Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Ihate this fucking family.
Luka had expected some kind of bullshit to erupt before the night was over, but this? For Dafina to let the wedding planning get this far only to embarrass him? To find out a man he considered a friend had betrayed him? Had stolen the woman who was meant for him?
He ignored the obvious relief that washed over him like a cleansing wave. It didn’t matter that he was glad not to have to marry Dafina. He had been betrayed—and someone had to pay for that.
Worst of all, Artan had collapsed but wasn’t dead. The man was like a cat trapped in the sagging skin of a scrawny old man. How many lives was this now? Six? Seven?
He now sat in a chair, trembling and clutching at an inhaler he had produced from his pocket. Skender tended to him, scowling at everyone and obviously unimpressed with the chaotic turn the evening had taken.
He watched Dusan and Dafina as they faced off with Rina who was mad enough to breathe fire. The two women screamed and shouted at each other, both pointing fingers.
“How could you betray our family like this?” Rina shouted at Dusan. “Your sister is one of my best friends! She’s Marley’s friend! You stole my brother’s wife!”
“I’m not your brother’s wife!” Dafina screamed. “He doesn’t own me!”
“It was arranged! It was an agreement between our families!”
“Fuck that agreement—and fuck your family,” Dafina snarled. “I’d rather slit my throat than marry your brother!”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Rina threatened.
“Enough!” Luka shouted, his booming voice drowning out theirs. “Just shut the hell up both of you!”
Rina glared indignantly. “I’m trying to defend you.”
“I don’t need you to defend me, Rina.” He turned his frustrated gaze on Dusan who had the decency to look chagrined. “Does your brother know?”
Dusan nodded stiffly. “He does, and he’s not happy about it.”
Suddenly, all the phone calls he had silenced from Darko made sense.
“Luka, let’s just get out of here.” Rina tugged on his arm.
“We can’t,” Besian interjected. “Not until this is settled.”
Rina frowned at their uncle. “Settled? It’s done. Dafina is pregnant. There’s nothing else to discuss.”
“You know it’s not that simple.”
His uncle was right. It wasn’t that simple.
They were running out of time to abide by the rules of the contract.
A pit of dread opened wide in his stomach as he trailed his uncle into the service hallway to speak privately.
Luka blew out a frustrated breath. His chest felt too tight, and he couldn’t breathe.
Besian gripped his shoulder when they were finally out of sight of the chaos still erupting back in that room. “I know this is a shit show, but we have to make the best of it.”
“How?”
“The priest is still here. We can sort out the marriage license later after you marry the other one.” Besian hesitated. “Or Rina marries the brother, Aleksander.”
Luka grimaced. “I won’t do that to Rina.”
“You may not have a choice.”
“Look at her!” Luka gestured at the arguing women behind them. “Rina is ready to stab Dafina with a shrimp fork. Skender Dushku won’t stand a chance against her. She’ll murder him on their wedding night.”
“Then that only leaves one option.”
“I can’t.” Elona’s wounded gaze flashed before him. The echo of his nasty words haunted him.
“Because of Kristo? I asked him about her yesterday, and he told me it was just fun, nothing serious.”
Luka’s fury flared at the idea that Kristo had been playing games with Elona’s feelings when they were together in Shanghai.
“Listen, I know she’s not the sort of woman you might choose for yourself,” Besian gently said, “but she’s a good person. She’s educated. She’s modest. She’s—.”
“I can’t marry her,” Luka insisted. “It’s impossible.”
“Why? She’s not dating anyone. I had Zec check into her relationship situation after she showed up at the dinner party in Houston with that black eye.”
Luka reacted with shock. “Black eye?” He thought back to Elona’s face that evening. “She didn’t have a black eye.”
“You haven’t spent enough time around women to know the tell-tale signs of makeup covering one. I’ve seen it too many times.”
“Did her boyfriend hit her?” Luka asked, enraged at the idea that a man would strike her.
“No. It was one of the kids on her softball team. She took a bat to the face.”
“Oh.” He supposed that was a better alternative than her being battered.
“So, why is it impossible for you to marry her instead? She’s single. She’s into men. She’s not pregnant.”
Luka grimaced at the realization that the requirements for marrying him were so drastically low. Single. Heterosexual. Not currently carrying a baby. Bar cleared.
