife's phone screen in shock and disbelief.

"Impossible." He murmured.

He was certain he saw the bastard's lifeless body in the casket. He was there when he got shot, and he was present when he was declared dead and buried six feet under. How could he possibly be alive? He had been MIA for more than ten years.

"What is?" His wife asked, "Don't keep me in the dark, my darling."

4 22 7 20 23. Those numbers brought back memories.

As teenagers, their parents wanted to create a coded language so they could communicate over the phone without revealing too much information. Over the years it had remained an official code for them, but he saw it as childish and didn't bother to commit it to memory, but there was one he could never forget. 4 22 7 20 23. This was really bad for their plans, and they needed to leave immediately.

"4 22 7 20 23 is code for VITRB." He begun, "Those were the initials we used to refer to him when his assignment began."

The woman, still confused, prodded her husband to tell her what was going on. His facial expression told her that whatever it was, it was bad news and she wanted to know more.

"I can't say anymore, I'll explain everything later but right now we need to leave this place."

She didn't question him, and got up to fill their suitcases with all of their belongings. They left the mansion before sunrise, but not without leaving a message with the butler for the Boss. They had overstayed their welcome and had more pressing matters to attend to. As the man booked them a flight to Spain, she got through to her men in the Spanish mafia and asked them to pull out.

She suddenly cursed out in Russian, startling her husband who was done booking their flight.

"It's nice to see that you're picking up my language." He commented, "But what's wrong?"

"Six more of my men in the Spanish mafia have been found out. The ones in charge of smuggling their weapon supply."

"The code you brought to me..." He trailed off in reply.

"We're running out of time." She reminded him.

If one of the captives sold them out, it could ruin her plans especially now that they no longer had the protection of the Russian mafia. She had worked too hard to let ignorance be her downfall. If he knew something capable of stopping her, she needed to know, so she could eliminate the threat.

"My cousin isn't the true boss of the mafia, he's actually the right hand. I watched Vladimir Ivanov get killed, I made no attempt to save him as his death helped with my plans to overthrow both him and Markus. I saw him get buried; I was at his funeral. I just can't understand how he's alive, but if that's the case, we're done for."

The woman thought over what he said. The name Vladimir Ivanov did ring a bell, and it spelled out nothing but trouble. She was glad though that she hadn't shipped off all the stolen weapons to Russia. The recent batches, she had ordered that they were moved to a secluded safe house on the outskirts of Madrid. That was where they were headed when they arrived in Spain.

"I'll get all our men to come here. We'll need them if anything goes down." She announced, offloading their belongings into the safe house.

Although she was weary from the long drive there, she didn't have the time to rest. She had to round up all her men before more of them were found out. She wasn't so sure that the captured ones could keep their mouths shut for long.