Feliciano caught the railing as he stumbled down the last steps, giggling at himself since nobody else was there to laugh at his little slip.
Perhaps he should cut off the wine for the night when he returned upstairs.
The bank heist had been a resounding success, and their group had returned to the apartments to celebrate afterwards. While Katerina sticked to the soft drinks, everyone else cracked out the wine, beer and vodka for the party. After a while, each of the couples had gone to their rooms for the night, leaving the three singletons together in the upstairs apartment. Natalya eventually convinced the boys to play some truth or dare, and now Feliciano was working on the dare Feliks proposed.
Sneak into one of the other apartments, and try to take a video recording on his smartphone of one of the couples getting their freak on.
Feliciano hushed his giggling as he stumbled past the closed front door to Elizaveta's apartment. He knew that Lovino was definitely in there with her, but sneaking in to get video of that couple was a death wish waiting to come true. Yao and Katerina had also been an option when the trio had been discussing the dare upstairs, but Natalya quickly shut it down on account of it being her sister and brother-in-law. Feliciano was grateful for that, since Katerina is too sweet a girl to use the dare on.
With two couples gone, that only left one other option.
Feliciano halted at his own apartment's front door, composing his drunken self and focusing on the task before reaching for the doorknob. He opened the door to find the suite dark with the lights turned off, but the light streaming through the balcony door from the street allowed for some night vision. Feliciano gently shut the front door behind him, before quietly inching his way towards what had originally been Lovino's bedroom. Since the twin had all but moved in with Elizaveta, the bedroom had become a spare for Madeline to use when she spent the night.
As he reached the door, Feliciano crouched down to sit on the floor, listening quietly to see if Madeline and Ludwig were making noises on the other side. There was nothing to be heard, but they could also be very quiet lovers for all Feliciano knew. The Italian pulled out his phone, unlocked it, put it on complete silence, opened the camera app, and made sure the flash was completely off before going to video mode. Once the phone was set to go, Feliciano reached for the doorknob, slowly turning it before opening the door as cautiously as possible. Once the door had been pushed open by a foot with no apparent reaction from the other side, Feliciano peered into the dark room, also solely illuminated by the light from the street through the window.
Madeline and Ludwig were cuddled together on the bed, but they weren't moving at all. If anything, there might have been the slightest bit of snoring to confirm that they were sound asleep. Their clothes were all over the floor, indicating that they might have been intimate earlier and Feliciano missed out on getting video of them.
Frowning in disappointment over the failure to complete the dare, Feliciano reached back up to pull the door shut, only to stop as he spotted something unusual on the floor. Watching the bed cautiously, he quickly pushed the door back open, before stealthily crawling the couple feet into the room. Once he was close enough, the Italian quickly grabbed the item that had been sitting a bit further from the bed than all the clothes, and concealed it safely in his fist before hastily retreating. He then shut the bedroom door quietly before leaning against the wall again.
As he caught his breath, Feliciano opened up his hand to reveal a small vial with a label on it. Recognizing the size and shape of the vial, he quickly grabbed his phone and turned off the camera app. Allowing his home screen's spaghetti wallpaper to provide the light needed, Feliciano pointed it towards the label and began to read, feeling himself sober up on the spot when the text identified what had been the contents.
A sleeping serum.
The same sleeping serum that Antonio used on the twins last year.
Feliciano felt his heart drop into his gut as he turned back to look at the bedroom door in alarm. There's no way a police officer would touch this stuff willingly unless they were playing dirty, and Ludwig had proven that, aside from his relationship with Madeline and working for the group, he was completely clean. Madeline must have brought the serum into the apartment, but she already knows better than to use this on herself to fall asleep. With that all considered, there was only the one explanation, but Feliciano couldn't understand why she would resort to that.
Why would Madeline drug her own boyfriend?
Sounds from above snapped Feliciano out of his thoughts, and he looked up to the roof. Realizing that someone was moving around above him in the other two-bedroom apartment, Feliciano remembered he was in the middle of pulling off a dare. He slipped the vial into his pocket and his phone into the other pocket, before climbing to his feet and heading to the apartment's front door.