Besian mistook his grimace and frowned. “I didn’t realize you were so shallow.”
“It’s not about her weight!” He scowled at his uncle. “I mean, it is, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
“I called her a pig.”
Besian visibly stiffened. “You did what?”
Ashamed, Luka confessed, “Back in Houston, before the dinner, we met in the kitchen. She said some things. I said some worse things—and called her a pig.”
Besian slapped him. Hard. So hard he was shocked his head hadn’t flown right off his shoulders.
It had been a long time since anyone had dared to strike him. The pain blasted through his cheek and jaw and rattled his brain.
Luka sucked in a sharp breath and straightened to face his uncle. He gritted his teeth and muscled down the instinct to strike back at Besian.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in you than I am right now.” Besian shook his head with disgust. “To come into their home and disrespect their daughter in that way? You were raised better than that. Have some fucking respect, Luka.”
He swallowed hard under his uncle’s glare. He wanted to argue that he wasn’t a child to be lectured and scolded, but he hadn’t behaved like a man. He had behaved like a little boy on the playground, throwing insults like a bully.
“You know what needs to be done, Luka.” Besian fixed his tie and cuffs. “If you want to save the lives of every person in our family, you have to make a choice—you or Rina. You’re the head of our family. Fucking act like it.”
Besian left him there, simmering in his own anger and embarrassment. Everything Besian said was true. There were only two choices remaining. He could sacrifice Rina’s happiness or his own.
I can’t do that to my sister.
I won’t do that my sister.
Which meant he had to somehow convince Elona to not only marry him but agree to eventually have a child with him so he could get his hands on that second disbursement of money.
Sure. Simple. Easy.
“Let go of me!” Elona’s angry voice startled him from his troubled thoughts. “Give me back my phone!”
“No,” Ana shouted.
“Give me back my phone right now or I swear to God—.”
“What?” Ana shouted. “You’ll do what?”
Luka followed the voices down the hallway and through a propped open door to the lobby. Elona screamed in shock as her crazy mother grabbed a stone sculpture from a niche and began to beat the phone to pieces with it. The wedding planner and two members of the waitstaff stood by, frozen in terror.
“What is wrong with you?” Elona shouted at her mother. “You know what? Forget it! I’m out of here! I’ll walk!”
When Elona took a step, her mother launched the heavy stone sculpture, narrowly missing her daughter’s head.
The sculpture hit the floor with a clank, breaking off a piece that sent stone shards in all directions.
Ana rushed to the front entrance and threw herself against it, barricading it with her body.
“You’re not going anywhere until this is fixed!” Ana shrieked. “We’re not losing everything because you refuse to flop onto your back and open your legs for him!”
Elona looked from her mother to the crowd of late-arrival guests and staff now congregating in the hallway. Her gaze finally landed on his, and she paled. The look of utter despair on her face absolutely gutted him. Was he truly such a monster?
He took a step toward her, intending to ask her to speak privately with him, but she panicked and bolted like a scared deer. He chased after her, surprised by how fast and spry she was. She moved easily, even in those heels, and he accepted that he had badly misjudged her.
Even so, he caught up with her in the busy kitchen.
His longer legs and bigger strides allowed him to gain on her.
She glanced back at him in alarm and shoved a stack of clean plates at him.
He nearly tripped but managed to leap over it.
Her eyes widened in further panic, and she picked up a bottle of wine being used by a chef to flavor a sauce.
She launched it at him in a desperate bid to escape.
“Stop it!” He snarled and blocked the bottle with his arm. The impact of the thick glass would leave a bruise, but he ignored the pain and kept moving. “Elona! Stop!”
With a wild, animalistic cry, she kicked over the rolling cart supporting the main section of the wedding cake.
All four tiers of cake and confection tumbled to the floor right in front of him.
He tried to sidestep the mess, but he slipped in a giant glob of frosting and narrowly missed slamming his face into a stainless-steel countertop.
Aided by the mayhem she’d created, Elona made it through a set of double doors and onto a small stone patio where staff members were taking their breaks. The cloying scent of flavored vape pods filled the air. The stones had been freshly cleaned, and they were wet and slippery.
Elona pushed over a patio table and cried, “Leave me alone!”
He hurdled the table as it clanged atop the stone. “Be careful! You’re going to fall and break your neck!”
“Good! I hope I do!”