Evalyn averted her gaze. It was evident that she felt guilty about was going on, but rebuking her any further wasn't going to do any good. Being away from the family, it was evident that she didn't know much about what had been going on or where they might take Samuel. Lena just needed to take time to think before she did anything. The people she had with her were doing the best they could at the current moment in time and reacting stressed about the matter wasn't going to help them any.

"What did you mean when you said if Russo was going to be pick a side it would be with Jovani?" Evalyn sighed before she spoke.

​​

"Our family was always a bit split. It happened not that long before I was born if I understand correctly. Very much like the Scarlett family, the head had not one but two younger brothers." She explained.

"The head and the youngest brother got along well and shared many of the same views that their father had, the middle brother, Angelo had different ideas as he got older however. He thought that in order to get further in the world, they needed to approach their connections and those around them with a harder hand in order to take over more territory before the rest of the competition did." She took a sip of her coffee before continuing.

"Because he didn't want to change his views and it was causing a bad rippling effect within the family, he was excommunicated, but not the rest of his family because they weren't exactly in agreement with his ideals, or so they thought. His son, Marcus however apparently carried on his ideals."

"Marcus Conti?" Lena clarified. She couldn't help but wonder if that was the same Marcus that had suddenly contacted her about the business partnership. If so, he was definitely someone that she needed to watch out for.

"Yes. He and Jovani used to be much closer when they were younger, but as they got older much like their parents- their ideals and goals didn't match up and they split up." Evalyn confirmed.

"You seem to know a lot about this considering you mentioned that you haven't been in contact with your family for so long." Hester pointed out as he didn't look up from what he was doing on the computer, he was right however. In response to him pointing this out, Evalyn reached into her purse to pull out a letter which she handed to Lena.

"It's because I got this in the mail yesterday. It's the only reason that I thought it was urgent for me to come see you right away. Jovani wrote me to tell me everything was going on. I thought that if I came to you as soon as I got this that I might've been able to prevent something from happening, but it seemed like everything was already shifting prior to this."

"Is there any chance that there' a mole involved in this?" Lena asked as she read through the letter. Hester didn't want to answer that question because he was busy on the computer so he left the question get passed to Clive.

"It's highly unlikely. Considering the Young Sir had hardly been around anyone outside of the main family, I don't think that he would've been in contact with anyone within the family who'd be willing to give him to the Vedova Nera." Clive replied.

"If not that then, I wanted to find out what kind of oversight happened that would allow for this to have happened. If it's not someone in the family, I want to know how they knew where he would be." Lena instructed as she finished reading the letter.

It was a very thorough and well detailed letter that this Jovani had sent to Evalyn. The princess wasn't quite sure why he was willing to give her so much information, but she got a bad feeling that the bet about collecting a object of interest within the letter had something to do with Samuel. If it did, what did they want him for? His mother evidentially wasn't in direct line for taking over the family, so what would they want with Samuel?

She felt like throwing her coffee up against the wall as her anger boiled over. The only that stopped her was that she knew she needed the warm liquid that was still inside it to even out the horrible headache she had. That and the fact that she wouldn't be the one who would have to pick up the mess the cup would make.

She hated not being able to do anything and she hated the lack of information that she had to work with. It wasn't Hester or Clive's fault that they hadn't come up with something helpful yet, they had only been working for a few minutes and even she knew that it took longer than that in order to find something beneficial.

"What's all this commotion about?" Leo asked having just come back from his own business dealing with another a few hours away that had required for him to stay the night. The look on Lena's face when she turned to him told him right away that something serious was wrong. He looked around at the other faces at the table to see if they could tell him anything, but his eyes became fixed on the woman whom he didn't recognize sitting across the table from his sister.

"Samuel was kidnapped by his family." Lena replied, trying to keep her voice calm and level as she spoke. The way her hands gripped the edge of the table however told him that she was anything but calm and collected on the inside. His face was immediately riddled with confusion when heard this.

"Why would his family kidnap him, I thought they were okay with this engagement."

"Not his parents." Lena clarified through gritted teeth as she glared at the woman who was sitting across the table from her.

"I'm talking about the family that his mother here, Evalyn Foster or rather I should say Evalyn Conti didn't tell us about. Samuel's mother and her side of the family are a part of the Vedova Nera."

"The Vedova Nera?" Leo clarified almost not being able to believe what he heard.

"He never mentioned that before." He was rather shocked to hear this news.

"That's because he was never told. Apparently his mother thought that it would be a good idea to keep it a secret from everyone until events she had no control over started happening." Lena replied. Evalyn's face spoke of how ashamed she was of her decision, but she didn't try to say anything as the siblings talked.

Leo knew by the expression on her face that Lena was hardly holding her anger in, and he knew exactly why and understood probably more than anyone else in the room what she was feeling right at the moment in time even though Hester and Clive had both known what had happened in the past.

"How about we got to your office for now and we can talk over everything that has happened see what we can do, hmm?" Leo suggested as he offered his older sister a small smile while he held out his hand for her to take. She looked at it for a few seconds as though contemplated what the best thing to do was before she grabbed his hand and stood up.

She really didn't want to be out of the room at that moment in time in case Clive or Hester had an update for her, but she also knew that she wasn't going to be able to hold her anger in much longer if she didn't go somewhere else. It was harder enough to not lash out as it was. At least if she did it where her brother was the only person around, she could save some of her dignity and reputation by not looking like a child throwing a fit during a time when she needed to composed.

Leave it to Leo to be the person she could rely on to realize how bad exactly she was doing with everything that was going on. She didn't know how to process anything else except through anger.

Anger at herself, anger at others for withholding important information that could've prevented this. She couldn't be angry at Samuel however since he didn't know anything either thus he had no idea that something like this would happen if he left the estate on his own with only Jeff with him.

She just hoped that this Jovani had enough common sense to realize that it would be a really horrible idea to touch Samuel in any way before he and the princess had a chance to talk. If he didn't though, blood would be shed without a second thought. It didn't matter how small the damage was done, it would be paid back ten times worse.