He marched out of the suite and through the hallway towards the stairs, hardly noting his lack of drunk stumbling as he couldn't distract himself from the realization that something was going wrong. By the time Feliciano realized where his feet were taking him, he had already made it back into the suite upstairs, where Feliks was sprawled across the couch.
"Well, how did it go?" Feliks asked as he leaned up, "Did you catch them getting it on?"
"No, I didn't," Feliciano dismissed, sitting down in the armchair with a sigh.
"What happened to you?" Feliks probed, turing to observe him closely, "You look as though you just found someone's piss in your wine."
Without uttering a word, Feliciano leaned forward, pulled the vial out of his pocket, and placed it on the coffee table. As he leaned back again, he watched as Feliks picked it up and inspected it.
"You found one of the vials of serum?" Feliks gasped, sitting up properly in alarm, "What is it doing in the open?"
"The two vials from Antonio's betrayal are locked up in the safe in Elizaveta's apartment," Feliciano reminded, "This is a third vial."
"Where did you find this?" Feliks grilled.
"On the floor in the spare bedroom, when I tried to take that video for the dare," Feliciano explained, "The only thing that would make sense is if Madeline made Ludwig drink it."
"You think she drugged her own boyfriend?" Feliks asked as Natalya re-entered the living room, having changed into pyjamas.
"Who drugged their boyfriend?" she inquired as she joined the Pole on the couch, "I didn't hear your gossip from the other room."
"Madeline might have drugged Ludwig," Feliks repeated, passing the vial to Natalya, "Feliciano found this on the floor in their room."
"It looks identical to the ones from last year," Feliciano added as Natalya inspected the vial, "I wouldn't be surprised if she got it from the same place, or if Antonio supplied it to her."
"God damn it, I should have known," Natalya muttered, placing the vial back on the table, "She's working for Mathilda as well."
"Who's Mathilda?" Feliks quickly asked, prompting a deer-in-the-headlights expression to form on Natalya's face.
"Fuck, I said that name aloud," Natalya muttered to herself, before glancing rapidly between the two boys, "Please forget about hearing that, I've said too much already."
"Who is this Mathilda?" Feliciano pried, "Why can't you tell us about her?"
"It's way too dangerous for me to talk," Natalya refused in a panic, "She seems to find out whenever I try, and damns the listeners to hell."
"She damns them to hell?" Feliciano asked, "What makes you say this?"
"The last two people I spoke to about her were caught by the police 24 hours later," Natalya disclosed, "One of them went to prison, the other went to his grave."
"Who were they?" Feliks asked.
"The one they arrested was Mikkel Kohler," Natalya hesitantly revealed, "The other one was Romulus Vargas."
At the mention of his grandfather's name, Feliciano leaned all the way forward in his chair.
"You spoke to Nonno the night before his death?" Feliciano checked, "You told him about this Mathilda?"
"Yes, I spoke to your grandfather," she confirmed, "It might be because I spoke that the busts happened at all, and I don't want that happening again."
"Natalya, if you think that might happen again, we need you to tell us what you know," Feliciano insisted, "If you think there's a chance that Madeline is involved, it could mean that something is already in the works. If we're all in grave danger, we need to know what is going on."
Natalya took several deep breaths to calm herself down, before reluctantly nodding.
"This Mathilda I speak of is the JCI heiress, Mathilda Jones-Kirkland," Natalya conceded, "I haven't found her yet myself, but all the signs point to her being a lot closer to us than we want her to be."
"What makes you say she's close by?" Feliks drilled.
"Her two loyal henchmen slipped into your mobs as double agents," Natalya declared, "Her loverboy researcher worked for Mikkel, while her personal bodyguard worked for Romulus. As soon as I told the bosses who these boys really were, they escaped and somehow planted the seeds for the police to find your bases."
"Ivan and Antonio?" Feliciano realized, "How do you know all this about them?"
"Ivan's real last name is Braginski, like mine and Katya's," Natalya confessed, "Not only is he our brother, but he's the one Mathilda Jones was cheating on her husband with."
"You are Ivan's sister?" Feliks verified, "You're the one Mikkel was talking about?"
"Mikkel spoke of me?" Natalya asked, "What did he say?"
"On the day of the busts, Mikkel sent Toris to spy on Ivan when he left the base," Feliks elaborated, "Upon our discovery of Toris being arrest, Mikkel accused Ivan of turning him in. The moment Mikkel mentioned speaking to his sister, Ivan claimed to understand Mikkel's allegations and quit our group on the spot."
"Ivan must have already known what was going on," Natalya pondered, "If he hadn't, he would've tried to explain himself to Mikkel and recruit the gang as willing accomplices instead."
"Come to think of it, he might have done that to Toris," Feliks noted, "When I saw Toris in the mall a couple months ago, he confirmed that Ivan had broken him out of jail, and that their new line of work was much more dangerous than what they did for Mikkel."
"That would confirm how Toris fits into this puzzle," Feliciano connected, "When Natalya talked, Ivan and Antonio responded by giving the mobs to the police, and recruiting Toris as Mathilda's newest henchman. Still, is there any clues to how they found out you talked?"
"Aside from what Feliks just said, I have no idea how they might have had any forewarning," Natalya denied, "The only ones at our meeting the previous night were myself, Mikkel, Romulus and Yong Soo. Unless Mikkel told Toris what was going on, there's nothing that could have given me away."
"Why did you tell them about Ivan and Antonio?" Feliks asked.
"Ever since Mathilda, Ivan and Antonio first ran away, Katerina and I have been the police's favourite leads on them," Natalya confessed, "Whenever we brushed the law, they would detain us so that we could be questioned about Ivan's whereabouts. Antonio has blamed Arthur Kirkland for keeping our records so heavily flagged, and I'm inclined to believe the claim. At that mass intervention Madeline hosted between our three groups last year, I saw Antonio and Ivan again for the first time in a long while. Antonio knew that I couldn't turn in either of them without knowing where to find them, and he taunted me with the lack of information I would have for the police. When I told Yong Soo what was going on, he arranged for me to tell Mikkel and Romulus as well, and ask for them to help. Ivan and Antonio would be put in the hands of the police, Mikkel and Romulus could have charges dropped with their cooperation, and my record and Katerina's would finally be cleared."
"As perfect as your plan was, it still failed somewhere, and they took advantage of it," Feliciano analyzed, "We already know what happened instead, but I still don't understand why you didn't tell us about this earlier."
"Antonio was right, I had no way to trap them if I ever found them," Natalya justified, "Only Antonio and Ivan have dared to show their faces, while the Jones family has refused to release any pictures of Mathilda from any point in her life. Even if I revealed their identities at our meeting after the delivery truck heist, they'd still escape before I could call the cops on them. They are very dangerous, and will go to extreme lengths to avoid getting caught. With what happened to Mikkel and Romulus after I spilled the beans, I've been too scared to utter a word about it to anyone. Now that you boys know, I am even more worried that they'll try to turn the tables."
"To be fair, I'd rather know that they're trying to trick us than be caught off guard when they do," Feliciano assured, "We'll find a way through this, Natalya, we won't let them do that to us again."
"We know that Ivan, Antonio and Toris are definitely working for Mathilda, but what about Madeline?" Feliks reminded, "If she's been in contact with them all this time, then she must have got this vial of serum from Antonio. She also disappeared off the face of the earth for six months when the bases were busted last year, and still hasn't said where exactly she was hiding."
"She was also the first to vote in favour of tonight's heist, and proposed the cash split they agreed on," Natalya added on, "I knew something smelled foul about accepting their job."
"We did just willingly helped them to break into the biggest bank in the city," Feliks remembered, "A trap might have already been placed and set in motion."
"I will speak to Lovino in the morning," Feliciano promised, "Depending on what he says, we may want to go into hiding."
"I should really get to bed then," Natalya suggested as she stood up, "I'll have to make sure the safehouse is ready for occupancy. Good night, boys."
"Good night, Nat," both boys replied.
Natalya strolled out of the living room and headed towards her bedroom. Once the door was shut, Feliks leaned in towards Feliciano.
"Do you really think it's true, Feli?" the Pole quietly asked, "Can we no longer trust Madeline?"
"She's going to need an amazing defense to prove Natalya's story wrong," Feliciano considered, "I highly doubt she can pull that off."